the bossbabe podcast - 332. Living From Overflow VS Overwhelm, Tapping into Your Inner Power + Rediscovering Your True Identity with Alexi Panos

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

This episode is perfect for our community of high achieving women. Alexi Panos is back on the podcast talking all about how to come home to yourself, balance the polarity between your inner masculine and feminine through nervous system work. We talk about how this work applies to everything in life from sex and relationships, to letting go of people- pleasing and becoming a magnet for the peace, money, and life you desire. All while letting go of needing any of those external things for validation, because you are your safety. Listening to myself has been one of the most powerful things for me in my life and business. I can’t wait to see what this episode inspires within you.  HIGHLIGHTS How Alexi “does it all” with 4 kids under 5, and what it looks like for her to take time for herself Nervous system work to feel safe in your body, shed the “should's”, and find all the validation you need within What Alexi did to dissolve her old marriage + start a new relationship with her husband How to balance the polarity of masculine and feminine within yourself Become a magnet for the sex, relationships, and money you desire LINKS Join The Société - enrollment closes soon  Check out Awaken The Muse with Alexi FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Alexi Panos: @alexipanos

The numbers don't matter anymore. I just want peace. I just want happiness. I want connection. I want family. I want love. I want joy. I want pleasure. Like when you get to that state, you can still create from that state and let it be known. You'll create so much more from that state because that's the state, especially women, that's where we're at our most powerful. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise keep going and fighting on she is on a mission to be her best self in all areas it's just believing in yourself confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success so we were just saying yeah you'd be on the podcast more than any other guest.

Which is insane. I love it. And I'm so grateful. I'm so honored. Well, I'm glad that you're here again. Yes. And okay, let's talk about having full lives because you have a full life. You have four and a five now.

Which chaos? Hey, tell me about it. Tell me everything. It's just, it's crazy. It's just nonstop craziness. And I often look at the kids and like my house and I'm a Virgo, so I like things clean. And I'm just like, you know, this is awesome.

And it's Preston and I look at each other and we're like Zen training. Like we're, it's like we're training to be Zen masters because our house is crazy. And we've got three majors. We've got two, three majors right now, twins. So it's, it's extra crazy. It's just all the things.

It's so funny because before I had Noemi I was like you know I'm not doing screen time with my children and now you're like here please stop crying take the screen like there's so many things I think you and even now there's probably things I say as a parent of one yes that by the time it comes to parent of multiples I'm like there's no rules that like i look back to just having kingston my oldest who's five and i'm like man that's like a vacation i could do anything with him we could we traveled the world with him we did x y and z with him like we felt pretty free and then you add like twins into the mix it's like oh just got real crazy you know and

then you add like a toddler i've got a two-year-old too, just turned two. So it's just, you know, we're in this constantly navigating children who are learning how to navigate themselves, their identity, their nervous systems. And knowing what we know, it's our job to really stay calm and regulated in these states to support them in learning how to be their best selves. So it's a big responsibility. It's big. And not only do you have four amazing babies, but you run multiple companies. You're really into real estate.

You're doing a lot of things. A lot of things. Like we were just talking before, I'm flipping over a house and redesigning a house right now that we're turning into a short-term rental. And we've got a full real estate investment portfolio and regular investment portfolio and regular investment portfolio and all the things we have a tech company so we're just you know we're busy we're

busy and it's funny because I hear that I'm like okay I need more coffee and it's so funny because you talk about when you when you just had one baby when you had Kingston how it was a vacation for me I feel like stepping into motherhood on top of everything else my nervous system it feels like every week at this point just needs to continue to learn to expand and expand and expand did you feel that even with one oh my gosh with one i was so grateful for somatic work and nervous system work and i think five years ago is when i really started to get serious about nervous system work because I had to. There was that like, oh, this is a lot. And my body actually is like, how do I be with this?

How do I be with this powerfully? How do I be with this in my body? How do I be with this and be grounded and feel peace? The overwhelm and like the overgiving and the overproducing and all of that, that used to be my go-to, because my nervous system was wired to be an entrepreneur. And we're going to talk about that a bit. But what that looks like is a lot of entrepreneurs actually have wounding around what it looks like to be accepted in the world. And then so we learn that if we're useful, and if we give, and if we produce, we're then valuable, we're safe, we're loved. And so that nervous system strategy is usually implemented from zero to seven. And then we see it just in all aspects of our lives. And it transitions into parenthood if we're not aware and not careful. And I saw myself trying to be the

best parent. You know, it's like, okay, I'm going to do all the things. I'm going to make sure I'm perfect at this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, oh my gosh, my body was just constantly on overdrive. And so that's when the nervous system work really started to drop in like, Lex, you gotta go deep here because this affects everything. Not just parenting, but like my sex life,

my relationship with my husband, my ability to be real and vulnerable and present in my relationships. Like everything was affected by that it's so true so much of it comes down to the nervous system and i'm really realizing that it's just constantly regulating and learning how to be able to take on more and expand but doing it in a way that does feel good because i know i speak to so many friends who are in it like in the thick of it and they're like how are women doing all of this? All of the businesses and the babies

and still being amazing wives and showing up for themselves. And so much of it, the root, I think, is the guilt. And the way I think about the guilt is like, we wouldn't have guilt if we weren't trying to do two things at the same time, if we didn't have two competing desires. If we didn't feel like when we're at work,

we should be with our kids or when we're with our kids, we should be at work. because it's those competing desires that create all of this guilt that's right and i started to realize that early on when i because i i remember before i had no i mean i was thinking i don't understand mom guilt i won't feel it and when it started to creep in for me i realized hold up this isn't necessarily guilt it's competing desires that i'm trying to do two things at once that it's impossible and that's that's what I was going to say like we are actually doing too much and now we can get into like a more sociological conversation here but there's societally we're really looking at programming

that says well women are supposed to take care of the home and we're supposed to take care of the kids and now we're supposed to be boss babes you know and it's like yes to boss babes like we have taken our independence back and we have charged the fort we're earning more money we're out earning and outperforming men in a lot of different industries which is awesome and the programming I'll speak for myself ran so deep around what like a good Greek woman is supposed to do I'm supposed to keep up a nice home I'm supposed to feed my family I'm supposed to keep up a nice home. I'm supposed to feed my family. I'm supposed to be the best mom. I'm supposed to be present and loving and like be home, but also still working. And it's, it is impossible. And I think we've got to start having these conversations more in public to start changing the public narrative around what it

means to be a mother. A mother does not mean you're an automatic housewife, house cleaner, home cook, child rearing. It's that you're a mother in the terms that you choose. And we really have to start taking our power back and really start enrolling our partners in having an equal share at home. Oh, equal shares. Isn't that an interesting conversation? It is. How long we got on this podcast? And it is really interesting. I think also the breadwinning conversation of this is i feel like our generation especially not to say there wasn't women before us that were crushing it in this realm they were but we're seeing it more and more i think 60 of american households now have female breadwinners

