Sense of Soul - A Journey of Self Trust

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

We had the pleasure of hanging with AdaPia D’Errico, host of the podcast Journey Within -Insights on the Soul’s Path, she is a visionary leader with 20+ years of experience across countries, cultures and both corporate and start-up environments.  Her amazing talk about her journey of transformation when she decided to follow her heart, went viral when Goal cast shines a light of her. It’s a must watch. Listen here. https://youtu.be/opaFc3PTH1U A respected thought-leader, entrepreneur and female executive in FinTech, she is the VP of Strategy and principal of Alpha Investing, executive mentor and a powerful transformational speaker.  AdaPia lives what she teaches. She is passionate about empowerment from the inside out - from self-mastery to serving the greater good. Check out AdaPia’s Writing The Self Transformational Workshop https://writingtheself2.splashthat.com www.adapiaderrico.com   Check out our new workshops and classes, also donate to our Coffee Fund we would do appreciate it! Love and Light y’all! www.mysenseofsoul.com

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have Adapia Dorico. She is a truth seeker. She is trained in women's leadership, empowerment, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, the chakras. She also teaches a 300-hour advanced training in yoga psychology. She's part of Playing Big facilitators program. She's gone viral on YouTube. You guys have to go check out her YouTube videos. She is a podcaster and her podcast is called Journey Within Insights on the Soul's Path. And how exciting, she just came out with a book. She is the author of Productive Intuition. Welcome. Thank you. I'm so excited to have this conversation today.

We're so happy to have you. I'll have to tell you that I did watch your video. Your video went viral on Goldcast, right? And I would love to hear the story and the inspiration behind that video, because I was like, oh my God, I love her already. As much as I would like to say that I married for love, I didn't. I had an amazing life. Right out of college, I got married. I moved to Italy, to Lake Como, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I would ride around in my Vespa, wind in my hair, sun in my smiling face. I had what you would imagine to be this Renaissance painting. So I had it all, picture-perfect life, on the outside.

But on the inside, it was a different story. On the inside, it was like that painting was cracking and peeling. So what was wrong? Everything. I didn't know it, but I hated myself. And I kept it up. I kept up this painting, especially for me, my parents. I could not let my parents know, especially not my dad. He would kill me.

And I spent nine years suppressing what my heart was telling me, suppressing my emotions, ignoring them. No. But I was lost, broken. I was afraid. I cried. It was powerful. This story that you created in your head around your father, I would love to know more about that. First time in a really long time, I made a decision for myself. And for me, one of the most difficult ones was calling my dad and telling him and I still remember calling him and I said I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry and he pauses and doesn't say anything and I'm I'm ready and he says come home very powerful thank you for that video so relatable too thank you yeah where did that

come from so I got connected with somebody who was putting on like a showcase and she asked me to be a speaker because I kind of told her overall about my story so she said said, you know what, why don't you be like a speaker for my showcase. And I got up on stage in front of 1400 people and told the story of leaving my first marriage. And that's what the original video was all about. And the story behind what I told on stage was what I understood that I didn't listen to my intuition and I didn't listen to my heart when I said yes and I should have said no, or at a very minimum, I should have said not yet. I'm not ready, but I couldn't, I was scared. I didn't even think that saying that was an option. I was 22. Like there's so much going, there's just so much going on there. And I stayed in

this marriage for nine years. Cause I thought I'm going to make this work. Like I'm going to make this work. Maybe I just have cold feet. Like, but it wasn't, it was something deeper. And I just didn't like, I simply didn't listen. And so what happened is I started to basically just shut down. I ended up becoming anorexic. My body dysmorphia started. Like I was just plain old miserable, but I wouldn't let anyone see that because I always have always wanted to be seen as successful and independent and I'm okay. I don't need help. I'm good. Nobody needs to know that I'm suffering. And I probably didn't even know how much I was suffering. And it wasn't that like, he was a bad person. I mean suffering and it wasn't that like he was a bad

person I mean it just wasn't a really good match overall I basically like call it like my soul set me on fire and it was this moment where I just I just got hit so hard with this realization nine years in that like I can't be in this life anymore and it was just so strong and it was so powerful and it was so symbolic. And it was just, it was just, you, you can't like you can't. And the thing with my dad is that he and my whole family and everyone, I just never wanted them to know that I wasn't okay. And I thought because my family's Italian, I was married to an Italian living in Italy. My parents live in Canada. So I moved away from them. So there's like all these complexities about back and forth and

