Sense of Soul - Overcoming Self Deception

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

We had a beautiful and powerful conversation with Ciela Wynter. Inner Work guide, Astrologer and the Author of The Inner Journey: Your True Self, an invitation to take on self-responsibility with fervor, a calling to remember your true nature, and a welcome companion on your path toward self-actualization. She is an Entrapreneur and the CEO and founder of Joan of Sparc, a movement to revolutionize the way people think and feel about life through a call to consciousness and inner work. She also is the host of the Joan of sparc podcast. She writes with soul, sings, listens to the stars, practices & shares yoga, hold new moon circles and works for fun. Ciela seeks the extraordinary in the everyday. Ciela shares insight from her life and hopes that by courageously and openly offering her own perspective, it will add light, creativity, goodness, and beauty to yours. Ciela upholds a Guru Free™ philosophy which was inspired by personal trials and tribulations of the teacher-student relationship. She honors and respects this vision through all of her work in the world. Book a Clarity Session with Ciela and read about her passions, dreams, and reflections here. https://www.cielawynter.com/ https://www.joanofsparc.com/ https://theinnerjourneybook.club Visit Sense of Soul and join our Sense of Soul Sacred Circle at www.mysenseofsoul.com. (This episode was recorded in June)

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 we have with us C. Ella Winter. She is the CEO and founder of Joan of Spark, a movement to revolutionize the way people feel and think about life through a call to consciousness and inner work. She is the author of the book, The Inner Journey, Discover Your True Self. This book is an invitation to take on self-responsibility and a calling to remember your true nature and a welcome companion on the path towards self-actualization. Thank you so much, Ciela, for being with us.

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here with the two of you I'm excited to get to know what you all are up to as well yeah sounds like we're on the same path it's good to have company good to know you're not like alone in this journey absolutely because the journey can be long it can be arduous it be, it can feel lonely a lot of the time. So it's really nice to meet others who are doing the work. Where are you both? Aurora, Colorado. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. I'm in Jackson, Wyoming. Not too far. So have you always lived in Wyoming? I grew up here. Oh, so beautiful. I grew up here, but I was gone for like 20 years but oh where'd you go for 20 years oh all over the world really in my late teens I headed basically to California and stayed there

for 20 years I was in the Bay Area and then Los Angeles and then the last 10 years I was living between Los Angeles, Madrid and Guadalajara. That sounds fun. That sounds like it probably has a lot to do with your spiritual journey. Definitely a big part of my spiritual journey, for sure. What was your childhood like when it came to spirituality? To me, you know, growing up here, my church was nature. You know, I grew up with a lot of pasture in front of the Grand Tetons with the Snake River running between us. And yeah, it was just flutters in the mountains itself. You know, there's this

grandiosity, this very powerful energy that comes from the Tetons. The Snake River is, you know, very fluid and really radiates that femininity. So there's a great balance here that taught me through just the reflection of living here about my own spirit, my own nature. My father, he's a Darwinist, you know, so he always had me look at monkeys as our ancestors. And my mother was very much a naturalist. They were both professional climbers. So I was just kind of immersed immediately. My grandmother was Christian and she would pull me aside and in secret, read me Bible stories. And I found my own way through a mixture of the three of them. I've always been a seeker from as long as I can remember. I've always had that instinct to know

that there's something more, there's something like behind this, what it I'm a deep diver and I've been an explorer to really find what that is you know I want to go back to the way you're describing where you live first of all you did it with such beauty like the way you described an aspen leaf in the river and something you said really stuck out you said nature helped me find the nature within me. I loved that. I love that you were raised in an area where you were aware of the beauty and mindful to it because, you know, life is busy. And a lot of us that live in bigger cities have to force ourselves to see the beauty in our surroundings, where for you, it sounds like it was not only implemented by your parents, but also what a beautiful place to be. Love that. Absolutely. I think in my early childhood, it was all of that. And then in high

school, of course, like any other, it's like, when can I get out of here? You know, I want to see the world. I want to go do the things I want to be as far away. There's nothing to do here. You know, so it went through phases for sure. Yeah. If you'll need to, here, you know, so it went through phases for sure. Yeah, for me too, I, you know, just, we did a retreat in Crescent View, Colorado, and while I was there, I had remembered like so many childhood memories from when I went as a child, when I didn't really appreciate everything, but I had these little whispers of my dad's voice telling me about the rocks and about this lake. And I agree, like there's these different phases of your life where you're able to connect and then you fall out of it. Like, you know, the world pulls you out of it, the conditions.