yeah and i think that's amazing and we're also the ones who are growing and having babies and doing a lot of things. And so that equality in the household, that's been a conversation I think is, I mean, it's continuing to ongoing in my household because it's challenging. So challenging. And I have to say, like my husband's been amazing

in seeing at, like looking at his conditioning and being aware of like, oh, I didn't realize there was this like just unconscious expectation right and it's because he wasn't trained to do that and I've got three boys I've got three boys and one girl and I'm thinking about like these are future husbands future fathers this is a future wife a future mother I have to show them we my husband and I have to show them what a household of equanimity looks like. Like what does it look like to not say, oh, I'm doing my wife a favor

because I'm helping her clean or I'm helping her with the dishes. That assumes it's her role. Rather going, I'm a part of this house. I hold this house as well. And I take pride in that. And you should too. Right? So it's a big conversation. I love that it's starting to become more of a natural conversation in households. It's also challenging though, because our men are stepping up way more than most of their fathers did. So there's this like resurgence of their presence as fathers and partners, and they're doing a great job and it's still not enough because it was so out of whack that now it's like we're kind of trying to catch up and so we're in this interesting gray area

right now where we have to have compassion and love and appreciation for the changes that they are making in terms of generationally and there's just more that's required now because there's more that's required from us and we can only do and hold so much yeah it's like really this generation that we're in there's not really a lot of blueprints of how this has been done or especially blueprints that have been shown publicly and i think that is honestly one of the great things about people with platforms whether it's celebrities influencers people that we follow online that have platforms that are showing this, because it's an example of what is possible.

And I think that's actually really important. I love it. I love these open conversations. Yeah, it's great. And I think like something I'm really, really focused on sharing is how hard it is, you know, because a lot of times we look at people who are in the work or who look like they're doing everything great and everything's perfect and we think okay once i nail it then i'll

get there and and for me like i'm in this work i teach nervous system work you know i teach personal development and transformation and all of these things and i'm still like navigating the ups and downs like i still have to really focus on coming back to a new nervous system that I'm rewiring because my old patterns are so deep and so ingrained. And so I think knowing that it's a process is really important and taking some idea of perfection or we're going to get to this area off the pedestal because it's a constant work in progress. And, you know, for me, one of the things I had to really navigate through was almost losing my marriage, work in progress. And, you know, for me, one of the things I had to really navigate through was almost losing my marriage, which was huge.

And that came from both my husband and I trying to have this big life, being so busy trying to build all the things that we just kept missing each other and kept putting it to the side. Like, we'll get to it, we'll get to it, we'll get to it. Four kids, we'll get to it. Moving state, we'll get to it.

Another business, we'll get to it. A big opportunity, we'll get to it, right? And eventually the pile is so big that we swept under the rug that it's like oh we need to deal with this and we almost lost our marriage you know so it's important to know that like life is hard it can be really challenging sometimes but in the hardship is where we have the opportunity to get really honest and make some deep changes, you know? So, yeah, so true. And something you said too in that was having to really work with our deep wounds and maybe our old nervous systems

and things that we've known in the past. And I know for me, and I think probably a lot of women, when it comes to redefining what our roles look like, the conversation of worthiness and who are we if we aren't saying yes yes if we aren't people pleasing oh what's so interesting is i'm an enneagram eight i'm a challenger i never pegged myself as a people pleaser yeah and after i had my daughter postpartum rocked me to the core and really made me take a big deep look at my identity and who I was. And what I realized was, yes, I was innate,

and yes, I had my own mind, and there was still this very deep part of me that just wanted to please, wanted to make people happy, wanted to make people proud of me, wanted to be helpful. You know, I even think about the role I created for myself within my company. I, at one point, was responsible for almost every single dollar

we were bringing in the business. And I think about how is that my responsibility? I made myself so indispensable. That's right. Because that's where I was getting my worthiness from. And it's so interesting to identify that. And that's so powerful. I relate to so much of that. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, same. I'm a nine on the Enneagram. So it makes more sense for me to be the people pleaser and keep the peace. But you said something that's really palpable is that you made yourself indispensable. What that was, was your nervous system going, if I'm indispensable, if I'm the most useful person to everybody here, I'll be safe. And that strategy

worked and it kept working. So it kept wiring deeper into your system, which is why you kept doing it. And sometimes we have the awareness of like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired. I'm overworked. I'm overgiving. Why do I keep taking this on my plate? Why do I keep saying yes? Why can't I say no to X, Y, and Z? Or why can't I offset some of my work to somebody else? And it's because your nervous system knows that this is the safe route. And so your body is going to automatically take you to the safest, lowest common denominator. Go here. Say yes.

Do the thing. Hold it all. Until you actively start to re-engage and work with it and start to reprogram a felt sense of safety in doing nothing, in delegating, in trusting others, in not being needed. Like that was such a huge one for me. Like my strategy, usefulness. Be useful, be the most useful person to everybody in your life and no one will hurt you. Unconscious, of course. I had no idea until I had an idea. And then I started seeing it everywhere. Oh my gosh, I'm the most useful to my husband. I do all the things. I'm the most useful to my kids.

I'm the most useful to my family. I'm the most useful to my friends. I'm the most useful in my businesses. I'm the one, it all falls on me. And then I'm also resentful for that. Right. Just like, but I'm causing it because that's how I get my safety. And it's such a, you know, our minds, when we start to really like unpack it, we're like, oh my gosh, how am I doing this thing? It makes no sense that I would keep doing it. But it does when you look at it from a biological perspective, from a survival perspective. And until for me, my rupture was what happened with my husband and I, where it's like, we, I'm the most useful person to my husband, right? And yet even then, my nervous system

needed to set up patterns in my life to try and break that pattern because it was overworking my body, right? So again, your nervous system, while it's doing this thing, because, hey, that's how we survive. It's also going to try to create scenarios in your life to dismantle that program because it's working you on overdrive. And again, your nervous system is like, hey, yes, survival. Yes, tribe. Yes, you want to be included. But also like we're almost in burnout hormonally. We're almost in burnout

biologically. So we're going to have to change some things. And so it put me in a scenario with my husband where it's like, hey, you're the most useful person to your husband and still this isn't going to work. So what do you want to do now? And that's when I was really forced to go, oh, I need to build a whole different system to relate to my husband where I'm not the most useful person to him anymore, where I'm actually the most useful person to myself, where I'm self-sourcing my regulation instead of trying to get it from him. Huge. Let's get into that because I already know as I'm nodding along, there's so many other women nodding along and I know what's coming up for them is, but if I'm not useful, will I still be loved?

