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Episode 20: Igniting the Fire: Remember Who You Are
66 Plays26 days ago
There comes a moment when you realize you’re not tired because life is demanding…
You’re tired because you’re disconnected.
Disconnected from what excites you. Disconnected from what moves you. Disconnected from the version of you that knows exactly what it wants.
In Episode 20 of Don’t Trip on Your Cape, Alex and Leslie kick off April’s theme, Igniting the Fire, with a powerful reminder:
Your fire was never gone.
Through personal stories and honest reflection, they explore:
- How conditioning pulls you away from your truth
- Why numbing is easier than healing… and what it costs
- The difference between confusion and disconnection
- Why clarity doesn’t come before action… it comes from it
- How small, consistent choices rebuild your fire
This isn’t about waiting until you feel ready.
It’s about choosing to move… even when you don’t have all the answers.
Because your fire isn’t gone.
It’s still there… waiting for you to remember who you are.
Links
Visit our website https://donttriponyourcape.com
Can We Grok? https://donttriponyourcape.com/can-we-grok
Aligned Living & Leadership (Leslie Arboleda) https://alignedlivingandleadership.com
Mush Love https://mushlovellc.com
A Human Being With Love (Alex Embry) https://ahumanbeingwithlove.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Don't Trip On Your Cape'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Don't Trip On Your Cape, the podcast where Leslie, the founder Align Living and Leadership, and her amazing co-host Alex from Much Love dive into the very things that weigh us down, only to reveal those burdens are actually our greatest strengths.
00:00:12
Speaker
Together, they help listeners recognize that what feels heavy is often just your own unique superpower in disguise. So grab your cape, and let's explore how to wear without stumbling.
Theme: Igniting Personal Fire
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of Don't Trip On Your Cape. I'm Alex. And I'm Leslie. And this month is all about igniting our fire. There comes a moment when you realize you're not tired because life is demanding, you're tired because you're disconnected.
00:00:39
Speaker
Disconnected from what excites you, disconnected from what moves you, or disconnected from the version of you that knows exactly what it wants. And most people try to fix that by waiting, waiting for clarity or waiting for the right time or waiting to feel ready.
00:00:55
Speaker
But fire doesn't come from waiting, it comes from movement.
Overcoming External Conditioning
00:00:58
Speaker
And April's all about igniting the fire, not forcing it, not chasing it, but remembering it and choosing to act on it because your spark isn't gone. It's just been sitting underneath everything you've been managing. So today we're not here to help you think about your life.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're here to help you move. And we're super excited to get started. I am so excited about this thing. So when we think about needing our fire, needing to find our fire.
00:01:30
Speaker
It's really about remembering. And as Alex says often, it's remembering who you were before the world told you to to be who
Personal Reflections on Identity
00:01:36
Speaker
to be. So for you, what were some of those early moments when you felt alive, curious, and driven?
00:01:45
Speaker
That's a good question as far as my early life. It was very confusing. But there are certain things that were very consistent. Like I always loved cameras.
00:01:57
Speaker
I loved being in the water and things like that. But the core thing of who I am was always liked listening to people. It made me feel good. I called myself, I think I've said this on the show before, the guilty pleasure when I was young. Because when we were alone, people one-on-one would open up to me. and show me who they really were. And that was when I felt the most alive.
00:02:21
Speaker
And to be honest with you, a lot of times it were just the moments we were breaking the rules. we were not doing the right thing. Hey, that's pretty far from the course for me. But also it made me feel alive because we were alive in those moments. We were sharing the parts of ourselves that were our fiery, not fitting with the rules part of my ourselves. And I think that still today is a big part of who I am, but I will never forget forget that feeling of being connected in the midst of a really controlling environment and feeling free.
Reconditioning and Rediscovering Purpose
00:02:56
Speaker
I was, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about, you know, my, my upfront stories that I've always been curious. I've always been driven. i've ah I've always felt alive. And then when I got a little more honest about that reflection, that was true for the early version of me for sure. And then somewhere in the middle, i felt like the conditioning really got heavy and I started to turn down the volume of who I am, that curiosity, that drive.
00:03:25
Speaker
And in in reaction or in connection with the people that I was in relationship with. And it got me thinking about really the impact of our conditioning and how pervasive those pulls out of alignment become, but they're subtle, they're happening in the background and we're not necessarily even <unk> We're certainly not consciously present to them, but we're feeling that misalignment on the inside and feeling that dampering down of that fire. you know i'm i am a fiery person. I've got a lot of fire activation in my chart. i've got ah you know I'm hardwired with a lot of those fiery activations.
00:04:08
Speaker
But I'm also a human being that is not immune to conditioning and figuring out how to dance that dance of, well, the conditioning doesn't go away, but I can use it as feedback. I can use it as a cue and a clue to realign and what what parts of my expression would benefit from realigning.
Truth vs. Misalignment
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, because I think too, like I was thinking about this theme and a lot of people that I met in my life and one of the kind of stories that came up for me was a person that I knew who always said she didn't really know what her purpose was. She didn't have any idea of what her purpose was.
00:04:46
Speaker
And that is really a lot of around where your fire is, is where your purpose is, where you feel lit up inside. And I remember having a lot of conversations with her because she was raised in the same cult I was after she had gotten out and stuff.
00:05:02
Speaker
And having this conversation about exactly what you're talking about, how much of our conditioning made our fire non-existent in a lot of ways because we weren't allowed to follow it. We weren't allowed to you know, put fan the flame, so to speak, we're always having to put it out. And so a lot of the times people these days, when you feel that absence within yourself of your fire or the dimming of your fire or a lot of times just like you don't even know what it looks like it is because of that conditioning that you're talking about where it's there you know what it is but we've been conditioned out of it and so i'm really excited to talk about how it does condition us out of it we can condition ourselves back through it too and it and it brings up that experience of feeling confused
00:05:52
Speaker
about lost passion, right? Lost purpose versus understanding it as a suppressed truth, right? that That purpose that is unique to each of us, it can't be lost, but our connection to it can feel really gone really far away.