And it's like, we go from being these innocent little children who appreciates everything about being outside to hate it, to wanting to go back to that little kid. Yeah, I was gone for about 20 years and I just recently moved back here and it was the nature that brought me back here in a big way. A lot of our guests that we've had on, you know, the journey unfortunately came through pain. Yours almost sounds like it came through adventure and just branching out or was there pain there too that led you to your awakening absolutely pain yeah where pain is inevitable and suffering is optional right it's the buddha teaches us i mean my life has been full of adventure and And I, as mentioned, I, you know, I've been a seeker for as long as I can remember. And I was a yoga teacher, a documentarian in my twenties. I had early onset of like pre-cervical cancer. I was getting my master's at CIIS and somatic psychology at the

time in San Francisco, teaching maybe 20 yoga classes a week. I had to make some big shifts in my life. And so I decided to really listen. And in that listening state, I heard I needed to find a shaman. And so within three months, I did. And I went to the Peruvian Amazon. And I was there for, you know, a dieta, which you may have heard of Spanish for diet, right? And working with the plants within the Amazon, working with medicinal healing plants, power plants, and came back cancer free. And in that journey, I changed and really learned so much about myself and why we're not treating and healing cancer the way, like we're looking in the wrong place. And so I felt this need to share this work with

everyone. So I started to bring different shamans and healers into Los Angeles mid 2006, 2007, and was doing this at a time when no one really knew what ayahuasca was or these different plants and was, yeah, very inspired and invested in bringing this healing work to my community. And then throughout that I met, I was introduced to a psychologist slash shaman, who then I really resonated with and began to work with and eventually became an assistant to and began to travel the world. I was working with different organizations and helped to lead the nonprofit in the United States, which we helped to preserve the sacred traditions of indigenous culture. So I was working with the Cairo nation in Peru, primarily with the children to help prevent them from taking on our bad habits, as you were

mentioning, you know, like around the social media or for them, like a lot of the alcoholism. And then I also worked with the children monks in South India, the Tibetan refugees who were in the Ghananshartsai monastery, which is, we were working with the Dalai Lama yeah that just my life became this work and you know it was it was amazing until it wasn't and so after 10 years of that of dedicating my entire life and eventually marrying into the organization. I married the leader and, you know, all fairy tales have an ending and they're not all good. There was a situation in which I realized that everything that I thought was true was false. And my life overnight basically became a psychological thriller. And whereas I had thousands of people around the world who saw me as basically a matriarch in this community.

You know, we were traveling 1,500 airplanes in 10 years, traveling, leading ceremonies, offering healing, teaching seminars. And then I became dangerous. They were told that I was severely mentally ill and dangerous to their spiritual progression, not to talk to me. And my life literally changed. I lost everything. My husband, my homes, my community, my livelihood, everything that I thought was important was gone like a wildfire and went through my soul and so there I was left to understand who I am and why I'm here and so I came back to Jackson that's when I came back because this was a safe place for me the rest of the new chapter of life for sure oh my gosh holy shit yeah that's that's a lot of pain turned into purpose.

Yeah. I mean, as you're saying it, well, it was the hardest thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. You know, it was a, an amazing rebirth. And at that time I just literally went into my first kind of layers of cocooning, which has now become a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily practice of mine, you know, to fully dissolve who I had been and then reemerge again. And from that place, my company was born and a real clarity of purpose. So am I missing something? Like you, it sounded like you're on the right path. It sounded like you were helping all of these people. You're a part of all of these wonderful organizations and that you were, you know, had the same goals as you do now. So, you know, what was it that

blew up? How did it become like something to be feared? Well, I thought I was on the right path. I thought that I was in complete alignment with everything that I had ever wanted, being in a spiritual community, being, you know, having access to the hermetic studies, esoteric studies of all religions. It was a synthesis of world religion. It was, you know, I was traveling the world. I was helping people. Yeah. I thought on paper, my life was a dream. And in reality, it was also a dream. So, so what wasn't? So I realized that basically everything that I was doing was in service to a man. And when I found out that his actions were in the effort for personal gain, I found levels of manipulation that I was, I had been married