Who am I? Will I still be needed? Will there still be a place for me here? And I think it's a really important conversation because in it, you will lose certain relationships. I think there's a lot of quotes that go out online and I'm guilty of this myself, but if people can't handle your boundaries,

they're not your people and all those things. And it's all well and good saying it but when you do start to put your own boundaries in place and you start to change up the way people have always related to you for some people that's not going to work anymore that's right and you're going to lose some relationships because you are stepping into what is more of an authentic, probably powerful version of yourself, that's really hard. Hard. It's so easy to say like, oh, I want to own my truth. I want to be in my power. I want to own my light and my radiance. It's like, okay, well, that's going to require some changes, especially for women who have been programmed to be likable. And all of us have. All of us have been programmed. When we talk about this in my

program, Awaken the Muse, the marriageable woman, are you marriage material? And it's from such a young age with all the Disney programming of like, well, are you the type of girl that's going to be chosen by a partner? Because if you're not, you're going to be alone. You're going to be that woman with all the cats alone at some point, right? Because you're too hard. You use your voice too much. You speak up too much. I look at The Little Mermaid, right? We just had a resurgence of this film. That was my favorite film growing up. She traded her voice for legs, for a man. She traded her voice for a man. And that was my programming. It's like, that was my programming it's like that was my film i

love that and to think about it's like how many films is a woman waiting to be chosen how many i even saw it in when i was doing screen time with my kids um there's the finger family song you've probably heard it uh yes like daddy finger mommy finger any parent out there knows what i'm talking about it's the one that you can never get out of your head but anyway they show the daddy finger and daddy's working and playing with the kids the mommy comes out and she's she's got a chef hat on and she's bringing food to people and i'm like it's everywhere it's like um miss rachel all the parents will know the wheels on the bus. Daddy says, I love you.

Mommy says, shh, shh, shh. Exactly. Mommy's the disciplinarian. Daddy's the fun one. And here we go. So mama's got to fit into this role in order to be mama. Like that's what, well, mama's this. And daddy's fun and playful and all the things.

And daddy works. But mama's this. And so we have this programming of like, we have to be good. We have to be pleasant. We have to be likable. And so when we start to own our truth and we can still be pleasant and likable in our truth, but it's a little more grounded in reality, right? We're not acquiescing our truth to make people happy. We're having firmer boundaries. We're having our back. Like I can't tell you how many times I have gaslit myself, like, have an intuitive feeling. Oh, no, that's, just say yes, just go

to that thing. Oh, don't upset them, right? And we just gaslight ourselves and we ignore our intuition. And so we start to build massive distrust in our bodies and in our own truth. And then when we want to get back to it, it seems so far away. And so, yes, we do have to be willing to have hard conversations when we get into this work. Yes, things are going to change. And thank God. Thank God. Because it may be uncomfortable, but it's what's real.

And when it's real, it's palpable. And we can actually live a life of alignment and truth that we can settle into and go oh yeah this is me versus like oh I don't really know who I am who do I need to be in this scenario this scenario in this scenario to make all of you happy impossible right and it's an impossible game that most of us play yeah and I even think about when you're saying who do I need to be in this room in this room? When you grow up where you're maybe not seeing a lot of entrepreneurs around you or you're not seeing people do the my family I didn't grow up around this and so I learned very quickly I had to kind of switch things on when I walked into a room and think about where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be and that is something you have to really work hard to break because it starts to become part

of your personality where I'm a very introverted person I would notice myself walk into a room and become one of the most extroverted people. And I think, was that really me? Or was I doing that because I wanted to be liked? Because I thought I needed to have the network because I thought it would make me more magnetic, attractive to people. Or actually, I'm probably happier

sitting in the corner talking to one person. And knowing that about yourself and starting to honor honor that is challenging yeah what has your journey been with that and being with okay starting to see who you are at your core and what you need and what it looks like for you to be in your power how has that looked in terms of your relationships and your worthiness and how you've changed that up yeah it's such a good question um you know, it's interesting. I think when I first really started getting into this,

there was a massive like hiccup in my life where it's like the things that used to work really well stopped working. And at first it's like, you know, cause you go into the scarcity of like, but wait, my work is supposed to be this. My relationships are supposed to be this. My relationships are supposed to be this. And again, I almost lost my marriage around this, right? Like there was a lot at stake with

four little kids. And what I kept coming back to is like, if not now, then when, right? Like, what's it going to take for me to actually be who I am in this life, in this lifetime, right? Like, I don't want to get to 90 years old and look at my life and be like, oh shit, I did this for that person and that person and that person and that person. But what about what I wanted? What about what mattered to me? What about my values, my needs? Like, what about all that, right? And I just had to have that really hard conversation with myself and, and keep trusting that the truth will set you free. The truth is, is the path of liberation and liberation may not look like the entire life that I spent all of, you know, decades

building to and working towards and being really proud of that all that might have to crumble. And the beauty of it is parts of it crumbled that weren't in alignment. But then when I really started accessing who I am at my core and doing the work to hold myself with my nervous system around this new identity, the true identity that's always been there, what happened was all my work started taking off that was in alignment with that truth. My relationship that was in alignment with that truth started taking off that was in alignment with that truth. My relationship that was in alignment with that truth started taking off. My friendships that were in alignment with that truth started deepening and growing and expanding. And my life is so full now of all the

things that really feel resonant. There's like a coherence to everything, a synergistic feeling of like, yes, everything here is supposed to be here. Whatever's not here is not supposed to be here. And like trusting that is so hard, especially with a nervous system somatic pattern that was like, hey, you need to work to make things happen. That one was the hardest one for me to break. Hard work creates results. Like in my story was, I know I can create anything

in the world because I will work harder than anyone in the world. That was my story. I was proud of it. Right now. Can I actually create more success with less work? Whoa. Like that, that whole concept still to this day, I have to breathe into that because the part of me that has the urgency to like, go do it, finish the project, take it over. You'll do it better. Like that part of me, that's like, just do it. the project take it over you'll do it better like that part of me that's like just do it just take it it's such an automatic response that I have to do the work in the real time present moment to go nope this is not who I am anymore I do things differently now and it's a process it's a practice something you said there was coming home to who you always were and that

authentic self and I think about that where I feel like I came home to myself during postpartum was I shed a lot of the shoulds. I shed a lot of I should do this. I should show up to this. I should say yes to this. I shed a lot of that. And I was like, OK, if I don't have any shoulds left, who am I? And having that conversation and at the same time, some questions that come up when we get into this work that I know a lot of people are listening to and saying right now is well if if you if I

am not the most useful person to him or them what if someone else is uh-huh that's a hard question because it might be true yeah it might be true and and, again, it's like you have to really get clear on your why. Like, again, it sounds really cool to do this work. It's not. I just want to like live in my truth. I want to own my full expression. Well, OK, that that's going to require change. Change is hard. Humans don't like change. We have built a very comfortable, cozy life around us to avoid change, right? So I always joke, and it's bad marketing on my part. You know, I should be telling everyone, you should love it. This work is so great. And it is. The result is great, right? But the process

can be really challenging because it may not look the same. You may not still be with that person. And the truth is, I'm not with the same husband I had even a year ago, right? Because we had to come to the table and melt away and dissolve the old relationship we had. We did, we did a whole like death ceremony and closing ceremony around it was beautiful. And we're getting to know each other again