Italian men and fathers and and I'm like kind of daddy's girl. And I just was so afraid to disappoint him. And I was so afraid of how angry or, you know, whatever. and so when I finally like told him he actually he just floored me and he said come home just please come home you're not happy and what I didn't know is that he knew I wasn't happy all those years but he never wanted to approach me because he probably thought I don't want to have a fight with her across the, you know, across the ocean on the phone. And so that was the story that I told him what I learned about honoring the heart and how important it is. And this idea of like holding up a picture perfect life, but who are we doing that for? You know, Mandy and I both had different views on what vulnerability meant I mean Mandy saw it as like this amazing which it is amazing strength and and really helps others

and I saw it as a weakness and oh no I was like yeah I was like we don't want to seem like we're stressed we don't want to be telling people that then we're gonna look a mess and so it's interesting I you know I was thinking about the word vulnerability the other day, I was trying to like define it in my own words and it's the gateway to connection. It's truly what it is. And I felt connected to you when I watched that video. And I think anyone who watched it could feel connected in some way. You said something interesting before you started going into the details. You said something interesting before you started going into the details. You said you didn't even know how much you were suffering. Why do you think

that? Ego. That was just like my good old friend. Because I'm trying so hard. We're all trying so hard to survive and to appear successful and to try to find this sense of happiness outside of ourselves, right? It's all of this like external validation and what I was told and what I believed would make me successful. And so also at that time, just zero self-awareness in a way, like compared to where I'm at today. Like, I just didn't have it. I didn't realize what was going on. And I was repeating relationship patterns that were my parents. I would like so much about it. So I had no idea. I didn't know that my sort of body dysmorphia and anorexia and like over-exercise and all that was a form of control because I felt like the rest of my life was out of control. And so the only thing I could

control was my body. And, you know, that just made me like hungry and angry all the time. And like, it's just like unpleasant. And it just rolled into, I was just like really focused on my career. I'm like, so that's the other thing I need to be really, really focused on. So I was just trying to find like my place because I had placed myself in a life that was not conducive to my happiness. I mean, you were literally living like this dream life. It wasn't like he was some jerk that was beating you or cheating on you. And it wasn't like you were living in like this dump of a place. Like it wasn't like this big, huge pitfall of destruction like mine. Mine was like just this downfall into addiction. It's a reminder that we

can't compare each other's pain and in each other's situations because they're one of the same yeah and even the perception on looking from the outside in because I mean I know that I used to go to far lengths to make sure that everything looks so good on the outside I looked good the house looked good now don't look in any closets because they didn't look good but my kids looked good and they represented me and all these things but yet inside I was empty you find something to justify the space that you don't want to sit with because it's so uncomfortable in that space so you're like what do I fill it with and I fill it with? And some people fill it with work. Some people fill it with kids. Some people fill it with drugs and alcohol. Yeah. It's that's just like, that's exactly it. And that's why I like to me, the analogy of this picture, perfect life,

like this painting and everyone has their own like version. Right. And mine just so happened literally externally to, to look like this, like very charmed life, which made it even harder because then what was happening, I was shaming myself. I was like, well, you should just be grateful and you should be happy and look at everything you have. And so it's like, it's related a lot of times, like toxic positivity, like you're not allowed to feel bad because somebody else has it worse. Right? Like I would do that a lot. And so we do that. We're just like, here's this painting I want you to see this but there's all these cracks and we're like touching them up and we're so busy trying to just like let me make sure the painting is in like completely always intact but you know

even from that kind of analogy I'm just thinking about it right now. Like nothing is static. The painting is not, it's not really a static object. Our life is not static. And so if we don't bend and move and change, and then all we're doing is just like making ourselves like layers and layers of paint that just makes it heavier and heavier. And it's just going to crack under the weight. I did such a good job of faking it and like acting it that when I did finally break away they were like wait what yes wait I thought you were so happy and everything looks so great I was a horrible actress towards the end I was like yeah you sucked I'm a fucking

mess I mean I'd get on like Facebook like this, like all drunk. My life sucks. No, I got to a point where I was subconsciously putting all the ugly out there trying to reach help and too afraid to ask for it, you know, but Shanna is big into ancestry and it's been a huge part of our podcast and our journey because her story is amazing. And that would take up a whole podcast to talk about, but I've done a lot of healing in it too these patterns that come up through generations and break those patterns yeah I would love to talk about the ancestral because actually it's a very recent path for me to go there and I've actually been doing a lot of healing with my ancestors and most of them actually come through on my father's side, both the female lineage, because my name at a PIA is a combination of my grandmother, my great grandmother's name on my father's side. And so they're always with me. And so I've been

doing like a lot of work to reconnect with them, like the female lineages, it's like it's there. And then there's also the male lineage on my dad's side. And this is not like to say it in a bad way, but it's more of the toxic lineage, I would say, because my dad comes, my dad's side of the family is noble. It's aristocratic. So when you watch like Bridgerton, that's my dad's family. Our family tree goes back to Charlemagne. Like it's like big time. Like it's, it's like insane. So I have this heritage that was passed down through him and he passed down through us.