to a cult leader and I didn't realize it. Okay. Well, you know, it's like, what is a cult leader? Is Apple a cult? A lot of people think Apple is a cult, you know, like what is it? But to me, someone who is a spiritual leader, who is literally leading people astray when people are in danger, when people's lives are lost, when there's a trail of deep trouble and people are, they're being led by a blind, but, but the thing is that the blindness comes from within us. The, there's no just me ever after that. So, so I find it really hard to have a leader for myself. Yeah. A lot of thoughts on this. You know, I, when I created Joan of Spark, it erupted from inside of me. It was a volcanic experience from the inside where literally a mountain arose. It was very heated, feminine, hot, fiery, Joan of Spark. And it was, there was

nowhere else to go. And it was this, it was inspiration to create a, you know, a collective that is to dialogue around how do we reclaim our power? When, where have we given our power away? And so we have this guru-free philosophy. Inside of our principles, we have one that there's, there are new ways of teaching and learning that don't create codependent dynamics. They actually empower people. And so it's not like I'm anti-teacher. There's nothing, you know, it's like we all, we can all teach each other. There's, there are people that have walked a path for a lot longer who I would love to

learn from and have them be my teacher. You know, I'm, it's not that, but it's this devotional one pointed focus. This person is going to enlighten me. This person knows the path. This person has all the- Has control. Yeah. And that equates to control for sure.

So how did she get the name Joan of Arc? I love it. I love Joan of Arc. Tell us about that name. I love Joan of Arc as well. Definitely as an archetype, right? This fearless maiden warrior who is completely devoted to her inner listening, completely devoted to her higher being. And from that listening, she did not waver.

And she literally led men and women to victory at such an early age. And she was, you know, herself. And so she's always been an inspiration to me. Jonah's spark, like that spark, which is, you know, eternal, which lives inside each of us that really unites us. That is that flame of, of truth and that we can all find within ourselves. So that was Jonah's spark. And to be honest, I am in the process of dissolving my company right now. Aren't you? I'm another metamorphosis. Okay. Yeah. I'm amazed. I'm excited. We learned a lot this past year. I mean, all of us

as a humanity and what I learned was how to really, we rose to the occasion. We were able to support our customers and our local communities and how to navigate the unknown because that's where we live I just learned you know Joan of Spark was limited limited in in capacity as to what I really want to do and how I can support in a bigger way so Joan of Spark as beloved as it is and it has taught me so much is now in a process of dissolving and we've invited our community into the chrysalis with us so we are in a messy creative metamorphosis and sharing that with our community yeah i love that congratulations on that will you grieve for this because you've had it for a while oh yeah i come i have grief so basically what i did was i applied the methodology that i teach to myself and to my

company and i was like, okay, it felt like change was imminent. Change equates to death, right? Death of something. What is it? So, you know, obviously with some terror, I was like, okay, I'm going to go with this. I applied the methodology that I teach to myself, my company, I went through a process. I gave myself 24 hours, like, you know, letting go. What happens? What happens if I completely let go of this? And what emerged was clarity, absolute clarity. Yes, I am dissolving Joan of Sparks. Yes, there is something new that is birthing. And I let myself really go there and I let myself feel to the depths of my feelings. And sometimes, you know, grieving can look like it doesn't have, it doesn't live within time. It is timeless.

And for some of us, it is a very long process. For some of us, it's maybe shorter, but sharper or more profound or in the moment rather than stretched out over days and weeks. It's more of a, of a getting to that place of really being able to feel and experience. And then once we can experience and feel that place, we begin to resolve. So yeah, I went there. Are you still grieving over, you know, the relationship of your ex-husband?

Or is he your ex-husband? You know, I am absolutely not. It was a very painful, you know, again, from the outside, it looked like everything was like brilliant, you know, everything was perfect in so many ways. And I really was convincing myself that I had a best friend in him and that I was literally slaving myself away for something much higher. But coming out of that, the veil parted and the reality set in. And there was the intense physical, emotional, spiritual, mental abuses that I literally came out of that feeling. Like I looked at a, every

time I would see a corner, I would see a part of myself there in the fetal position, just shaking, like, you know, and like, how is it that I'm not actually there? I didn't, I wasn't able to come through this alone. It was, it's really that which is greater that is, you know, in my heart, that which is so much more powerful than anything I could do alone is what helped me through this and is what allowed me and taught me how to transmute very intense negative experiences into power into that which is beneficial into that which is useful I almost feel like that's how I feel sometimes about religion, you know, because I grew up Christian and Catholic and everything. You lose all of the beliefs and how you were living and this foundation.