from these new bodies. You know, we're 10 years in at this point, four kids, multiple businesses, lots have change, lots of change, right? So with all that change comes a new person. And we opted in and said, okay, we're going to get to know who we are now, despite the ruptures we've been through, despite all the pain we've caused each other, caused ourselves. And we're choosing to be with the brand new version. And that's going to look different. Now, I could have walked away, right? He could have walked away. We could have dated somebody else and had a whole new experience with that person. But the

truth is, wherever you go, there you are. And who's the they, who's the you that shows up to that scenario? Because if you're not working on the you that's showing up, you're going to just keep repeating the same patterns. And that, hi, that was me for so long. You know, new business, same pattern. New partnership, same pattern. Oh, new evolution in your partnership. Now you're married, same pattern. Oh, now you have kids, same pattern. Until we deal with the patterns that are blocking us and keeping us from our truth it's just going to keep following us everywhere so that was my my why was like I am clear that this isn't working for me I am tired I am exhausted like not even

tired exhausted like burnt out I'm I'm over giving everywhere in my life. The people pleasing is like subtle, but it's there. You know, anyone who saw me, they'd be like, oh, she owns her truth. But really I was like trying to mitigate against, you know, making sure everybody liked me. Even on online, it's like, wow, it was everywhere, right? The good girl programming runs so deep. And if one of my values is freedom, and it's been one of my values since I was young, and if I really want to be liberated, it's about embodying liberation, being fully liberated from all the shoulds, like you're saying, from all the programming, from all the identities that are keeping me in this prison

that I've got the key for. But I've got to be willing to step out of the cage that I've made a really comfortable home. And that is a hard thing to do because in the unknown, it's like, we don't know what's out there, but from a place of like our truth and our freedom and our liberation, I know I'm going to create anything out there that's a thousand times better than the prison that I was, you know, decorated really nice and had all the nice things in, but it was a prison and no more, no more. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity,

which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time

to do so because they are offering Boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe wherever you go there you are yeah huge that's huge and i even thinking about when i was breaking these patterns myself too i realized what I was playing out my personal relationships. I was playing out my business relationships. I was playing out in so many relationships because it was the safe option, because it had worked, because I had proof that it worked. And it was so subconscious, even though I wasn't, I have boundaries.

I own my truth. It was like, I have boundaries in a way that still makes you want to be in relationship with me. I'll still be really pleasant when I tell you about my boundaries. Yeah, I have boundaries as long way that still makes you want to be in relationship with me. I'll still be really pleasant when I tell you about my boundaries. Yeah, I have boundaries as long as they work for you. I had boundaries, but the boundaries were there. They were there to an extent. And I definitely saw this playing out. And I love that you said wherever you go, there you are.

Because it really is, if you don't work with that at its root, it is going to play out everywhere. One thing we kind of touched on in the beginning that I really want to dig into that is on this is I've read so many places that an entrepreneur's nervous system is typically wired for chaos. And I believe it because I don't think we'd be entrepreneurs if it wasn't that way. And it's been, I do credit with, and I would have loved to done differently but I credit that chaotic nervous system for that early hustle that I had yeah for getting something off the ground for building something out of nothing but it's not going to be it wasn't the nervous system that

was going to sustain this success it wasn't the nervous system that was going to be a great leader and build a great team and a great culture and relationships that I was proud of and I wanted to be part of yeah and that nervous system work was really important and I do think as entrepreneurs there does come a time where you have to really look in the mirror and you have to acknowledge that work otherwise you continue chasing that thing that level of success you think is going to make you happy didn't make me happy yeah I mean you remember we had this conversation last Christmas yeah I was walking away from everything yeah everything I built because I realized this isn't making me happy anymore we even have the conversation I was like I'm I'm past the numbers at this point yeah I don't

care yeah and when you're willing to walk away from it all is when I think you can really start rebuilding but I would love to come to that realization sooner so let's talk about entrepreneurial nervous systems. Yeah, well, you nailed it. You know, it's funny because there's a lot of people that are like, anyone can be an entrepreneur. And I don't think that. And this is why, because entrepreneurs are wired a certain way.

You have the ability to stand in chaos, in unknown, in I'm not sure, in a lot of pressure, a lot of overwhelm, a lot on your plate. Your body is used to that as a form of safety, meaning from zero to seven, when your nervous system was getting wired, hardwired into your body, you lived in an environment that reflected that or aspects of that, right? There might've been a lot of moving. There might've been a tumultuous relationship between your parents.

There might've been a lot of moving. There might have been a tumultuous relationship between your parents. There might have been uncertainty. There might have been bullying where you're, you know, having to take all this outside pressure, right? So when you grow up in an environment like that, you then start to seek out other environments like that to replicate what you know as home. Because from zero to seven, you survive. How do we know you're here right and so great your nervous system goes cool we have completed and deduced that this means safety so then you

start seeking that and that's why a lot of entrepreneurs are like doing it from eight years old nine years old it's like okay i need to create something to hold because i held my mom emotionally through her divorce i need to create something to hold because I held my mom emotionally through her divorce. I need to create something to hold because I held my siblings while all this was going on, right? And so the hustle works to a certain extent until our bodies start to burn out. Because what we're doing is our body's on overdrive. And when we're in that hypervigilant state of like, okay, this is how I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? It's like such a like, I have all this energy. What do you mean?

I'm just supposed to sit still. But yes, our bodies are, it's a foreign concept of peace for a lot of entrepreneurs because chaos is safety. So in that peace and stillness, we actually feel uneasy. So then we fill our plate with more. Oh, I've got space in my calendar. I scheduled space in my calendar. This used to be me.

I've scheduled, you know, I've got block time for me and my calendar. Oh, what's that? You need something done? Sure, I'll help you with that. I've got three hours in my calendar. It's like laughing because it's so true. It's so true. And it's like, let me just put that in that space that I created for myself. I'm laughing because it's so true. It's so true. And it's like, let me just put that in

that space that I created for myself because I'm avoiding space. Now with technology, it's so easy. Oh, I have space. Oh, I'm in an elevator. Great. I can't take two seconds to not be on my phone. And it's crazy. You know, we were talking before I lost my phone for basically two weeks and it was great. Nothing really changed because I've changed my relationship to technology and my phone for basically two weeks and it was great. Nothing really changed because I've changed my relationship to technology and my phone, where I used to fill the space with it. And now it's like, it's just a tool. I use it for certain things.

But as entrepreneurs, the hustle gets us there, but it's not going to get us to that next level of success. And so with a lot of the clients that I work with in terms of like helping them grow their business, we do nervous system work. Why? Because what got you here is not gonna get you there. Hustle is not how you build big. It's not because you'll burn out.

You'll create from scarcity. You're creating literally from survival state and it can't be held together in survival state. We need to create from that ventral vagal social state where our body feels safe to be in the world, where we feel excited to engage and be authentically ourselves. That's when we start to look at the world and go,

it doesn't matter what I have externally, where you're like, the numbers don't matter anymore. I just want peace. I just want happiness. I want connection. I want family. I want love. I want connection. I want family. I want love. I want joy.