Like I grew up being told like, you're a Dorico and this means something. And I'm like, I live in Canada. No one cares. That's what I would do to make it. It would set them off. That would be my like, Hey, like kind of like a few, cause I'm nobody here and I don't want to be this like special better than so interesting. Cause I'm really working on releasing a lot of this, these patterns and they're in me. And I do it either through emotion, code healing, all kinds of different healing modalities. A lot of times I'll even just do it myself through like my journaling and just being able to release them. But the patterns are really important to at least identify just in general, because like I said, like I was seeing in that first marriage,

the same patterns that my parents exhibited, I was seeing the same thing play out. And I, and there would be moments where I would go, this is not like, this is not what I want. We don't grow up. I certainly didn't grow up talking about relationships and, and communication and, and like any of this. And so you just repeat because that the lack of awareness until we start exercising self-awareness and going to those uncomfortable places. Shanna, like you said, like who wants to be uncomfortable? That's why we don't go there. We're like, nobody wants to go to that scary place. Like I just want to be out here trying to be okay. But actually if we don't go to that uncomfortable place, we're never going to find

the strength and the healing. The Italians are very, very super strong people, very protective, but very caring people. And so all of that being within you as a woman, I can see why you were like, I'm going to stick it out until my soul screams and explodes out of my body. Yeah. And talk about your soul exploding out of your body. Like most of us will have it happen. Like when we're driving down a road, listening to an emotional song, or when we're in our bed, crying, watching a sob story, yours happened in a maternity ward in a hospital. What the heck? I know. Well, so here's like, here's the thing that I didn't fully understand is what I, it took me a while, like to be able to language this. So I always

knew I didn't want to have kids. And that was like, I pretty much said that straight away, but that's just not an option in Italy. and this is also like over 20 years ago so I know that that might seem like strange to some people today maybe especially a little bit of a younger audience but it wasn't where it's like you can't be a young woman and say you don't want kids so basically no we're there for the bread oh Oh, that's like, that's so my life Italian. Okay, exactly. It's just like, that's just like a no. Like, and and so I didn't want kids. I said that right away. But everybody but they all pressured me constantly. And they all thought that I was just young and like, Oh, she'll get over it and she'll have kids eventually. And so I was constantly being pressured to have kids.

My body did this for me. So my body, a year after this marriage, went into perimenopause. So I stopped having my period at 24. Because my body knew what my mind would not admit to. And my body did that for me. Cause I'm telling you, if I had had kids, I probably wouldn't have left. Right. And so the whole, we had all these friends that were having kids, everybody else is having kids. And I'm like, no, I'm like, no, I'm not going to have five years from now, five years from now. And I'm like, at this point, I'm 30 years old

and I'm like five years from now. And people are just like, I don't know. And so that was a huge strain, like his mom and like him and like, all he really wanted was kids. Like that was like his big prerogative. I don't think I really understood that when we were first getting together. Cause I'm like, I don't want kids period. Just, I don't. So the whole maternity ward is like, we were there visiting these friends that were amazing parents. They love their kids. I'm just in there and I'm watching what's going on. And like women with like, and just their bodies and the pain that they were in is just something about the physical condition, especially of this one lady that, that was just like kind of like walking. And she looked like she was just like kind of like walking and she looked like she was about like just so much pain and it just struck me so hard and and I'm like I'm in a place of joy and I'm just miserable and that misery it just cracked me in half and that was it I'm like I will not cannot will never

have kids and that was the thing that I had to say I'm like listen this is not happening and and he basically said and like I don't tell this part on stage because like you can't tell like that much on stage but he's like well that's a deal breaker so that's how it ended he was just like well that's a deal breaker and yeah did you feel shame and like guilt for not wanting kids to, and did you feel like, is there something wrong with me that I don't do? Is that something that you had to fight against? Um, that's an interesting question. I don't know that I felt I maybe a little bit like I more felt like I should, but I didn't really feel shame shame that's the one place I didn't feel shame about but it was more like I'm supposed to I should but I just can't get there like I just in my whole like