And so, but in that place, it's a good place because then you have the opportunity to discover for yourself. Yeah, it's a complete identity, you know, wrapped up in that. And so when that begins to deteriorate, it is scary because we're, you know, we're so invested in that identity, even if it's not serving us anymore. And so that process of then that reemerging into new layers of freedom and clarity and understanding is a process and it's courageous. So I commend you for that, Shanna. I have found myself, I'm like currently wrapped in that cocoon. I'm transforming to now being alone and I'm, well, I'm not alone. I'm never alone, but you know, living alone by myself for the first time ever in my life. And I also felt like a few years ago, everything that I thought was true, even though deep down my intuition was telling me it wasn't, everything just came out. So I felt betrayed. I felt like nothing was true, that my reality was false. So my question to you is I struggle now today with self-trust because during such a long period of my life, I was gaslighted so much that it's hard to trust myself. So what did you do with that?

Yeah. Yeah. It was a profound experience to have thousands of people who I thought were family then thinking that I'm some sort of demon and scared of me. And the gaslighting was so profound. And I think it was harder when I was inside of it, because I was constantly told that I was the problem, that I was getting in between all of these people and God, I was like, you know, I was, I was all these things. And so coming out of it, it was so relieving. And I really had to go through a process of deep work around where I had deceived myself. Self-deception is probably the most rampant pandemic throughout humanity all the time. Where are we deceiving ourselves? Because we're really good at it. And I think what's exciting about the work that we do is that we're always coming

across a new layer. And really, if we name it what it is, it's deception, self-deception. We're coming through this new layer of like, wow, I knew it wasn't true. Like you were saying, Randy, it was like, I knew it wasn't, but there was something else in it. We're not clear until we're clear. And then when we're clear, I'm like, oh my God, I knew it, but I couldn't see all these things. And so having to find peace with myself, forgive myself for all of the layers of self-deception because I had wanted it to be true. I was very, I was loyal to a fault. I was too strong for my own good. You know, I could handle it.

I could take it. You know, so forgiving myself allowed myself not only to then forgive others and find compassion for even for him for the whole community but also really to become more honest with myself and what happens when we become more honest with ourself is that we liberate ourselves from all that deception becoming more honest with yourself yeah which is still a it's a constant because of the immense amount of layers of unconscious elements that we carry around yeah i'm also an astrologer so i follow you know the the patterns and we just came out of this massive eclipse cycle and following that was the saturn square in uranus and i'm just curious like you know, how the two of you have navigated this. But for me, I went down, I got, I was really sick. I was taken down.

This is very interesting. And maybe you could tell me if this is something that would happen. Mandy had come over to my house, told me that she had started her period and she's got that Mirena thing. And she's, you know, she hasn't had her period in so long well the very next day a student come over and she takes that injection to stop her period because of something that she has or whatever she tells me she started her period and i'm like oh that's weird i was like well mandy just told me that that happened to her last night not even an hour later girls i started my period two weeks early then the next day lindsey and i are fighting fighting over tampons and i said you're not supposed to be on your period either she goes i know i started two weeks early too i was like what the hell so four of us starting our period

when we're not supposed to like what's going on saturn is you know is very contractive and uranus is very expansive so if you put them together think of almost like labor pains and if we bring that into our uterus and bringing if you know as receptors of energy cosmic and then literally i look at the planets as archetypes reflecting that which is occurring inside of us. And so, I don't know, as you're saying that, I'm like, oh, you know, that energetic, that is that push pull that could then dislodge and maybe really draw. Yeah. And plus the eclipse and ending, it's a clearing. So there's a lot of clearing happening right now, big time. Maybe it has to do with that.

Isn't that strange? I found that to be so interesting. So that's my experience over the past week. I just thought that was just totally random. What about you, Mandy? I mean, you were a part of that, but. Yeah. Oh my gosh. My week has been like super chaotic, a lot of headaches, you know, the pollen is flying high in the air. So allergies, my immune system feels down for sure. I'm not very grounded right now. Also, I feel like there's something shifting in the air.

It's hot here, but it's a different kind of hot right now. I feel like this weird shift in nature right now. There's something going on this week. I've noticed that people that said that rose bushes have been dead for years are growing massively. I mean, I have seen so many people posting about how their gardens are just going crazy right now, which is so weird because it's so hot. I don't know. I feel like there's something in the air, like maybe nature's kind of replenishing itself. I don't know. And maybe that's what I was doing.