I want pleasure. Like when you get to that state, you can still create from that state and let it be known. You'll create so much more from that state because that's the state, especially women. That's where we're at our most powerful. That's the creatrix we hear about in feminine embodiment work, right? That part where we're tapped into our desire, we're tapped into our pleasure, we're tapped into our aliveness and joy, and we use all that life force energy that makes human beings. And we say, go on this creative project,

go on this business idea. And we're literally giving the most powerful force of life to all of these things. And it's just like, boom, boom, boom. You'll start to see, I have more success with less work. I'm enjoying this. So this can be so different. And so we really have to come into communion with our bodies again, which again, a lot of entrepreneurs, we're staying up all night. We're ignoring the signals of our body. We're drinking seven cups of coffee and whatever like energy drinks are available or those energy shots. It's like to think about how we just ignored the cues of our body for so long right i'm speaking for myself here so long it's like burning the candle not even at both ends but like 360. just lit it all up there was there was no end

there was just fire all around and like how does that work? How is that sustainable? It's not. And so our bodies, again, while we're wired for that as safety, your nervous system is also looking at the internal system, right? Your neuroception is inside the body. Your neuroception is going, is this safe? Outside the body in my environment, is this safe? Between bodies, is this safe between bodies is the safe so outside the environment our neuroception's like cool if i hustle i'm safe but if inside in your internal environment your body's like oh organs are failing oh we're not getting the the hormonal balance we need then your body's going to start to go oh we need to change some things so it'll put you in scenarios for a massive collapse to happen and this is where rupture is a really beautiful thing. You know, a lot of times we're setting up our life to hedge

against a breakdown. But a breakdown is often the wake-up call that we need to change something because it's that serious. For me, it was my marriage. It's like, hey, this is pretty serious. You may want to look at some stuff, right? Before that, it was childbirth. I was like, hey, this is totally different. You may want to look at this. And so we're going to go through multiple initiations into a deeper invitation of truth if we're available to see it that way. Unfortunately, a lot of people, and this is myself for so long, it's like, oh, that happened. Okay, how do I fix it and move on? I'm busy I have all the things versus like oh oh this is wisdom how do I be with this how do I let this grow and expand and evolve me

that's what it's here for and that's why it's a gift and hearing you say all of that too it works that's the thing because I know there's a maybe some people sitting listening okay well I've never tried it that way how do I know it works yeah I want to say it works yeah and I know when I look back at decisions I've made let's talk about business specifically my worst business decisions have come from that scarcity place have come from that chaotic place yes and it gets stuff done yeah but it hasn't and maybe it's got got the deal done faster, but it hasn't necessarily got the deal done in a way that I would be proud of. That's right.

Whereas from the flip side, when I come at it from a completely different place, when I come at it from that peaceful place, it gets done differently and I feel prouder of it. And I remember going through a really challenging business negotiation and I was on a call with my mentor and he said something to me that I will

never forget. I was saying, how do you handle this? Because you're going through negotiation constantly. He said, I've always already won because I'm happy. I don't need anything else. I don't need more. And I continue remembering that I'm even now I'm going through a negotiation for an investment that I might make. And in the past, my people pleasing would step in. I should just be the person that gets deals done really fast. And actually now I'm taking a lot longer to look into the details, to think about whether I really want to do it in this kind of way. And if I'm going to come on as an advisor, I want to make sure it works for me. And so I ask the questions and I'm willing

to maybe take longer and take my time and what's powerful is i'm willing to walk away that i don't need it that that alone shows healing so this is a big part of like abundance work right now we get into money and magnetism and abundance and law of attraction when you do nervous system work you're actually creating a felt sense of safety sourced from the inside so the deal doesn't mean safety. The relationship doesn't mean safety. The different body doesn't mean safety. You are safety. You come home to yourself as source. And this is why nervous system work is so fundamentally powerful because it's the basis from which everything else works. If you are inherently safe within yourself, everything is a choice, an actual conscious choice,

rather than if you are in unsafety, survival, scattered energy of like, okay, I gotta create, I gotta do this thing because then I'm valuable. I gotta do this thing because then I'm worthy. I have to have a successful launch because then I'm worthy, right? Whatever that is, You're in survival. And then any decision you make is from reaction of survival. When we're in survival mode, our highest faculties of our brain, our thinking,

our curiosity, our vision, our perspective are offline. They're offline. When you're in safety, inherent safety in your body, you are able to access the best parts of yourself you become actually in a coherent state your your biorhythmic state matches the biorhythmic state of the earth this is so crazy i'm learning about this right now i'm like this is so awesome and it's so cool because when we hear about flow states that's what that is. Your body is coherent and in synergistic flow with the same energy and rhythm of the earth. Wow. You want to talk about magnetism? That's what that is. You're literally in the same vibrational frequency of everything on this planet. Wow. That's when everything becomes easy. That's when your work feels effortless. That's when you start to look

at deals and you go, not that, this. How about this? Actually, I'm going to bring this to the table because you don't need it. It doesn't make you who you are. It doesn't define your worth or your value. You've defined that for yourself. You've had that within yourself. And that's when all of life changes.

And that's like, again, going back to it, yes, this works hard. But yes, it's so worth it because it works. It works. It works. And it's the thing of like, from the outside looking in, you wouldn't see that I'm like necessarily like dressing differently or more of whatever. It's I'm owning the part of myself that is the source of safety. That's what true ownership is.

That's what true liberation is. And when you have that, everything ripples out as a byproduct. So I love that you said that. This is an ongoing thing. But one thing I've noticed myself being able to do, I'm training myself to do is I'll get an email. I want this deal done by tomorrow. Let's sign, let's sign today. And I look at that and my past self would buy into the urgency. Yes. My past self would get nervous because they need it today. Yes. Whereas now I'm trying to train myself to look at that and say, okay, I hear they need it today. That doesn't work for me.

Right. I don't need it today. That doesn't work for me. I don't need it today. I can't see, I can't logically give myself an argument as to why this needs to be done today. If they can tell me for X, Y, Z, sure. But I can't see that. So why am I hurrying and rushing and putting so much on my plate that is burning me out at all ends? Or my team needs this today. Why? Let me question that. Let me figure out, can we do something else? I love this. This is so big for entrepreneurs. It is.

It is. And I really, I think it's such a good conversation to have because I think when you realize you can operate from a place of not being in chaos mode, not putting out fires constantly, not always feeling stretched too thin, when you can operate from overflow versus there's never enough yeah it's different it is not ever not every season is going to be like that no there are some seasons that it's just like we're just hanging on yeah and that's okay but when you know that this is a reference point that you can come back to of okay we're going to be present with the chaos right now because it's a lot yeah and i'm going to come back to like i i know the state i can come back to whether it's when i walk in the door at home or whether it's this time

that i do block out for myself i'm coming back to it yeah it's not about for me anyway it's not about being perfect all the time but it's about knowing that i'm not operating 24 7 in chaos that that and that's the the crux of nervous system work is not to get into the ventral vagal social state at all times it's to know where you are in terms of the hierarchy of the various states that you're in and to feel resourced to take care of yourself and get yourself back to where you want to be. That's it. Cause you're human. Like, you know, on my way here, I hit the brakes because there was traffic and somebody shortstop and I instantly went into survival state that happened without me consciously choosing that.