being and body yeah you just know that you're not yeah I have people that all the time you know will tell me that like I just feel really bad that I don't want to but I don't like you know but we're taught to feel bad about that. You know, we're, we're not taught to feel and accept what we're actually sure about inside, you know? Yeah. That's exactly it. Yeah. We're not taught that, like, listen to the inner self, which is like my whole like journey and everything that I do, like my speaking and my book and everything is just like, trust yourself, just trust yourself yourself there's so many reasons to trust ourselves and I feel that we're in a shift now around people are going back to like what is this

inner self what do I want like I'm the authority of my life not an external authority like inner validation like I need to be the one who loves myself first. And look, I am married to my soulmate. I met my soulmate Andrew a year after leaving Italy and I wouldn't have met him. And I also wouldn't have met him. I had to go through what I went through. Right. Cause I'm not here to say like the previous experience is bad. That's the path.

But like the relationship with him, totally different and challenging as all hell, like really challenging relationship, but it's anchored in communication and it's anchored in a totally different level of understanding and working together. I spent a good year just figuring out who the hell am I? Like when I left that life, when I left Italy and I moved back to Canada and eventually moved to LA, I'm like, I'm 32 years old. I'm like, I have no idea who I really am. And that's when I found yoga. And that's when I found my practices. And that's when I started to spend time with myself. And it's also when I started to grieve. Yeah, that's a big part of it is grieving that old life too and letting it go. Yeah. I actually had children, two children out of wedlock, which was like a total thing back then for my deeper Catholic.

And it was totally was like, well, we can't tell your grandparents that you're pregnant. I'm like, but I've been with them for like three years and yeah but you're not married you have to go and get married first and then we'll tell them and I'm just like I felt so much shame I mean I felt so much shit around it and so now I have daughters I have daughters in their 20s I'm like make sure you try that out before you don't want to get into a relationship, but that's how they did it for generations. So I can understand why it's, we're still new. We're kind of like the ones that broke free. A hundred percent. Oh my God. Yeah. That's literally how people thought. And we are,

we're this transition generation of like one foot in the old and then one foot, like carving this new path and saying, you know what? And I, I love research and I love history in general. So it's like, if you look at the history of marriage, it is a contract. So all this starts and, and, and like just the way like everything passes through our DNA and story. And, and, and it's just in us marriages were contract where a man would contract with a woman to be able to breed and do their thing. And when you go back and actually like read, like historically how it works with our mind today, we can look at that rationally and say, wow, that's messed up.

Just like, you know, slavery is messed up. It's no different. Marriage is messed up in its original format, but you can marry and you can have kids and you can do whatever the hell you want. If it feels right in your heart, don't let it be because society or history or like, look at the world right now. We have an African-American woman vice president. That's fucking huge. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to ask you to, you know, just play along. Okay. As a real, as a real estate agent, if you had a contract in front of you, what would you do before you sign a contract? Well, any contract, like just, you have to like

read the, read the fine print and make sure that you're protected and make sure that it's fair. You know, like you, you definitely want to make sure what the terms are what you're agreeing to um know what you're getting know what you're getting into know how long the contract is for and know how you can get out of it if you need to so why do we as humans jump into these marriages with people without actually getting to know all those terms and getting to really like sit down and talk about this long-term commitment it's like me and shan have talked about this a million times you know i've told my children over and over i don't care if you ever get married i don't care if you ever have children i don't care because I think it was all just a freaking sham from the beginning to control,

control people. Yeah. For our listeners out there, if you're considering getting married, you know, it's like, you've got to really put some time into knowing yourself and really knowing that person and sit down and talk about those boundaries, those, just all those really important things. And you're right. Anchoring it in communication, like you said. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we didn't like with Andrew, my husband, like we dated for a long time. Like we were living together. We like, we bought that house. We weren't married yet. And like that decision to get married was, was like partly strategic just, just around, you know, it was a good time. There's a lot of bit like, um, I'm Canadian, I'm living in the U S there was like green card issues,

but we were just like, Hey, like this is a choice. And it changed our relationship because when you do enter into any contract or any marriage or any relationship very consciously, it's different. And when we made those vows, it shifted something but it was such a empowered decision to do so like we eloped we eloped on valentine's day we're like just the two of us like nobody else we just wanted it to be for us it was so special it meant so much and we just keep working at it like yeah and and it's not about the marriage because like you can annul a contract you can annul a marriage what I think what what happens and this is what I saw with the video when it went viral is that I was very heavily trolled people were really upset