I was like purging because Shanna's right. I'm an IUD, so I should not have a period. And it was almost like my body was like, let's get rid of this stuff. My children aren't very grounded right now either. And there's been a lot of people fighting colds, immune systems, sinus infections and stuff like you, including my 16 year old and my younger one. Wow. Yeah. It's, it's amazing to hear just how it's showing up for all of us. Cause it is a real shakedown, you know, Saturn Uranus are conjunct basically this whole year, but there's

three points, which was in February, just this past. And then again, in December where they're coming together and it's just these really powerful, you know, kind of climatic moments of dislodging and also confronting resistance with, you know, our inner resistance as well to being structured, because we're like bursting at the seams, kind of like those roses of wanting to be free and express ourselves. And, and yet there's this real kind of constricted element that's kind of forcing us forward, you know, and the, and the two energies are in opposition to each other. And that's why I was feeling like, oh, the uterus, it's like, it's labor pains, you know? I will also tell you, and I don't know if it's my age, me and Shannon are 45, but I have so many women that I know that are leaving marriages. Women are starting to stand up and say no more. And they're demanding respect. I mean, the word that comes up for me is boundary, you know, and that's the debate of the moment with

Saturn holding a boundary and Uranus breaking free of that. We're breaking free. We're creating new boundaries. We're, you know, erasing the old where, you know, we're just changing. We are changing our minds in a, you know, at least we're, we're, we're prepared. I feel like personally, I feel like we're in preparation to really go to that place of changing our mind. Now, changing our mind is in my opinion, from my own personal experience of working within this is the hardest thing that a human being can do. We can change our hair. We can change our location of where we live we can change our name we can we can change our attitude you know we can we can do all kinds of things we can change habits and we can but like to change the mind like to really change who we are being is an extraordinary place and so I

this is what I've dedicated my life to is the study of that. And when I'm seeing what's occurring here, I'm like, this is the moment. We're doing the pre-work to get to that place where we can then start to really get in there because there's a lot in the way, the distractions, being misaligned in relationship, you know, like as women, just taking care of everyone else and not ourself. You know, I'm sure we can relate to that. Just whatever it is that we're confronted with in this moment is on purpose. We are confronted because we have to make a change.

And that change will then lead us further down the line to where we can do more of that inner work. In your book, The Inner Journey, you talk a lot about that. In chapter 11 specifically, talking a lot about self-inquiry. And I loved this part because Mandy and I at heart are real investigators, but you say that we become private investigators

to the universe within, researching the inner stars, planets, and galaxies for clues to the profound mysteries. Ciela, I can't believe how poetic you are. Your tongue is of like angels. Thank you, Shanna. That's very kind of you. Absolutely astonishing. It's amazing that we, like who we are is amazing. And we spend in our culture, we spend the majority of our time in our outer world. You know, we are really caught up in our careers, our families, our, you know, even our physical health and all of that is the responsibilities and the demands on us, especially, I would say, especially as women, because of,

you know, being mothers and all that we juggle on a daily basis is phenomenal. And when I look at cultures that primarily, maybe they have a 50-50 balance between inner and outer work or other cultures that have even more of an inner world, you know, like a Tibetan monk, right? Their life is around enriching their inner world. And they still have an outer world, but so much of their life is dedicated to the inner world. So, you know, it could be a 75, 25%. And we are the opposite. And many of us, especially in the United States, may not even know we have an inner world. So it is uncharted territory.

And the invitation is big. And for me, what I'm excited about is I'm like shouting from the rooftops. The invitation is now let's do this. It is hard. It's difficult. There are things you're going to find in there that you do not want to know. You do not want to see. And how do we deal with that? We give thanks. Thank you for showing me what I could not see with my own eyes, because now I have the opportunity to change it because we cannot change anything that we cannot see. And, you know, if we look at, you know, all the statistics around, even if you look at the scientific evidence around how much brain power do we use versus what four or 5% of our brain,

maybe if we're lucky 3%, I think is kind of a stat. You can also transfer that to consciousness. Like, you know, how conscious are we? There's more than 90% of us in our unknown or unconscious. Then there's a lot to discover there. I'm really excited to say that I just recorded an audio book of this. So I'll be launching that this month. I haven't told anyone. So this is hear it here first. Perfect. Perfect opportunity. Yay. We are all about the audibles, especially because Shanna, I don't know how she does it. She puts those earbuds in and she'll listen to five books in a day. She's she and do everything else in life in her brain actually soaks it in. I'm not like that. I have to like sit and like have nothing else going on in order for me to absorb it. But you know,