00:06:13
Speaker
and And we often use that you know that idea of feeling confused. um I know when i when I work with a lot of my clients, it's, well, I'm confused about. Well, you know I kind of call bullshit with love and respect, of course, but we're not confused.
00:06:31
Speaker
We're just deeply conditioned to disconnect from that passion, from that truth, from that purpose. And when you think about what does it mean to be fully alive?
00:06:44
Speaker
What are
Speaking Truth to Ignite Fire
00:06:45
Speaker
you doing? You know, how, what are those things that bring you closer to that alignment? Are there any things, anything's coming up for you? i i like that you said you call bullshit because you do that on me sometimes when we're talking, because I'll, I'll be having a rough time potentially. And I'm like, I don't know. And you'll say I call bullshit because you do know, because underneath it, a lot of times I I do know. I do know all the time. But it's not, it's a permission to give myself to be able to express those things in your alignment. And the fire that you start to have needs to be for yourself first. And so a lot of the times,
00:07:27
Speaker
it feels fiery to speak your truth. And that's often why when when you say that, I don't want to say it out loud because I feel like it might hurt someone else or I'm wrong for having my feelings or whatever happens to me. And I know it's not, but you have to feel the emotion and get underneath that truth of what it is that your soul is wanting you to say and bring out.
00:07:50
Speaker
Because We bury those things so for so long and they just want to be heard. You just want to hear yourself. And in that purpose that you have, that you want to get back to, it's there underneath, just waiting to be called. And the reason I love this subject so much is because for so long, I didn't really have my fire and it was there.
00:08:12
Speaker
And so to this day, like even now when I do have my fire, it still is conditioned to not look at it right away or to think, oh no. And so whenever we can call bullshit on ourselves, I think would be a really good practice for all of us to get into or having a good friend that can do it for you. Because when you're in those moments and you don't want to speak your truth out loud, having a safe place to do it and bringing it out, I think is ah the biggest first step.
00:08:39
Speaker
Absolutely. I call it an energetic edit. in Where we are, again, we're hardwired, we're uniquely hardwired to be this beautiful once in a lifetime cosmic event, but we are also human beings and we can very consciously or or subconsciously edit that energetic expression of who we are. And
Impact of Inherited Beliefs and Grief
00:09:00
Speaker
to your point, our fire is never gone, right? it It doesn't go away, but it's waiting underneath those things that we've been managing.
00:09:10
Speaker
So when you think about when the fire got dimmed for you, right, and you already acknowledged it didn't disappear, what's it getting burned under?
00:09:26
Speaker
The varying for me always, obviously, would say this, my life's a bit dramatic in the the way that lessons are learned. And maybe that's a good thing because it can be a magnifying, you know, of of everything and you can look at it it in your own life.
00:09:40
Speaker
But obviously Tiffany was the burying for me. I was living underneath that. But it wasn't just that because even after I left, you know, I became Alex probably like five years after I left somewhere around there.
00:09:55
Speaker
And um I still didn't know a lot of myself because it had been buried so much. And a lot of the burying for me, and this is insidiously subtle is it was not giving myself permission to look at other things, whatever that happened to be. It was an acceptance of what I already was told, believed.
00:10:22
Speaker
And so the burying for me was just a knowing of what I thought I knew and an acceptance of what I was given and then not questioning it and not giving myself permission once I did have the ability and was starting to uncover parts of myself to really just excavate completely.
00:10:40
Speaker
Because like I said, it's an insidiousness where you don't even realize how much of your beliefs have been built, not on yourself. You've been hidden so far under whatever it is that you've been given and you just are there now.
00:10:55
Speaker
And it's so hard to even remember or think, well, I don't have to believe this thing because you believe it. You've been living your life based on these things for how long? And then suddenly you're like, well, I'm buried under these beliefs. And so for me, a lot of the the burying that we get buried under are all of these things that we don't question.
00:11:16
Speaker
And that was the truth for me. I think for me, i was I was thinking about this kind of disruption phase of the fire getting dimmed for me. And I've done a lot of personal inquiry in my 40s. My 40s have definitely been a a part of the rebuild, but my 20s and 30s were absolutely where I started throwing ashes and dirt and sand on the fire. and when I was thinking about well that, i I knew that I could kind of feel the flow of the rhythm. But I was like, well, well why? Like, what was happening? and
00:11:51
Speaker
I had this epiphany, which to me, i was I was confused that I hadn't really had this clarity before I started thinking about it this way. But my father died when I was 21.
00:12:02
Speaker
And that's a very weird time to lose a parent when it comes to resources and support because you're not a kid, you're not little, and there's certainly some great communities for grieving children.
00:12:14
Speaker
And you're not really an adult. And there's communities for grieving adults. But it's this weird in-between phase, right? This liminal part of our developmental stage.
00:12:26
Speaker
And I spent the duration of my 20s and my early 30s especially just not wanting to look at it, choosing to avert my focus there. And so i was inadvertently stamping that fire, dimming that fire, because I was not willing to look at the pain of the grief and the loss and all of those feelings that came with the death of my father, especially given the circumstances.
00:12:59
Speaker
And there are such significant costs. that come with ignoring those signals. My grief was giving me all kinds of feedback and I was just like, yeah, no thanks. Do this other thing that that feels good on the surface.
00:13:14
Speaker
and And I think also what came through for me is there were these moments of the fire sparking through. And so I could use those experiences as evidence to validate that I was good.