because really oh my god I got death threats like I I hold on. Hold on. Why? I don't get it. I think it's just like the wounded heart, the wounded ego, because there's so much expectation placed on somebody else is supposed to make you happy. Right. That's the other part of marriage that is the non-contract part. Somebody else is going to make me happy. They're now responsible for my happiness. So this idea that I had this picture perfect life, this man that like you said, wasn't beating me, wasn't like a horrible person. So why would you leave? I think what happens is we are always projecting. And so people projected their hurt and their pain. And people were like, you're a horrible person. You're so selfish. All the reasons why we inherently as

women are also like in this trapped place around marriage and kids it got just so much projection so much trolling like I vowed I would never speak publicly again like never it was I had PTSD I couldn't open my social media accounts like I couldn't do anything it was it was really it was so hard oh my god God. That's disappointing. I, you know, and I, I just thought it was so beautiful and powerful. And I was like, yes, you know? Thank you. And a lot of people did. It's just that I was not prepared for the hate. So here's, here was one of my big realization I had because I didn't make him out to be a villain because he's not right I

took responsibility for my life and my choice in the way our culture works there has to be a villain you're not allowed to leave what's your good reason for leaving if you had a perfect life and so there was just like well then you're the villain so now I'm gonna attack you oh shit so that's that's kind of what happened and it sparked this like I mean the video was shared like 250,000 times like a hundred thousand conversations like most of it happened on Facebook and Goldcast was like we have never had a video create such conversation around these topics like good and evil and relationships and expectations and all these things that we're talking about a woman's role, a man's role. Like it's part of my soul's

path. I didn't make that goalcast video goalcast found it. And they were like, Hey, we want to make a video. I didn't go looking for that. I didn't make any money. It was just like a, Hey, we're going to do this for you. And I was like, cool. I wasn't looking for it. And so when I think about it from a higher, like my, like my soul's perspective in this contract that I came in with is I'm here to communicate the human condition. We all go through like so many challenges and we've said this a couple of times is sharing our story is so vital. It's so important. Like to me, I share my story. I heal others can heal my life lessons are not just for me because it's not just me. Right. And if I, if I can't even keep anything

to myself, it's like funny. It's like, even if I wanted to, when I'm going through something or when I have like some wisdom that comes through, I'm like, I think this needs to be shared because someone needs to hear it. And that's how we heal. Yeah. You know, if you're triggered, then that means that that's something within you that needs healing. Whenever I'm triggered, I can take that step back and pause and say, why are you triggered? And it's always something within me. And that's what those people trolling you, what it's about. Like you said, let's jump into yoga. What has yoga meant to you in your journey? Oh my God. Yoga was the anchor and the portal and

the gateway to like all, all of my healing. It started for me athletically. Cause I was like, gotta burn calories. Cause I was, you know, I'm like, that's just me. Like I'm athletic. Like I love to work out. And it started like that for me. And I remember the first time I got on a mat in a studio and the teacher started this like studio in Vancouver and she was like, started with some breathing. And I'm just like, wait a second. I am sitting where's my 600 calories an hour. I'm like, I literally, like, I was so messed up in my head. Right. Cause I was still coming off like all of this, but slowly over time, as I got into my body, because what yoga does is it really is this connection between body and breathing and the energy centers in our body. And it moves them together. And when you move them, it releases things even with you not knowing,

which is why yoga is actually a huge psychological, like mental, emotional exercise, not just physical. And I slowly, that was how I was healing. And I had no idea yoga has meant everything to me because it's how I moved my emotions and without knowing it in the beginning until I started training and understanding it, because I just changed the anger and the anxiety. I would also try to run it off, but that was a different energy. But in yoga, I softened as my body got stronger. I actually softened. I started to find that place inside because you match the breath to the movement. And for me specifically, power yoga was important because if I'm doing a really challenging pose, I can't think of anything else because I have such a monkey mind that I'm going to break

my nose. If it's too easy, my mind, I'm gone. My mind is out of here, but if it's hard, then I'm, I have to focus. And so that would really, and that would really help me. And it just expanded me so much. It's hard to explain in words because it just changed me. I allowed myself to be in my body, which is something I've never really let myself do, especially not for those nine years. I was trying so hard to get out of my body by starving it. And no, it's like, we have to be in this beautiful vessel. And so I just started to learn who I was through the movement and through the breath. So it's like awareness of the body in a spiritual sense, rather than just the physicalness of the body brings you to this awareness of like a deeper essence of the body yes because we have multiple bodies we have a physical body we have an energy body we have a mental body we have an emotional body right we have the etheric body so

it's it's this because yoga means to yoke which means to bring together. And, and so we just start to understand and feel and notice. So the biggest practice is just a no simple noticing whenever anyone's like, well, what's the practice? Like number one, just notice things, right. And the stillness, like when we get still, you can be still in movement. The stillness is of mind. The stillness is to stop thinking and to notice. And when we can do that, then we start to notice that there's different, maybe different voices in our head. We start to notice if our heart is speaking, we start to notice what we're feeling, which is generally where we never want to go is into the feelings, but yoga actually helps you go there in a really safe way. So it's, it's really all about the physical body is one aspect of everything that we are.