it's funny. I was, no, it's actually, it's not funny. It is sad. I just realized how I deceived myself deeply. And that is that I have spent so much of my life being a detective of others and never being a detective of myself you know and I think we're taught that from such a young age you know I was constantly trying to figure out other people instead of trying to figure out myself yours too most of my life congratulations mandy yeah you know i've noticed this trend going on like where people are trying to diagnose everyone else like you know trying to figure out if their spouse is a narcissist you know what it doesn't matter if he is or he isn't why are you trying to label him why are you trying is it you know when i started

thinking about why i would try to diagnose other people, it was really just to maybe to justify my own actions or to get validation of how I was feeling. Why do we, why do we think we have to do that? Why do we think we have to diagnose other people and be detectives of them in order to validate our own feelings? Yeah, it's, it is a very common phenomena. And, you know, when we start looking at others as reflections of ourselves, like, what is this person teaching me? What is this person showing me about myself that really irritates me? What that I don't like, you know, instead of putting the label out there? I mean, look, I was married to a cult leader. What does that say about me? What was I looking for? What did I need? What was I attracted to? You know, there was married to a cult leader. What does that say about me? What was I looking for? What did I need? What was I attracted to? You know, there was a lot of benefits or at least seeming

benefits to being the leader's wife, right? Like he lived on a pedestal. I was then living on a pedestal, you know, and the, and the good thing about pedestals is that they fall and they come tumbling down, but it's all an illusion. And so in that moment of like, I was looking for something, I was looking for something outside of myself to fulfill a need that now I've learned is entirely inside like there is nothing out there that can provide me what I can provide inside myself which is not even coming from me it comes from deeper than that you know okay Ciela and Mandy and you guys are going to have to help me out the shadow self we we've been talking a lot about it lately if a person is reflecting reflecting and they're with this person, and you may say it's the whole mirroring and all this, I wonder if the person's totally not authentic.

You are attracted to the persona or the fake part of them. You have no idea. You know, they have, you know, ill intentions. You're attracted to the good parts of them. That's why you were so hurt. Selling himself as this person. I don't know. I have a hard time with saying, oh, you were attracted to the bad part because you were unaware of it. I haven't thought about this, but Mandy, do you want to go first? I'm over here like, damn, that's a really good freaking point that's all i got well i mean let me tell you why i bring this up because if someone's doing shadow work with you they may make you feel like you were attracted to this bad person work

when you weren't we're attracted to these aspects of them that were cult-like or narcissistic like but you weren't because you didn't even realize that's what it was because you were attracted to this fake part of him, this faux person. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. To me, what comes up is, yes, I was attracted to the illusion, which means that I was deceiving myself. So just to be honest with me, like I was deceiving myself. I was attracted to the illusion. That's my responsibility ultimately. And my unconscious realm, there are aspects of me that were attracted to that darkness, you know? And so that is where I become a private investigator. Like, what is it in me that literally brought me to that? You know, that I can't see, I don't identify with, that's not me. That's the shadow piece, right? It's like human one, human two, we're attracted. This is, you know, the fingers

is what we can see and the rest we can't, but all of it is being brought together. So this part that we can't see is also attracted to each other. And then there's karma. There's like, who have we been before? What actions have I taken? What have I done? What is the lesson here for me to change? Because for me, this was not a new experience. I have access to understanding about myself before now and could clearly see that in this lifetime, I was given a choice that I've had before, which was to suffer or not to suffer. And whereas before I had chosen to suffer, which means to remain in the lie, to remain in the illusion, to remain in the false. It's that place of crisis. And it's like, I chose that. But this

time I chose something different. I chose not to suffer and my life falls apart, but I'm not suffering. Because I was able to make the choice to leave, I trust that. Look at the places, same for you, Mandy, like look at the places that you have made decisions that have been in favor of your wellbeing, trust those, you know, as a point of reference. Yeah. And then we strengthen that like a muscle. Well, and then the, the universe also has been, you know, handing me over a lot of beautiful, intense signs that are validating that what I did for myself was the right choice. They're hard because I'm in the storm of it. This is also new, but I'll never forget. We, I, one of our guests said a writing of hers. She never thought that

she could truly love again because of her love for, for God. It was so deep. And I thought about that and I was like, what? And that's kind of the place where I'm at. And let me explain why, because I don't trust humans. I don't do it. And that's just where I'm at right now. And I'm having to do a lot of work, but it's like, I don't trust earthly humans. And not just because of that relationship, but like Shanna said, a lot of the conditions, it was very disheartening, you know, and my love is so strong. I call it the source that sometimes, sometimes I can relate to what she said. I can also, I can also relate to that point of reference of love that is not human. That, however, it is our work to humanize that love, to embody that, to become that.