My body's trying to protect me, right? And then, ah, I'm in survival. How do I want to resource and give back so I can be in my body and be present here, right? So it's happening nonstop all day, every day. But can we be with it powerfully? That's the question. I love this. And so speaking of the work,

so last year we had such a good tradition, which we need to bring back. We were having coffee every Friday. It was amazing. We were dropping in and it would last hours and hours. We'd have all the babies and it was never, how are you doing conversation? It was like, what's the real shit going on in everyone's life? Spill the tea.

Yeah. And we all just spent time just like, just speaking what was in our heart. And it was really amazing watching your evolution during that time because you were going through a lot and your capacity was just growing and growing and you were figuring out so much that you talk about and one thing that you kept bringing up during that time was tapping into the muse yes and i love that that's come full circle now and it's become part of your work for you what was that journey of tapping into the muse and what does it mean for you? Well, the muse for me is that most alive aspect of ourselves. And, you know, I have in this body of work, I've attached it to my feminine essence, my power, right? And being a mother, being a businesswoman,

going from that like very shadow masculine drive, drive, drive, produce, produce, produce, and then hitting motherhood hard, just like I hit business hard, like four, back to back, let's go. It just gave me so much opportunity to be completely disconnected to my body, right? Completely disconnected from my truth, that muse, that aliveness, that part of me that's like, like pinch myself. I cannot believe this is my life. And coming back to her and like really prioritizing the muse in my life has changed everything like it's wild I look at my life now and I'm like wow wow and it hasn't been that much time but just prioritizing pleasure and aliveness and joy and desire and really listening and letting the muse guide my life and being devoted to her, just like I was devoted to

proving and producing and pleasing. And like, that was my unconscious devotion. I have now moved that devotion consciously to like my aliveness, the part of me that matters the most. Can I set my entire life up to reflect that this is the most important thing. And so that looks like, you know, a flourishing sex life with my husband in a way that I've like, I've never felt this tapped in and empowered in my sexuality after four kids, which is. Yeah. Can we talk about how we're doing this? Yeah. Sex after kids is different. It's so different. It's so different. And that's the thing I had home birth. Then I had a C-section with the, and then I had a VBAC with my last. So I've kind of gone through the spectrum of the birth and the birth traumas that come with it.

I had a very traumatic C-section birth where something went wrong and it was very traumatic. And to come back into my body, it was like, oh, I don't know because this, I don't know, that's too painful, right? And I had experienced that before with a sexual assault and rape that I went through in my early 20s that I healed and like worked through. And I'm like, oh, I know this. This is trauma. This is trauma in my body. Like, I don't want to even go there.

So I had to really do a lot of work to reconnect to my body. And that came through movement practices. It came from what we call pleasure mapping like really like just getting back in touch with the sensuality and that that sensual aspect of being a human in a skin suit like what do my senses like what are they not like having really honest transparent conversations with my husband of like hey this thing that we've been doing for 10 years i actually that doesn't work for me. It's like, oh, it doesn't. Okay. Well, what does? And like the good girl in me would have never broached those conversations before because I don't want to make him feel bad and da da da.

And like, it wasn't anything he was doing. It was how we were doing it. You know, I realized this is like maybe TMI, but I realized that often our lovemaking happened with a TV on after like the kids had gone to bed and we're watching a show and then we find each other. And then one thing leads to another. And I'm like, oh, my muse hates that. She hates the TV on. She's like, ew, no music, put music on, put candles.

She wanted this whole experience. And now I say yes, because that's what she wants. And so the more I honor my muse, that part of me that feels alive and feels connected to the sensation of being alive, the more it feeds me. The more I'm available for it in this conversation, the more I can be here and like feel the energy and aliveness of this, right? It's everything. It's not just sex.

It's not just turn on. It's not just work or money, but it's everything. All of life is available for us to have this experience of like, I'm making love with life. Like I am so present and I'm like, oh my God, I cannot believe this is my life. And so it took me from being completely disconnected from that place and having this huge rupture and possibility of ending my marriage with my husband to having real honest transparent conversations with him and reconnecting with him and feeling closer to him than i've ever felt because i'm feeling closer to myself than i've ever felt my truth and then my friendships just got so deep and real because i was just so deep and real with myself right and everything

just has so much more texture to it because I'm available for that texture. Before I was way too busy to even see that texture was there. I was like, I'll get to it. I got to finish this thing first. Right. And so awakening the muse now has become a part of my favorite work that I do with women is coming back home to the truth of what their muse looks like for them. And, you know, I had done feminine work for a while, but it never really landed in the way that this work did

because it felt performative. It's like, okay, oh, I can say the word pussy. Does that mean I'm actually liberated? Does it mean that I changed? Am I embodied or am I just like performing and being this version of who i think i'm supposed to be in this world if i'm tapped into my feminine and it wasn't landing for me and i really had to come back to myself as source right like get into the body first rewire the nervous system to actually be able to receive and experience pleasure and joy because i was you know it's like the wiring is like no no, keep going, keep going. Like you'll enjoy it later down the line, somewhere over there. It'll happen. I promise. Right. But like rewire your body to actually experience the fullness

of a pleasure in a moment. That's work for my system that took work. There was a lot of work I had to do around that. And then once i was back in my body and back in communion with a coherent state of like oh this is what it feels like to just be without having to do now i can talk about desire now i can talk about pleasure now i can talk about expression and aliveness because if i'm expressing and feeling pleasure from a place that's ungrounded, then it's performative. And I'm doing the same shit I did in my work. Oh, who do I need to be to make you happy? Okay, great. Let me be that. Oh, who do I need to be to be feminine? Okay, great. I'll be that. And that's why all the feminine work I had done up to that point, it wasn't landing. It wasn't landing in my relationship. Basically, the results of my

life didn't really change that much. I was like, maybe it looked a little bit different. And I was having maybe a little more fun, but it wasn't grounded. It wasn't substantiated on the truth of who I was and how I wanted to express that. I felt that too. Some of the feminine work that I have done hasn't fully landed with me because I feel like it's very textbook in this is what the feminine is, this is what the masculine is. And I challenge it all the time because to me,

a lot of people might look at work as masculine, but actually I find I'm constantly creating. And to me, the way I create, the way I lead, the way I actually execute feels feminine. And to be told, well, that means you're in your masculine. I just call it bullshit. I'm like, how do you know you're not me? Yes, preach girl, preach.

It does feel like there's almost this line drawn. Okay, if you're softly spoken and you know, X, Y, Z, you're feminine. If you're hustle and you're a goal getter and you're X, Y, Z, you're masculine or you're in either or. I just don't buy it because every single one of us is different. And how does someone else know

what's feminine and masculine for me? That's right. And I love that you're bringing this up because this has been a point of contention for me for so long. And now that I understand this work more deeply, I understand this more fully. What you're saying is the same societal programming

that we were talking about at the beginning of this. Think about it. The masculines, the hard worker, the feminines, the soft spoken. I'm never going to be soft spoken. Does that mean I'm not feminine? Yes. I'm never going to be the person that just nods along when they disagree. Does that mean I'm not feminine?