00:13:26
Speaker
um you know That's not a problem for me. But when I was having some very honest reflection on it, every time it would it would burst through, i'd throw more sand on the fire and and and I would just let it resonate at that low frequency expression of my grief. and my hidden grief even, and choose to almost stoke the fire of the I'm good part of me without really giving credit to how much of me didn't feel good and was out of alignment and wasn't showing up as my authentic purpose-driven self.
Consequences of Ignoring Pain
00:14:10
Speaker
It's so true that A lot of the times where our fire goes out is these pain points that we have, these points that are meant to make us grow, but we don't want to have to face them.
00:14:25
Speaker
It's funny because you lost your dad when you were 21 and I left the cult when I was 21. It's the same age, which was essentially just when I lost my parents as well. And it is such a formative time in your life.
00:14:39
Speaker
But as you said, you're not a kid, but you're not an adult. And a lot of, I think the internal experience you are an adult and you should do some things by then and you should have your shit together. I'm a grown up now. I can drink. I can reach all the ages that are the timelines of what you're allowed to do things. And so I think there's this, at least for me, there was this kind of pressure of like, well, I should know what to do and I should be happy. And I should, especially, you know, that yours was ah hard, you lost your parents and I lost my parents, but I kind of felt like, well,
00:15:11
Speaker
I did lose my parents, but and now at least I get to live a little bit before I die is what I essentially thought. So I also thought like I should be having fun, I should be doing these things. And so I didn't want to look at the pain points at that point in your life because you really are oriented, whether you believe it or not, to try and go out and have this growth and this pain to be able to become the next best version of yourself. That point in your life so much is about those pain points and we don't orient towards making them have us grow, we really cover them up and don't look at them so much. And that's what I did at that point as well, was I started partying and doing things like that because i didn't want to look at my pain.
00:15:52
Speaker
And I think that's a really interesting point that it happened at the same point in both of our lives, because that's probably true for a lot of people at that age. Yeah. and And to your point, I was allowed to do all the things that made it easy for me to numb out.
00:16:08
Speaker
made me easy made it easy for me to just not listen. I know, especially in my early 20s, I was a drinking fiend. And i i can remember i had this local bar that I frequented often. And i would have so many people come up to me and say, do you know who you look like?
00:16:29
Speaker
And I got to the point where I knew exactly what the answer was going to be. And I was so puffy and I was retaining so much fluid from all the alcohol and all of the poor choices. People were like, you look just like Rosie O'Donnell and no shade to Rosie because I love her. And I was also like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, that's not who I was on. That's not how I saw myself on the inside.
00:16:49
Speaker
But even that feedback, I would just reject. And it became so such a cut's such a common experience for me. Eventually I was like, well, i have to kind of, I probably should look at that. I probably should really reflect on,
00:17:04
Speaker
this is clearly the version of me I'm putting out in the world. And it still took me you know another decade or more to to fully integrate that feedback. But these things that we do to avoid stepping forward and to avoid stoking our fire with true authentic expression are so easy. It's such an easier choice to make sometimes, even though it doesn't feel good and it does feel misaligned over and over and over again. Right. It's, it's that again, back to that confusion of, well, I'm not ready versus the honest truth, which is I'm not willing. Well, too, like you said, how much more available is numbing to us than healing is actually what my psychon talk is about in a few weeks, because, you know, scrolling on your phone or,
00:18:00
Speaker
a million things, drinking, just um a lot of our lives are about being fast and not tuning into who we are. And it's one of the reasons psychedelics have kind of been vilified for a lot of our history is because they return you to who you are. They make you slow down. They make you remember things.
00:18:18
Speaker
They make you a lot less compliant in a lot of ways with the system of everything as far as culture and all of that as well, because you start to remember who you are and you do start to question those things a lot easier.
00:18:31
Speaker
But those things are not given to us. It's, you know, the alcohol and like I said, this fast paced world and scrolling and all of those are for numbing. And in a lot of ways, numbing feels so much better than the pain.
00:18:45
Speaker
It's such an easier bam, I'm dying. You're just numbed out for it right that second. Whereas healing requires introspection and work and actual tuning in to these things. And that is a lot harder to do, especially at that age, because it doesn't seem as fun.
00:19:07
Speaker
But in the long term, it's the most fun thing you can do. It is an honest presence requires us to acknowledge the not willing part. right I am not willing to feel the pain in order to heal and move forward.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I think that staying where we are has an inevitable cost. And many of us simply aren't ready or willing to acknowledge that we're already paying it.
00:19:37
Speaker
It's already happening. It is inevitable.
Choosing Growth Over Victimhood
00:19:40
Speaker
And if we're not liking that investment, what can we do to put our resources in a place that is expansive? you know not a whole Not unlike money. If you're spending money instead of investing money and accruing interest and gaining money, it's it's a very similar experience with our purpose, I think.
00:20:03
Speaker
I'm smiling because I remember just now a time when I had left the cult and there was this person that said to me, you're going to have to look at your pain at some point. And I was pretty close to her. So it was a safer place for me to do that. And I was just like, what, what? I'm going to to look at my pain. and I I was hadn't left them out of the cult for very long. So the idea of looking at that monumentous pain was a no for me, but when it was a no that's when it pushed me into the depression and becoming shut in for five years.
00:20:36
Speaker
So I paid regardless. But if I had looked at the pain when she had said and earlier, and might have gotten out of it of it sooner. But I mean, I did eventually and I did use it to serve me in a different way.
00:20:48
Speaker
But it is so confronting. When you have been through a lot of pain, when someone says, you're gonna have to look at your pain because you're like, well, and I felt it already. i already did the thing. I've been through it, but processing it and getting the lessons and seeing how you can use that to serve you is where you take your power back.
00:21:07
Speaker
And like you said, it is very hard to admit. i don't want to do the work. and I don't want to look at my pain. But it is the thing that so often we don't want to do. I didn't for a long time. And I'm so grateful now that I did. It was the best thing I've ever did for myself.