And that is what I believe is possible. You are poetic. Oh my God. You just have such a way with words words the way they flow out of your mouth so calm and content even when sharing such a painful story I hope I can get there one day yeah you know what you really remind me of nature nature. Thank you, Shanna. That's the, like an incredible compliment. And so do you, you remind me of nature. Like, and so do you, Mandy, like we are nature, we are nature. So thank you for that. And I pass it back to you because that is true.

You're like the calm nature in the storm what do you represent in nature oh you know I definitely would probably represent the seasons of change and impermanence and accepting of that fully embrace that feel very connected to that beautiful and you, Mandy? I feel like a bird, you know, I'm flighty and I can have perspective from above, but I can also be super grounded and sit on a branch. I can dive down fast and, you know, do twirls like a storm, but I can also just sit and love and observe and sing and be happy, but also be fierce when I need to prey on food. I've always just loved birds. My daughter bought me a bird book guide for Mother's Day

and it's got all the Colorado birds. And I wanted this summer, I want to go and just start folding back each corner of each bird that I find here in Colorado. Well, then come on over girl but no white every time I go outside yeah right oh my gosh how about you how about how would you describe yourself as nature I will currently and actually I think my favorite place to be is literally inside the chrysalis, like in the dissolve, like where everything is possible and where death meets birth and, you know, it's transformation.

It's just all happening at once. And yet it's so still, you know, there's this, that, that calm that you see, that calm you experience for me is like observe a chrysalis just at a glance, and you just see this beautiful kind of encapsulated prism of life. And within it is how I feel. So where death meets rebirth, that is literally happened to me in the end of May, beginning of June, twice in my life. I've had two near-death experiences that were both in June. And then these big transformations, like right now, I feel like there's this death of my life, my marriage, and then this rebirth of me right now on the same week

as those near-death experiences. Wow. This is a very transformational month for me i'm our solstice right now as well it's the change right it's we're leading up to this big climactic light field experience where we receive that radiating sunlight for as longer than any other day of the year and mandy when you were sharing that it's like well it's really awesome to pay attention to anniversaries in the sense, astrologically, we call them echoes. One experience happens and maybe it's very intense. And then the next year or when it next comes around, it's maybe a little bit less intense, but just, you know, like an echo of that. And then here you are in another echo, but now it's not maybe so physical or so like in the danger zone in that way, but you're still facing death and rebirthing yourself.

I've never heard that before. Yeah. The echoing it. So do you grow up loving the stars there? I'm sure I can only imagine. And I hope someday to go on a road trip with Shanna to Jackson. I heard it's so beautiful. Yes, the stars. I mean, just so little bit of light pollution here, you know, so it's just, it really is amazing. I did absolutely grow up loving the stars. And I started learning astrology

about 20 years ago, more out of survival, because I saw a transit that I was heading into starting around 2020. So last year that I'm in for like these next couple of years that literally every time I would get my chart read, the astrologer's mouth would just drop to the floor. I was like, you're not supposed to do that. What is going on? And so I had to learn astrology in order to understand. That's how you're guided. Yeah. It's not funny how that is. We're so guided to like learn

so much about, you know, the universe and most of the journeys that I've been on and the discoveries and the different techniques I use for healing, I've all been led to, to try to further this investigation within myself. I just think it's so beautiful, but you have to be aware. So that self-awareness piece is always like the first step of everything and so important. Well said. So I would love to know the inspiration behind this book and your hopes for this book. Thank you. Wow. The inspiration. So I started writing a book four years ago, you know, and I thought that that would be my first book, but it turns out I'm still, it's on the shelf somewhere. And I wrote this book in 10 days. And I mean, that's often how my poetry does. I write poetry and it

just, you know, comes through. But this book was a surprise. And from within this book, I wrote a curriculum and started to offer courses based on this curriculum through GemSpark and will continue to offer curriculum and even an evolved version of this curriculum, which I'm very excited about. And basically what this teaches, what the book inspires, the book is an invitation. It's an opening to our own relationship to our inner world in a new way. And what the curriculum offers is a process of moving through the layers of the mind. Because really my whole life and everything that I'm about is I'm working really hard to change my mind. The book is kind of an example of my process within that to inspire yours.