And I know it's, it's a really hard thing to describe in words, but, and it's a very important piece of this, of this life. And I think that we need to be in it and yoga helps you anchor into your body and appreciate it for just how much it does. Like it's amazing. You know, I feel like these gyms do yoga to service because no one ever explained that to me. It was like, just roll out your mat and let's give it a shot. This is just another healing practice that helps you to release emotions, get aligned. So it's very beautiful you know we weren't taught to trust the messages that our body gives us even in pain and discernment and also to be comfortable in our body you know we definitely are the generation that was growing up with crispy brinkley on the front of magazines and so i think that

these next generations i hope because I've even heard my eight-year-old tell people to not compare themselves to other people, just, you know, love their bodies for, for who they are, you know, and for what they got. But I mean, it just wasn't taught to us. So we're having to rewire our brains, but yoga and these kinds of modalities help us do that. It's also important to find the right teacher in the right class, because if you don't, then it's like anything like you're going to say, well, this is not fun. It's not what I expected. So I always encourage people, if you're getting into it, like try different teachers and find

the ones that resonate. And if they do, you know, stick with it. When I worked at Children's Hospital, I worked across from the eating disorder unit from what these nurses and doctors shared with me. It's a very hard thing to come out on the other side of, and it gets a lot of negativity because people from the outside are looking at and just think it's like this easy choice and that you're just doing it for looks. There's a lot more to it. You know, our podcast is about turning pain into purpose. And it sounds like this was part of your pain and you've turned it into purpose. What would you say to struggling with an eating disorder? If you can find that place within that, you can just love yourself.

I think so much of it, at least for me was about trying to control something because I felt like my life was out of control because I wasn't focused on my inner world. And when I started to get focused on my inner world, then I could start to forgive myself, to release that shame, to understand what it was driving me. Cause something's driving us towards these behaviors and we have to find what that is so that we can unravel it and let it go. And so if you're struggling with it, you're coping, you're surviving. And if you can, and if you can find a safe place

or safe people to work with, and by safe place, that even just means like sitting with yourself, ask yourself, what is it you're seeking? Ask yourself what it is you really want because it's something else. You're seeking love and forgiveness that you have to give to yourself and it's really hard to detach that from this idea that we have control through the body it's the the body is just holding us and it's anchoring us. Thank you for sharing that. As parents, we have to be very

careful of what we're showing our children and how we're acting and kind of expectations we're putting on them and being very careful about what we say to ourselves in the mirror because they're watching us. We forget about the boys, but boys too. Absolutely. All right. Well, let's jump to the fun stuff. Let's talk about your freaking book. And let's talk about this productive intuition. All right. Yeah, thank you. So the book, look, I started writing this book around the time when I did my talk.

Because I was like, okay, stuff is coming through. And it kind of started almost as actually as an autobiography that book is unpublished and it stopped because when the trolling started I was like nope I'm not sharing anything ever again and so that kind of that got put on hold as I worked for a good like almost nine months to get over and through and like really work through this like very dark time of healing. And so I really, like I picked the book up again around late, late 2019, then COVID hit as I was like really like getting into it. And it was interesting because like COVID gave me the time and this perspective, it was like, it crystallized it, right? Like timing

and synchronicity is everything I was just like this is what this book is about and what this book is is an exploration into how I basically like in some ways like how I woke up and how I understood this notion of trusting myself and and like I anchored in the idea of productive intuition because I'm a business person I'm still in business. And what I noticed as a business person who woke up and went through a spiritual crisis and I had nobody to talk to. I didn't like nobody could relate to me in like my world, so to speak. And so I thought it was really important to write a book that could be relatable to people

like me. I need to understand with my big left brain, how this works, because that's just who I am. And so the book kind of became this scientific exploration of intuition and how it works through our body, and the science of the heart and just all in our biology, which blew my mind. And then I started to like pull apart the spiritual and my overall message is about sovereignty and it's about finding inner authority. So that inner validation. And so I talk about the video.