00:21:24
Speaker
Something that's coming up for me and I i may have shared the story at at one point or another already, but in my late 20s, started dating this guy who I refer to as a placeholder.
00:21:37
Speaker
And at the very beginning of this relationship, we I had taken him back to to Virginia and we were standing in my childhood bedroom. And I looked at him and said, i think you are a bigger project.
00:21:51
Speaker
than I am willing to take on. So like very self-aware in my late 20s, right? And he looked at me with these big, gorgeous eyes with these luscious losh lashes and said, well, will you do it anyway?
00:22:04
Speaker
And I said, sure. So sometimes those numbing behaviors can look like, you know, drugs, alcohol, those kinds of things. Sometimes it at least for me, i am a natural, my energy is that of problem solving.
00:22:16
Speaker
I am a problem solver. And in that era of my life, I magnetized a bunch of people with problems to solve. So I didn't have to look at my own stuff.
00:22:28
Speaker
And I, that is such a powerful point of reference for me because I, you can be a problem solver who magnetizes people with problems to solve, or you can be a problem solver who magnetizes other problem solvers.
00:22:41
Speaker
and it's the same energy but it's one of those is an unbalanced expression and one of those is a high frequency optimal expression but i think so often we don't even realize that we're going low with our expression that we're aligning with something that's a lower frequency just to feel the resonance in some form or fashion rather than i was just messcy Rather than really choosing that optimal expression of what we're here to do to ah to contribute to the like to the to the collective, to make the world a better place.
00:23:18
Speaker
Right. How many people, do are that person that does solve problems for other people? Because that gives them a sense of worth and worthiness and, you know, that love and that problem-solving ability that we all need to have.
00:23:34
Speaker
but it makes your identity about another person. i know so many healers, even within the healing community who haven't done the work themselves, but a lot of their identity is, well, I'm a healer. I get to heal other people.
00:23:46
Speaker
And it's to be a healer. My personal definition is heal yourself, heal yourself. And then the people that see you and are witnesses to that will then be able to do it themselves as well, because the best example we can give is by doing the work.
00:24:03
Speaker
But I've found so many people, to your point, magnetize people that need their problem solved because that is where they get their worth from.
00:24:14
Speaker
And that's how also how they're numbing their own pain instead of looking at themselves. Yeah, it's ah it's a misaligned expression of our purpose. There's this quotation that keeps coming into my realm because the algorithm's working. um It says, your purpose is not what you do in life.
00:24:31
Speaker
It's what happens for other people when you do what you do. And I think that that really resonates with what we're talking about is if my purpose truly is to be a problem solver, contributing to solving other people's problems is not actually the highest expression.
00:24:51
Speaker
of that activation within me. So let's talk a little bit about the rebuild, right? The the choosing to ignite again. if ignition is a decision and not a feeling, how have you made that choice?
00:25:06
Speaker
It is a decision. For me, it came from, had been a shut-in for five years. Finally, I was like, I'm done with this. I don't want it anymore. And I had to choose to be fed up with my being fed up I had to be a done with my shit, to be honest with you. i For a long time, my story that I had been living was victim. And you know not to take away from everything I've been through, because I've been through a lot, you know especially being in the cults and then being homeless. And then I finally figured out I was trans and I was like, holy moly, there's a lot to deal with in the one person.
00:25:44
Speaker
But I realized I can do it And I had to, if I was gonna be happy, I was gonna have to make a choice to be able to orient towards that. And what did it for me was seeing a group of people, um I think I might've talked about it before, but my favorite show is Critical Role and they play Dungeons and Dragons online.
00:26:04
Speaker
And what happened in this show short version was just that these people's characters were trying to save the world. And at the very end of it, they were either gonna basically kill Darth Vader or the person who had his spell left was he either going to be able to kill him or save his best friend.
00:26:24
Speaker
And so he had to kill the big bad and save the world. And his best friend died in the game. And in this game, they were all bawling and crying. And i remember, being ghost bumps all over. like just I just remember breaking down crying in a way that I had not ever for my purpose. I had cried from pain in a long time, but that made me feel this longing that I was here for love and that I was here to experience love and that I could fucking see it. Like it existed and other people were doing it and they were doing it through a way that was fun for them. They were playing games, they were telling a story and the whole world that watched this game was being changed as a result of it, but they were doing it for themselves and they were loving each other for themselves. And I could see that it existed.
00:27:20
Speaker
And that was when my fire started to reignite because I was like, I want that in my life and I'm going to create it for myself. I'm going to show other people that it can be done.
00:27:31
Speaker
They can do it. That means I can do it And that means anyone can do it. And it's what I started to do. To be honest with you, I walked around my house for a month crying, like literally from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed.
00:27:44
Speaker
And what I eventually realized was I'm done with this. I'm done with being a victim. I'm done with not being happy. I'm done with believing that it's not available to me and I'm going believe and choose someone else something else. And at the time I didn't even have a job or anything. And I was like, I'm, I,
00:28:03
Speaker
made a bunch of big decisions in my life and it was the biggest thing that I ever did, but it started with knowing what I wanted and knowing what I didn't want and then going from there and making the choice.
00:28:16
Speaker
I think for me, when I was thinking about like, what was this,
Healing Through Small Steps
00:28:20
Speaker
this moment, it was when I was a young parent, and not young chronologically, because I was 39 when I made my last person.
00:28:31
Speaker
But having this this moment of I'm going to choose to finally do the healing. I'm going to choose to put my focus on the pain that I have been very effectively ignoring and from the outside perspective, living a great life.
00:28:49
Speaker
But with that inner truth and and awareness of there's this huge hole in my heart that I've just been refusing to fill back up. And doing it without full clarity. Cause I think that's another thing that I come across a lot in my business when I am working with other people is we think we need to have full clarity before we can go execute the plan.