Yeah, so I'm looking for... I have done very little marketing for this book at all because I wrote it last year and then, you know, launched it during the lockdown and was, you know, running my company really strong, you know, I'm CEO of this company and it just, I gave it everything. And I think that's also a lesson is that I'm, you know, at Capricorns, we work for fun and, you know, learning more work-life balance, how to take a day off, how to, you know, really integrate more self-care, which I love. I love self-care and I do that pretty much daily, but just to do more of that. So this book, you know, I think it has a life and with the release of the

audio book this next month, we'll see. I'm excited to start sharing it. I really haven't. So yeah. Another thing on your website was a storytelling course. I kept telling Mandy to go there because Mandy loves telling stories and Mandy has this awesome thing called raw where she just is she's really fucking raw and I'm just like beautiful because she connects with so many people is that part of your journey is telling your story yeah you know I am also a storyteller I love telling stories I mean storytelling is life I mean how else do we learn anything? We're always telling stories. I was very honored to be able to host a dear friend of mine,

John Cry, who's an incredible producer, high integrity, just like an amazing human being who knows it inside and out, the art of storytelling. So we were able to offer that through Jonah Spark. And yeah, I really encourage him and support him to continue to share that work. And he has been a mentor for me. We have been collaborators. Yeah, there's some fun projects in the works in that regard, for sure. I can't wait. Awesome. A lot of people don't know what a community means. What is a community? Awesome question, Mandy. I love that so much. Just like everything, yoga, full spectrum, right? It can mean a lot of different things these days. So can a community. For me, what is important, at least around community, is support, mutual respect, coming together in order to lift one another up. I'm here, you're here, we are here. I have a 11th house son. I don't know if that means anything

to you, but 11th house is community, society, friendships. And so, you know, my son being there is like, that's life. So I'm a community builder, you know, and I've done that throughout my life. And my next project will also be a community, a community of people that are doing inner work that we can help each other because it is so, so challenging. And it is very personal. No one else can do this work for us. But to be able to be, you know, surrounded by other people that are doing it, who are there to cheer you on, who are there to cheer you on,

who are there to reflect and support in a safe space. I'm into it. If you ever wanted to leave one of our women's circles that we have that we created just for that. And it's not like your typical, you know, women's circle, it's whatever the fuck you want it to be. You're leaving it, but we just want different energies leading it so we can learn from different people. I'd be honored. It'd be so fun. Yeah. They're very intimate, about 10 people. Yeah. They've been really good, but yeah, it's just about bringing another energy. I love the way you said that Shanna. And now it's time for break that shit down. Being yourself takes so much courage,

but what else are you going to do? Be someone else or be for someone else? Who are you going to be for? That's it. That's so real. Yeah. Thank you so much. How are people going to find you you dissolving your company and your it will you also be dissolving your website yeah well

I have yellowwinter.com I lead new moon circles every new moon inner work community calls every Thursday and you can find that on Jonah Spark and also find it in my link and bio on my Instagram. Are you still going to be doing the clubhouse? Yeah, we'll be doing the clubhouse. Would love for you all, you know, and I'd love for the two of you to come to one of the inner work community calls. That'd be really fun. I would love to. Absolutely.

Yeah, for sure. So where do people get your book? Can they get it anywhere? Yeah. Ask your local bookstore, you know, to order it for you. I'm really a fan of local bookstores and also it's on the beast, otherwise known as Amazon. Yeah. It's just been a pleasure. I loved being in your vibe. That's why I was thinking, you know, I think that our listeners would too, who join our circles. Yeah. Let's do it. It sounds

wonderful. It's really been a pleasure to view as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. You know, Sense of Soul was originally created because we knew personally how lonely and confusing the journey through spiritual awakening can be. We wanted to connect with like-minded souls, be a part of a community of divine unity. Sense of Soul Sacred Circles was created for just this, a much needed safe container where you can connect with amazing women from all walks of life to openly express yourself and relate to others with an open heart and mind. Monthly themed circles via Zoom, powerful topics that Sense of Soul stands for self-love awareness trusting your

intuition healing grief reclaiming your power empaths moon cycles and more jump on our website right now my sense of soul.com together we truly are better learning from one another new tools and wisdom sharing our journeys with each other thank you we rise to lift you up thanks for listening