Right. And then here we are. It's the same societal programming and conditioning that's trying to force us and punish us if we are not in a particular version and flavor of the feminine that's conducive and benefits society at large. It almost feels like that can be used as an insult these days is like, oh, she's non-feminine. Right. You need to be, oh, you have hormonal issues. You need to be more on your feminine. That's right. You don't know me. And it's been weaponized against women for so long.

And I've been saying that. It's like they have used the whole masculine feminine talk as a weapon against women to take them further from the truth, which again is inherently the same problem that we're dealing with on a grander scale in society. And so this is why I'm so passionate about this work because true, healthy, integrated masculine

in all of us is, okay, I'm going to set the container of safety here, here in this body. I'm going to hold the devotion of this body, of this truth. And in relationship to my healthy, integrated feminine, the feminine is that space of creation. It's a space of ideas. It's a space of like birthing things into the world, which we've been told is masculine. But the masculine hears the feminine and goes, oh, you wanna birth this? Great, I'm gonna set the container up

to be devoted to your creation. I am gonna set your life up to be in devotion to this creation, to this job, to this whatever, right? And there's shadow versions of both and there's performative versions of both. And then there's the healthy version of it. So that's what's really inherently important as we come into contact with the healthy version and we start to get back in right relation. Because if you think of it like a partnership internally, we've just been ignoring each other. It's like, you know, we're roommates, right? When you've got the thing, it's like, oh yeah, everything's good, but it's not great. Like you're not actually

talking to each other. And that's most of us. Our internal masculine and feminine energies are not having the conversations they need to have about what really matters. And when we have those real conversations, the true masculine can step up and go, I got this. I got us. And the feminine feels so safe and held and seen and cherished. She feels that devotion that she goes, oh, and then she feels safe to come online and come play out here. Right. And that's the thing is most women, especially high achieving women, entrepreneurs, we don't feel safe for our inherent feminine to come out and play. She hasn't felt safe for a long time. And that's our own doing because we

haven't been listening to her. We've been putting the shadow masculine, go, go, control, make it happen. Be safe. Make sure everything's good out here instead of like, we're good here. Taking the time to work this system. That is such deep work, but it's so powerful and it's palpable. That's where you start to see your life change. That's why my sex life is so good right now. Because my feminine is like, oh, she's taking care of me. You know, she feels so sane. She feels so loved. She feels so held and supported by my inner masculine. Because he's finally listening to her.

And he's not so busy trying to control the world out there. He's devoted to her. They're the only world that matters. And he's setting up the external world to make sure that that's the case. It's massive. I've never actually heard anyone talk about it the way you've just talked about it. I hear a lot about it. It's talked about in relationship.

You bring the feminine, let them bring the masculine. If you're in a male-female relationship, I haven't heard it talked about so much as in self. And I think that makes absolute sense. Because I feel like there is a story a lot of high achieving women tell themselves that I've definitely bought into in the past of that the feminine is subservient. The feminine doesn't get things done.

I'm not gonna access the feminine because it's not productive. Whereas actually the way that you've described it makes total sense, it's all within the self and we can't be looking to any relationship to change it or fix it for us how do you fix it for yourself that that's so big and i think that's what most of us do it's what i did for a long time is like oh well i'm gonna make sure his his masculine has to do x

y and z in order for my feminine to feel safe then and that was my marriage right well well she doesn't feel safe to come out because of the thing you said in 2005. And, you know, it's like, whatever, you got your laundry list of stuff. But, and he had his laundry list of stuff to me too, right? And it wasn't until we started looking at the internal system and going, oh, oh, like we have to become integrated and whole within ourselves first, in very specifically with this dynamic of the masculine and feminine. Before we start to look to our partner to try and adjust what's going to happen. Yes, those polarities, if we're off balance within ourself, it's going to affect the polarity

and the balance between partners. But if you do the work to integrate a wholeness here, that's going to reflect and affect the polarity of your own partner where they're going to start to have to have their own back. They're going to have to start to self-source. They're going to have to look at what's my internal conversation between my masculine and feminine. And again, it sounds so simple conceptually, but actually embodying this work is really challenging because it requires us changing a lot, especially like in my marriage, we set up an entire world that worked a particular way off of a particular dynamic that I had and he had, and we had to dismantle that. And, and that's, we're still, we're still dismantling

pieces of it. Like, oh, that's part of the old paradigm. We gotta, we gotta look at that. And we're having that conversation very openly now, which is amazing. But it's a lot of work. Yeah, and it works. But that's the thing I keep coming back to is it works. So how have you started working with this? Like, how does that look? The first thing I would say for anybody that's hearing this and they're like, wait, what?

What is this? Just have a conversation. Like, go sit somewhere. If you're visual like me, I like to write it out. And I'll start like with my internal feminine and I'll get silent and I'll breathe and I'll get back to my body I'll try and like forget about the to-do's and the kids and all the things for a second and just say what does she need like what is the truest part of my feminine need and I'll just write and what

initially came out is like she feels ignored ignored. She feels abandoned. She feels not listened to. She feels unimportant. She feels sacrificed. She feels like, it was just like, I was looking, I was like, oh my God, you are in an abusive relationship with my inner masculine. This is crazy. And it's true. My poor inner feminine was just sitting there like, you never pay attention to me.

And then you basically tell me to shut up so you can get more work like, you never pay attention to me. And then you basically tell me to shut up so you can get more work done, you know? And then it's like, okay, what is the inherent masculine one? He wants to live a grounded life. He wants to live connected to spirit. He wants to live connected to this feminine relationship that's of the most important. Okay, great. Yes. And and start there that's a list that will keep unfolding right it's not complete now the second okay what has my masculine been doing and it's happened to that oh he's been trying to prove he's been trying to control he's been trying to manipulate this area he's been trying to to get more done in order to feel safe he's been

essentially working from scarcity anywhere where you're working from scarcity or overwhelm or urgency or have to or should or burnout, that's the shadow masculine, right? What's the shadow feminine doing? Oh, the shadow feminine is reading certain books around femininity and thinking that it has to look this way. And she's starting pleasure practices, but from the space of scarcity and like, oh, I have to be a more turned on woman now as a mom of four than I was before in order to keep my husband happy. It's like, oh, that's not going to work. So then we got to look at all that. And you got to just get real honest with yourself. And I just have a good laugh at myself every once in a while. Like I'm in a, I put my inner masculine and feminine are in an abusive relationship.