00:29:16
Speaker
And for me, it was figuring it out as I did it and letting, you know, being okay with letting it be wrong, letting, letting it be messy.
00:29:29
Speaker
trying a bunch of different things to your point, knowing what doesn't work is how we get clarity on knowing what does work, but being willing to take those small aligned actions is what ultimately helped me build the momentum and gained ah gain the clarity.
00:29:50
Speaker
You know, I'm seeing this vision of like walking through the fog, at some point you get to the destination, but you may not see exactly where you're going depending on how dense that fog is until until you're right on top of it.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I definitely had a lot of proverbial dense fog that I was moving through. But having made these people that I was really passionate about, i used to say early on, like I'm really passionate about not putting more assholes in the world. And I mean that from a place of like,
00:30:22
Speaker
when we do things without intention we might get where we want to go but if we do things with intention we are likely to get where we want to go faster with more ease with more grace and more more impact but i had to really reconnect to that desire to make that impact and not just spend my wheels in the analysis process, because I can, I love to think on lots of things. I love to analyze. I love to go deep. I love, you know, just inquiry for the sake of inquiry sake, but reconnecting with that true inner truth allowed me to start to reignite my own fire with greater alignment.
00:31:11
Speaker
I love that you said that about you don't need clarity to begin with, because to be honest with you're not going to know all of it. Like, I like your illustration of fog as well, because oftentimes when you're going through fog or any road or anything or even if there's just a hill you don't always know what's on the other side and so you can't make a decision from a place where you haven't been yet you don't know and like that decision that i made was now i think it's eight years ago when i was walking around the house crying every day to now i wish i had a picture of me from then to show people maybe i'll put one up because
00:31:53
Speaker
I'm not even, i don't look the same. I'm not like the the difference in who I was then versus who I am now. I did not even have a picture of what this person could look like.
00:32:03
Speaker
I literally had no idea. And i mean, had had I probably I would have ran faster. i think that may be ah an insight can give to people. You have no idea what's waiting for you on the other side. It's going to be fucking phenomenal when you do the work.
00:32:19
Speaker
But My first thing was, all right, I'm not going to sit and in my chair fucking all day from the time I get up to the time I go to bed. like I was a shut-in and I was very stationary. I didn't do anything.
00:32:31
Speaker
And so like that was a very big step for me at the time. Now I barely sit anymore because I work so much. It's a very flipped thing. But I couldn't have gone from that to this. It it it was impossible, literally impossible to live the life I live today then and if I had even known that I could live this life, it probably would have also seemed too big, like too much. Like I wouldn't have had the energy or the fire within me to do it because as you start to stoke the fire, i look at your inner fire as your energy, your energy source, your vitality source, here the thing that makes you available to do everything else that you're to do.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I didn't have any fire to be able to do all of these things. Like I said, just getting out of the chair took all the energy I had in those days. And so as you I started to build, my fire got bigger.
00:33:21
Speaker
had more energy to do certain things. I had the ability to encounter more difficulties. I i also think of your fire as burning away difficulties sometimes because it no difficulty can face the challenge of him of your fire when you're ready for it.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so it will just burn away in the heat of your passion and your ignite ignition of that thing. And so it just makes me think about energy and vitality of You're not going to be able to know. You're not going to have clarity. You're you're absolutely not.
00:33:51
Speaker
Mostly because you cannot even imagine how good it's going to be. So you have to start where you are. And it's probably not going to look very dramatic in the beginning. But that is how it starts is those one little thing at a time.
00:34:03
Speaker
And it will build up and you'll know the next steps and the vision will get bigger. And the vision that would have been so overwhelming to begin with will feel right in the end. Well, you know, I love a good ritual. I love a good fire ceremony. And i was, I was, as you were talking, I was thinking about this.
00:34:23
Speaker
I supported a community of grieving children and we would, we would take over a summer camp off season. And so we would bring in all of these grieving children. from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of experiences. And one of the most powerful exercises we did in this community was to have the children write down on a piece of paper, the thing that hurt the most about the person that they had lost.
00:34:53
Speaker
And then we would gather around a little fire when there was not a fire warning in Colorado, and they would bring the paper to the fire and and burn it. And It was just so it seems so simple, but it was so magical to watch the transformation that was happening inside their perspective of this lived experience that is undeniably horrible.
00:35:19
Speaker
And watch the transmutation. as the fire it's the paper literally burned and turned into ash, to watch so many of them release the burden of that experience. And I think that's also the gift of this reignition that we can give ourselves, whether it's a literal fire ceremony and a piece of paper that's burning in front of you, or knowing that sometimes the action doesn't require readiness, but it absolutely can be one decision
00:35:51
Speaker
that changes the entire trajectory of the path that you're on. and it And it might feel fast, but it might feel really slow.
00:36:02
Speaker
And neither of those is a wrong way to reignite your fire. Right? We don't need a full plan to take that first step. I think it often does feel slow in the beginning, and especially where you start, it feels a lot slower. especially if you have a big project and you want something that's really big. And we've talked about losing weight before.
00:36:27
Speaker
You know, at that point in my life, I literally had 100 pounds that I was going to have to lose. The thing that I think about weight loss is such a good example of goals because you can only do so much in a day to lose
Building and Sustaining Personal Fire
00:36:40
Speaker
weight.
00:36:40
Speaker
You cannot lose 100 pounds in a day. That's not possible. But you can eat a lot of calories for that day. you can go and exercise that day. And that will build up over time.
00:36:51
Speaker
And that's the same thing with all of the goals that we set and all of the things. It seems subtle at first, and you don't often see the changes right away in your external life, but they build and you build the habits and you build, especially, like I said, that's why weight loss is so good. You don't lose a hundred pounds.