I talk about being defrauded for a lot of money when I like didn't listen to my intuition. Again, my ego, I talk about all these stories and ways that when I listened and when I didn't listen and so many people are like, well, intuition is like for psychics, it's for special people, right? They're just like, I'm not intuitive, but the truth is that we absolutely everybody is. And I, and that's so powerful and I want people to get there. And so the book is, is kind of like, it's this invitation to find where that it lives in you into anchor there. And just to like, you are a sword, right? Like you are the sword and you go forward from that place. And it's all the vulnerability, all the authenticity, all of that comes from, I know myself and I trust myself because if we can't trust ourselves, who are we trusting? And that's like, that's the big thing for me about all of this is I need to trust myself so that I can make decisions for me, not expect somebody else to make me happy, save me all these like little stories that we have in our society about other people being the ones to make decisions for us. No way. Okay. All I keep thinking right now, just like heavy, heavy, heavy, is that your ancestors, your grandmothers are so proud of you. So proud of you. They've been

waiting for someone like you to do this, to break this forever. That is so powerful. Never let those haters quiet you again. Thank you. Yeah, no, they fuel me now. Cause like we talked about they're showing me their broken heart. And so I like so much compassion for them, right? I know you by how you respond, but it's not a reflection of me. And that was something I had to learn through that experience. Yeah. You're a badass Italian woman, girl. And they're proud of you. They're proud of you. Thank you. I accept. And I hold that. Thank you. I accept and I hold that. Thank you. I love that. So I'm going to use myself as an example. I've had this pattern of relationships in my past and even in my current marriage where there was this, a lot of gaslighting and I really had, I doubted everything about myself. I mean, I've said this before, but like they could have

murdered someone and had the knife in their hand and told me I did it. And I would have believed them. And every thought that I had, I questioned, wait, am I crazy? Is it me? What's wrong with me? And I still go back to that place as much work as I've done. Do you ever go back to that place? And when you do, do you pull yourself out of it?

Because I tend to still be really hard on myself and be like, I've done so much work. Why am I going back to this place? And I expect this perfection, but it's progress, not perfection, right? Yes. It's so hard because we want to be done with the pain. We want to be like, okay, I'm done with this piece and it's closed and it's fully finished, but you might have to go back to it. I like to use the symbolism of a spiral. If we start from the center point, we spiral out around it. Let's say that is the situation. We're going to start to gain different perspective through every experience. We will circle back to the same point as we spiral it, right? It's not a closed loop. It's a spiral, but we're going to circle up around and it's a different perspective. And sometimes we just have to keep touching it until it no longer

triggers us. And I think about the epigenetics, how we can't necessarily change this, but we can turn it off. You know, we have the ability. So you rewire your brain and then you create a new that is overpowering this. And then it just is not an issue. I think that it's just training it because I still have stuff coming in too. And I'm like, no, fuck that. I am living a woman. I'm a woman in 2021. I no longer have the limitations that women had. I had a woman here last night in my house, literally say to me, and I know I've been there before. She goes, I have to get going. I'm already in trouble. I actually said, I said, who are you in trouble with? She was like, well, I mean, we should have been home a long time ago. My husband, you know what I told her? I said, you're 47 years old, right? I was like, you're an adult.

I got anxiety when you said that. I have to say that. I have to say that all the time. I used to not be that way. Believe me. But I say all the time, used to not be that way believe me but I say all the time I'm a grown woman you know that's new but it's powerful to say that I have to continue to turn it off though yeah yeah please don't ever let anyone dim your light again I'm so sorry that there's people out there that did that to you Shannon I have been pretty blessed. Don't get a lot of people to troll us, but we have had some religious people tell us that we're selfish because we promote self-love.

Oh my God. That God and Jesus would not want that. We have to put God and Jesus first and then we're going to hell. Oh, I just like that whole selfish thing. It's the root of everything, which is the root of our disempowerment, which is again, someone else don't focus on you focus on someone else. They are the priority, not you. Whereas the truth is that when we give ourselves all of that love, there's so much it's like a it's like a never-ending well that we just want to give it like reverse by way of like the social psychology that we're in when we love ourselves there's so much more for us to give that we want to give it naturally as opposed to overflow yes instead of