00:37:12
Speaker
simply and then keep it off simply. It's a lifestyle change. It's an entire thought process change. it's a different relationship with food. And that is the same thing that you're going to have to do with your life is it's going to seem subtle, but you're building habits. You're building a relationship with yourself.
00:37:29
Speaker
And all of those things start to gain momentum. And I will tell you before long, everything seems real fast. I wanted to slow back down a little bit these days. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're going too fast. Every day seems like You know, a week seems like a day these days. It's really, really fast. And that's part of it too, is it will speed up once you start to build these foundations and all of these habits in your life.
00:37:54
Speaker
And if you know anything about building a literal fire, right? I love to build a good campfire, but you've got to collect the small little twigs Because if you're trying to light a log with a match, you don't have that you don't have the momentum. you That is not the right resource to build the fire.
00:38:15
Speaker
And I think so many of us, especially when we do get clarity and we know what it is that we want, we want this big stoked fire that we can roast our marshmallows on we get frustrated or we feel confronted by the fact that we got to go take the time to walk the land and collect the right size twigs and put them in in the fire pit in the right order.
00:38:36
Speaker
Little ones on on the bottom, medium ones on the middle, and not even the large log on the top to begin with. We start with this very small match and it Beverly Tatum- burns these right size this right size fuel in order to create this large fire that then is self sustaining right once it's the right size. Beverly Tatum- You put the big log on it and then you don't have to stand there and stoke it every moment of the day, but if you walk away from it to your point kind of like with weight loss if you walk away from it and the fire dies down.
00:39:10
Speaker
you have to be conscious and conscientious about what size log you're putting back on the fire in order to stoke it back up. And you know I think weight loss is a great analogy, especially when we are on a long-term goal, right? If you're looking to lose 100 pounds and you gain five one week instead of lose five one week,
00:39:33
Speaker
Are we putting our focus so close to the change that we use it as evidence to stop the whole process? Or are we able to pan out and be like, well, all right, so that requires some course correction in order for me to get back on the right path, in order for me to achieve that longer term goal.
00:39:52
Speaker
I think there's just such such great magic in so many of these analogies when we're thinking about our inner fire and the fuel that we're putting on it and the state of the current fire that we want to grow.
00:40:06
Speaker
Or to your point that we don't want to grow, if it's too big, if it's getting too hot. Don't put a larger log on there. Give yourself the space to rest. Give yourself the time to let it just be a smoldering you know set of coals because those red coals can look like they're not much of a fire. But if you put a log on top of the right set of red coals, that bad boy will flame right back up for you real quick. But we have to take we we have to take responsibility for our part in the experience, I think.
00:40:41
Speaker
Yeah. no I was just going to say too, made me think as well about mutual fires while we were talking because a lot of times you can't handle one thing that needs to be tackled on your own. You need a a partner or sometimes your flame will go completely out. And I was thinking as you were doing the this story of building a fire from scratch, what if you don't have a match? like I don't want to use a string and a twig and have to, that seems like really fucking long. You know what I'm saying? Well, but that's what I was thinking. Maybe you friend who is real fiery and you you know, you've you've lit each other's fire before. And that's also, they can bring a nice little coal and help you with your little pile of twigs. You know, if you don't have a match or whatever, that's also where community comes in to fire building is if your fire is low, they might be able to help it. Or if you're building a new fire, like as we've talked about that,
00:41:35
Speaker
fire putter outers or for nay, they can cup your flame for a little while while we could stoke back up. Or if there's something that is so big, is you're gonna have to burn it away. and You might need more than a few, one person, a couple of people to tackle that project, whether you combine your fires and you make a bigger impact as well. And so I think the idea of community is really important in fire, especially either when you're just starting or when you have something big to tackle.
00:42:03
Speaker
I think that plays into the integration phase so smoothly too, because sometimes if you want the fire to continue to burn, but you also need to go rest, you can ask for the support you need and have another person come in and stoke that fire and hold the space for you while you rest, right? it It is exhausting to do life in isolation. And I would,
00:42:28
Speaker
suggest it is not sustainable. You can do it all by yourself every moment of every day. And so how can you live it up without burning out? For me, that looks like building something with real structure, the physical structure of the fire, but also the community structure of those that can help you hold the flame. So how do you sustain your energy without chasing those spikes of motivation?
00:42:59
Speaker
Yeah. ah That's an interesting thought about spikes of motivation because i I look to discipline more than motivation because motivation, like you said, is spiky. There are days I want to do the thing and there are days I do not want to do the thing.
00:43:16
Speaker
But discipline for me is about integrity. It's about
Discipline, Community, and Accountability
00:43:20
Speaker
being who I want to be no matter what, whatever is coming up in my life. And so For me, I don't chase the motivation spikes. work on discipline, but also i don't discipline myself so much that I you know let my fire go out as well.
00:43:37
Speaker
it's It's about putting in the structures that support myself so that I can keep going and build that motivation back up on days I don't have it so much or call a friend or whatever happens to be.
00:43:47
Speaker
Because consistency... is the key to long-term things. And i love that the Maya has it says as a saying that says, everything in moderation, even moderation in moderation. So you can't go hard all the time and you can't you know be lazy all the time or you can't do the middle of that. it's It's really a range of things. And so it is also about discipline to me doesn't mean go hard every day. It means maybe I don't have it today. And so for me, sometimes discipline is taking a day off.
00:44:20
Speaker
knowing that I cannot go every day all the time and I need to have the motivation as well to give back to myself. That's a really important part of everything. So for me, the FIRE is about the discipline of knowing who I am and who I want to be and then having that community that I can reach out to and help me build goals and then just sticking true to the vision And that saying that always say is everything is a statement of who the fuck you are.
00:44:48
Speaker
And so remembering that who I want to be, and I can be that every day. you When you were talking and saying discipline, every time you said discipline, I was hearing consistency. Because I think that's also an opportunity for redefining how we show up in our world. Because as human beings, we are we are meant to operate on cycles.
00:45:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Again, if we're focused on this part where we have gone off track or we have failed to execute a tactic that was really important in order to execute the goal, we can make that mean so many things.
00:45:26
Speaker
And sometimes we make it mean things that feel shitty, right? We're wrong, we're bad, it's not for us, those sorts of things. versus really having ah partner or ah a community that can help you pan out a little bit and course correct as needed. i know when i when I work in my 12 week container with with coaching,
00:45:48
Speaker
I tell people real upfront, I am not a do it with you coach. I am not a do it for you coach. I am an empower you to do it yourself coach. And I will hold the space while you establish the new rhythm.
00:46:00
Speaker
And I meet with my clients on a weekly basis after we've created this 12 week plan that's very reasonable to achieve said goal in 12 weeks. and And this plan has weekly tactics.
00:46:11
Speaker
And what we do in our accountability calls each week is look at with real honest integrity, Did you do these five things that we had on the list for you to do that we know we've identified are necessary in order to achieve the goal?
00:46:26
Speaker
And they get a score. it's It's just like a test. You get an 80% or better, you are likely to achieve the goal. If you didn't do the thing, then we have a conversation. Well, why didn't you do the thing? Was that actually not necessary in order to achieve the goal? Or was it necessary and something else came up that kept you from it? Was it a limiting belief?
00:46:45
Speaker
Was it your kid got sick? Was it, you know, whatever the thing was? And then how do we put it back into the plan? Maybe we have to add a seventh thing to your list this week in order for you to get it done.
00:46:59
Speaker
But being able to create that momentum without that sense of urgency, like, oh shit, I didn't do the thing. Now the whole plan is fucked. Versus, oh, now I have to be flexible, right? Bend so you don't break.
00:47:14
Speaker
And I might have to invest a little more energy in my plan this week because I had this extra task that I wasn't planning on. And maybe that means I need to reach out for more support. Maybe it needs it means I need to generate a different access to new resources. right There's so many different ways that that can show up.
00:47:32
Speaker
But I think if we're really being honest about keeping our fire stoked, The importance of community is invaluable and it might just be one person. It might be a coach.
00:47:47
Speaker
It might be your family. It might be your friend group. It might it might be a lot of things because again, as unique once in a lifetime cosmic events, what works for me might not work for you, but on a collective level, what works is having the support that we need in the moment to achieve the vision that we've created for ourselves.
00:48:09
Speaker
Yeah, because it's easy to to lose track of your vision without that community to help you along with. And I also think a lot of our vision, it looks different in the end, but it comes out as of what you think in the beginning. And a lot of times it's your community that helps come up with the best ideas or the realignment. And like you said, that flexibility is so key to so many things. i was thinking as you were talking about the community and where I'm at right now versus where I thought it was going to be eight years ago. Like there's almost nothing about my life that I had planned. I didn't plan mushrooms. I didn't plan so much of what is going on now.
00:48:53
Speaker
And a lot of it had to do with the community that I was in and have created for myself in the meantime, because they've fueled me or given me ideas or help partner with me.
00:49:07
Speaker
in in certain areas or whatever it whatever the thing happened to be. But community really does help, like you said, whether it's a coach or a friend or any other type of person, because it also, one of the things I think is hard to explain to people is when you have an idea in your head and you have this purpose or this vision, a lot of times we think it's not possible or we're not gonna be able to do it or whatever. And once you,
00:49:35
Speaker
So we we like let it die inside of us. But that's a part of who you are. Or sometimes people think that the idea, they just have an idea and it's not able to be able. Once you put it outside of yourself, you give it to somebody else, that is the first step in making it more real because someone else has shared it with you. And now it's alive within the two of you.
00:49:55
Speaker
And I've found that once I do that first step, I make that part of me outside of myself and make it alive. That is the real momentum that starts to bring more of myself out and being alive, whether it's in an a goal or a concept or just a small part of myself. and So the bigger idea i'm trying to get here is so much of the satiation that we're looking for isn't just having an idea or thinking about it. It's being witnessed in that idea, having the community or the friends or however that is bringing our inside out is really where that fire starts to feel alive.
00:50:31
Speaker
And so that's why community is so important, but also why we're not meant to work in a vacuum, we're meant to be witnessed. Absolutely. I was thinking about our human design as you were talking, and if we have a great idea, we have a great feeling, but we can't bring it to our throat and actually put words to it to manifest it outside of ourselves, it's just a great thought or a great feeling. And those are awesome.
00:50:57
Speaker
But those are limited. That's a limited expression of what we're here to do. And being able to put words to it in order to take action on it, I think is also a really great practice for stoking that fire.
00:51:10
Speaker
And also keeping us aligned when things feel fast, right? If you have a great idea and you speak it to me, and then it starts to manifest out in the world, being in partnership with the right person can help you keep the train on the track, so to speak.
00:51:27
Speaker
and slow down when you need to slow down and speed up when you need to speed up. But I think especially when we get in that momentum expression,
00:51:38
Speaker
We want to make sure we've, if we're going fast, we've got our safe to belt on and the road is paved and there's not a hard left in front of us that we can't see and all of those different things. But that's part of how we don't burn out, right? We be informed, we be in community, we be in support, we be resourced so that the fire is sustainable and it doesn't burn us up, there's this, I i am a manifesting general, I went through this crafty phase where I was putting all these pretty little quotations in some of my photography on on wood. And there's a quotation that says, the fire that burns you can also, consume the the fire that warms you can also consume you.
00:52:19
Speaker
And I think there's a real important dance as we're talking about stoking the fire to be, to take responsibility for making sure that we're not feeling like we're sacrificing as things start to burn big, but that we're really figuring out how to do it in a sustainable way. Absolutely.