like i'm obligating you obligation just riles me up like i'm obligating you to do something for someone else instead of putting your needs first and it's baked into marriage it's baked into child rearing it's baked into all of this like guilt and shame which is not in other cultures it's very western it's very very Catholic Christian. It's baked in there to hold our light down because our love of self is love of others. Because if we can't love ourselves, then how could we ever expect anyone to love us? Like you have to really work through that in yourself of, I need to love myself. And if that's how we get disconnected from our power. I wish that someone would have just even said, you're not allowed to love until your cup

is full. And then everything that is flooding out, you can then give to everybody else, but you have to learn to fill that cup first, you know, but I was taught the opposite. I just wrote this down. We should have like, this be a a motto unbake that shit we should do like an anti-movement against those signs that everyone put in their house at Shanna that you always talk about family friends that's all I was supposed to know yeah and don't have nothing for yourself faith family friends that shit needs to be changed shanna what would you make that sign say i would be like me myself and i

so where can our listeners find your amazing book well my book is productive intuition you can learn more about it productive intuition.com and you know you can find it on amazon and i think it's coming out on barnes and nobles and some other places soon my website at a pieterico.com is just more a little bit more about me i'm still doing speaking and and workshops i do these days more like inner work kind of workshops i like to take people into defining moments like my hospital moment which is where we find these pivotal moments so i'll do a lot of inner work i'm doing my workshop which is where we find these pivotal moments. So I'll do a lot of inner work. I'm doing my workshop, which is called writing the self planning on doing that on at least quarterly, maybe monthly basis. So that's the going through the defining moment and pulling the story out

and finding the wisdom, rewriting the story to be more empowering, that clears the energetic past, present, future. So it's like a deep self-work workshop that I'm going to probably be doing monthly. Okay, great. Productiveintuition.com, adapierrico.com. I play a lot on Instagram. I'm on Clubhouse these days, LinkedIn for people who want to connect with me professionally as well. My focus career wise is on my investing and especially helping people. And actually a lot of women with their investing is really just showing up. It doesn't matter what I do. I bring who I am to the table. And so that's why I went back to business. Cause I'm like, I like it. Like I really love my real estate. I love my investing.

I love what I do. So instead of trying to like create this other career, I just integrated my spiritual lessons. And so if I do these workshops, it's because I think they're really fun and interesting and I love to connect with people, but it doesn't have to be this great big thing. Because what I've learned and is that how we show up in every single thing we do is, is the work it's who we are. It's how we lead. And so that's just how I've decided to do what I do. And so if I write a book, cool. If I do a workshop, awesome. To like meet like you and just to connect with people.

To me, it's all about that community and connection. And I'm here for you because I want to be. And I think that's part of my path, whatever that means. No, we, we started sense of soul just for that reason. Like we felt alone, just like you did at one point and thank God we had each other. And so that's why we did this. So people would never fall alone. So we could talk about really weird stuff that nobody else would want to hear. I wanted to say that we've had some listeners come to us and they're like, because of you, I quit my job. Don't do that. That's not what you're supposed to do. Just because you awaken doesn't mean you have to quit this job. You can still find purpose

in what you're currently doing and bring your new spiritual self into it and integrate the two. Totally. That's what it's all about. Like, don't, you don't have to go be a monk and you don't have to go be a coach. Like some people that's their path. But for most of us, we're like, Whoa, I, that's not my path. It wasn't mine. And it's also okay to realize like, you might have to play around with it, but it's all about how we show up and where we show up from, which is that anchoring. And when we get connected to our soul, then everything else is just like a choice is so empowering. Well, I'm going to choose to do this. And it's defined by me. I choose to go back into

business. Not because it's not the 18 year old that thinks it's going to make her look a certain way. It's a 41 year old. That's like, I want to, so I get to show up in a totally different manner and my results are exponentially better and so much easier. Like no drama these days, which I love. Keep doing what you're doing and continue to unbake that shit. I love it. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This has been just so much fun. Yeah. So much fun. Thank you for taking the time to chat with us.

It's my honor. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you. You too. Many of our listeners have asked how they can support Sense of Soul podcast. You can now buy Mandy and I a cup of coffee by going to www.mysenseofsoul.com and go to the coffee fund. You can also take one of our many workshops or classes online. We love to meet our listeners and work with them.

Mandy and I put out two podcasts a week and it is a lot of work, but we feel very blessed to be doing it. And we'd like to give a shout out and thank you to a few of our amazing listeners who donated this week. Thank you so much, Amy Wentz, Linda Bizzak, Missy Titsdale, Aubrey Hansen. Thank you so much, Opal Tedray. Thank you so much. And we have to thank Andrea Morrow for our cute coffee cups and the adorable magnets. They were hilarious. Thank you, Andrea from Las Vegas.