00:52:41
Speaker
So when we think about the legacy of our fire, of our passion, right? It's becoming the spark for others as well. And I love that you you brought the idea of maybe you have a friend who has a red coal and they can help you if you don't have a match, right?
00:53:00
Speaker
When we ignite our fire, we give permission to others to do the same. So what do you think is the ripple effect of living activated?
00:53:12
Speaker
a I love this as far as my own life. The biggest thing, like I told you, was that those critical role
Inspiring Collective Alignment
00:53:20
Speaker
people, like I've actually met them since then. I have a pretty weird life that my, very quickly after i started coming out of all of this, I was able to connect with someone who knew them and everything, and it kind of changed everything for me.
00:53:33
Speaker
But they didn't know me when they happened. They didn't do it for me at all. And, you know, we're not, we're still obviously not friends at this point because I don't know them that well, but i didn't meet them. but They did it for themselves. They were Dungeons and Dragons. The reason they started playing that game, it was somebody in the group's birthday.
00:53:50
Speaker
And it was a birthday present for him because it was something that he loved. and most of the people that came to that birthday party had never even played before. But it was something he wanted to share with them. And one of the couples who is like my favorite characters all the time. um One of them is even, he said he identifies as super much a jock.
00:54:09
Speaker
And like he they had t-shirts that were called Jocks Machina because their group was called Vox Machina. But anyway, and he's also a Cowboys fan, so I related to him really well easily. But he was like super not into Dungeons & Dragons, had no idea what it was. And now he's like the president of the company and they're they're multi they they're on Amazon, they're like huge.
00:54:29
Speaker
But all of it started because of a birthday present for one person. And everybody loved it so much that they brought it back and they started doing it more. And then they were talking about it so much that a person that they knew that was a producer was like, well, let's film it.
00:54:43
Speaker
And it was all as a result of this one person who had a fire inside of themselves for something that they loved. And now it's changed the entire world. And that is how I think of it for myself is I get to live a life that I love, that I'm proud of. i get to have friends that i never would have imagined would I would be lucky enough to have.
00:55:07
Speaker
And all of that, the reason I'm so loud about it and that I share it so openly is because I want people to understand that if I can do it and I can have a life that I am so in love with, so can you. And that's really, I think, the biggest legacy we can do is live and love out loud on purpose, with purpose as much as possible.
00:55:29
Speaker
I think for me, when i when I was thinking about this legacy piece, it's the legacy of my fire is to help others remember, to your point, that's what we're all here to have.
00:55:42
Speaker
We're all meant to be lit up. And when we can do that for ourselves, we create the space, we give others the permission to do that for themselves.
00:55:56
Speaker
And then it reflects back to ah back to us. And, you know, it's like this beautiful little quantum game of ping pong where we all get to light each other up by being lit up ourselves.
00:56:08
Speaker
But it it requires a ah shift of focus from self-service, right? Because again, this is where it all starts to understanding that that focus on self is actually how we be of service to the collective, to other people.
00:56:26
Speaker
And hopefully, you know, i i I say with kind of no shame, there's 8 billion people on the planet and I'm not here for everybody because that shit would be exhausting. But I am here to transform the collective. I am here to contribute to the transformation of all 8 billion people currently on the planet and for generations to come. And the way I can do that is by taking care of my own fire,
00:56:49
Speaker
stoking it when I need to, letting it simmer when I need to, and remembering that it's not all just about me and my fire, but it's really about what becomes possible for every person that has lived, is living, and will live when we can give ourselves permission to support others to give themselves permission.
00:57:13
Speaker
Absolutely. I feel like the biggest permissions that people often get is just seeing someone else do it. And so it's such a beautiful example of just living your life.
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah. And i I would invite our listeners to think about what does your activation impact? How does that activation impact the people around you? Because I know that you and I are magnetizing other folks who are ready to step into their power and stoke their fire and let it shine and support others in doing the same.
00:57:45
Speaker
and And to just remember that our fire isn't just personal, although it is also personal, but it's catalyst, catalyt catalytic, right? It's a catalyst for others to be able to do the same so that we can live in a world filled with aligned people making aligned choices and expressing themselves in aligned ways.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah. And especially right now, fire is light. You know, we need more light in this world. There's a lot of darkness that we've kind of gone through. And it's not because, you know, any one person's fault or anything. It's just a phase that we're coming through right now. And I think a lot of the world is ready to step into their fire and start igniting it. And I'm glad we're magnetizing those people because the world is better when each person is lit up and we have more light and that we can, you know, be that beacon for other people. And the more lit up our world is going to be, the more we're going to literally change it for the better with that light.
00:58:42
Speaker
And if anyone's listening and thinking about where are they waiting instead of moving, i would invite you to take one action in the next 24 hours that really aligns with what you say you want and just see what happens, right? Because the longer we wait, the longer we delay the life that we know we are here to live.
00:59:06
Speaker
Give yourself permission. Give yourself the permission to light your fire and love yourself. and do whatever that first step is that Leslie said in the next 24 hours, because so much of it, especially for a lot of people, don't give ourselves that permission. So give yourself that permission.
00:59:26
Speaker
All right. Well, I think we have adequately shared what fire means for us, my friend. Yeah. Well, until next week, leave us your comments, your questions, and take some time for yourself. But until then, don't trip on your cape.
00:59:41
Speaker
See you then. Bye.
00:59:46
Speaker
Thanks for joining Alex and Leslie on Don't Trip On Your Cake. I really appreciate you being here and walking this path with them. today's episode sparked something in you, if it helps you rock something new about yourself or your journey, show your support by subscribing to the channel, liking episode, and leaving a comment to show your thoughts or takeaways.
01:00:01
Speaker
Your voice helps to grow this community of brave, curious humans learning to wither kitchen confidence. and Until next time, fly high, stay curious, and Don't On Your Cake. Step into your superpower.