It's like, okay, that's not going to work. And just have a good, have a good chuckle at how far you've allowed yourself to be disconnected from your truth. Because we all do it. We all do it in some aspect of our lives. And for most high achieving women that I've worked with, it comes down to this, right? And this is really the juice of this work in feminine embodiment work is like you got to get reconnected to these two conversations that are happening internally because that's the nervous system right there's a masculine energy nervous system and a feminine energy nervous system when they're in healthy expression watch out like your whole it's that coherent state where you're just

in flow your magnet you're like a magnet to everything you just are attracting everything you're manifesting you're having great conversation ideas are dropping left and right and you're just like life is working so well it starts there that's where it starts and that exercise it's very simple but it's going to take some truth telling and that can be hard and i love how you make light hearted of it too of laughing because it's the great thing to remember is that you're not wrong right every single one of us and every single person that is so far down the line of doing the work is still facing off with these things yes this is just the human experience I always think about that whenever I maybe get into a judgment of I could have handled that better or I shouldn't have reacted like that or I slipped back into that pattern.

It's just a reminder of, oh, I'm human. What am I trying to? I'm not an alien. I'm not, you know, like I'm human. Let's just take the seriousness out of it. I let my humanness speak up and get in the way for a while. And I get to come back home. That's so important.

And like I take it even further. We're animals. We're animals. And we have a very animal system that's focused on survival. And then we have this very beautiful human system that has all these very complex and beautiful ways of thinking and communicating and empathizing and loving that other animals don't experience. But we're animals. We're mostly animal, right? And what happens in survival state is your animal comes online and your human turns off. That's a much better way of explaining it.

And it's automatic. Like, good luck trying to control it. You can't. You just can't. What you can do is you can intervene at the result, right? So you can intervene when you're't, you know, you just can't. What you can do is you can intervene at the result, right? So you can intervene when you're like, oh shit, the animal's on right now. Oh shit, I'm in scarcity. Oh shit, I'm in survival. Oh shit, I'm in overall. Great. That's where you intervene, but your animal is going to do animal things and that's normal.

And I think, you know, the beauty with the influencer expert space is so, so big, but I think a lot of the damage that it's done is it's it's made this idea that there's somewhere to get to right and and there's nowhere to get to except for back to yourself the only place you have to get to is back to yourself back to your truth back to your home back to your humility and your animal and your human and your mess and your joy all of what is you is the only place you need to get back to. And anything out there, it's still feeding you the same bullshit that you need something else in order to be better, different, more, et cetera. You don't.

You just need yourself, but you need all of yourself. And so to me, that is a lifelong journey that's always revealing. And there's this emergence that happens with each chapter of life whether it's a marriage a death a birth a trauma a rupture whatever it is like each chapter is an invitation into that initiation of a deeper truth of a deeper revealing of who we are one thing that just kept coming through as you were saying that was what you said earlier is wherever you go there you are don't you want to be the better version or at least for me i think wherever i go there i am i want to be the best version that i can be in that moment or the most me i can be in that moment so i don't carry all this shit into all different relationships all different partnership yes yes and like being that fullest version of you like what a permission slip to your daughter you know

i think about my kids a lot where i'm like, oh man, I could say all the things, which is Instagram, right? Like say all the things and people could be like, wow, that's really awesome. But how are you living your life? You know, your daughter, our kids, our kids are watching us and they are literally looking at, oh, that's how you do woman. Oh, that's how you do work. Oh, that's how you do partnership. And I'm constantly humbled by that because there's so many opportunities in my life to just keep refining and keep chipping away and melting away all those aspects that were built from this really beautiful place of wanting to be safe and accepted and loved and valued, but no longer work for the truth of who we are. And so,

yeah, having a different relationship to that and getting that the truth of who we are. And so, yeah, having a different relationship to that and getting that the truth of who we are is really what we're all after in life. Like you want more money so you can experience more of yourself. You want the relationships, you can experience more of yourself. And we said another way, you wanna feel more alive.

You wanna feel lit up, connected to life. Well, you can get that without anything external changing it's all an internal game when the internal changes the external will reflect what's happening on the inside and it's a byproduct the work works the work works sign it off sign it off and it does and even when you was talking about success and if i do if I do less can I still get the same result or if I do it a different way can I still get the same result that's the thing you'll never know unless you try that that's what I keep telling myself I'll never know unless I try it that every launch I go into I'm like I won't know unless

I've tried it if I do a different way that and that requires a nervous system that feels empowered to be in the discomfort of the unknown. And so this is, again, why nervous system work is so important and it's foundational. Because if you're like, okay, this might be scary. Hey, this may not work. I might jump out on a ledge here, but I'm willing to do it. And I know that if there's no net, I'm resourced. I can take care of myself.

And having our own back and like being what we call in somatic, being in our somatic dignity of being able to hold ourselves, even through situations where you just wanna curl up in a ball and like, ah, why is this happening to me? It's like, oh, I can hold myself with dignity in my animal body such that my nervous system goes, oh, she feels good, she feels confident.

Okay, we're gonna feel confident. Such that the result then in your thoughts behaviors beliefs actions interfaces with others starts to feel different and that's like to me like true leadership is leading from that place like leading from like okay big perspective big vision here where do we want to go based on what's showing up it's huge what does that practically mean, holding yourself from dignity? Yeah, so somatically, we're an energy body. So you can think of my energy coming out this way, right? And my depth, which comes all the way around me. You can think of my length, how I'm holding myself erect with my spine. And you can think of my width,

so how much space I'm taking up energetically. So that energetic body is around me in all directions and it's happening. That's the energetic body that speaks to you when someone walks in a room. Like we've all like felt somebody like, who is that person? I need to talk to them. Or like, you don't even feel some people, right? So it's not necessarily how you're holding your posture. That would be a really simplistic way to look at it. It's your energetic expression in your body. And that's a practice to build as well. And so in Muse, we build that through movement practices where we're actually doing embodied healing through movement so that we build a bigger energetic container so that your field of somatic dignity is felt. It's bigger. It enters a room before you and people feel your fullness.

You can feel when someone has holes in their field as well. Right? Like I say that and you're instantly like, yep, we know it. You can't tangibly put words to it, but our animals like, I don't know. I don't trust it. Right? Versus like, my nervous system feels safe with your nervous system. That's that neuroception in between nervous systems so if my energetic somatic dignity is full your neuroception is going to go she's safe she's whole unto herself she needs nothing from me in order to make her feel safe right non-transactional so that's powerful power non-transactional. Especially for women entrepreneurs. That's very powerful. Powerful.

Like for instance, I have a new person who's entered my life who's amazing and sweet and I know has the best intentions, but I can feel her field and her field is very transactional. And I'm going to have a conversation with her about this to just invite her into the possibility that like, hey, I can feel this like subtle transactional energy from you i really think you're awesome and dope and want to build a friendship but i can't with this in the way and so like what a powerful possibility that could open up with that conversation yeah you know and how powerful for her to then realize oh she wants to love me and i don't have to give her anything that like and that's the thing like i think she's awesome you

don't have to because you know you can feel even when someone's over giving to try and get your love yeah that's not a full field so it's it's it's big it's big work and again it sounds simple but it's deep and very expansive I love this tell me about Muse you're getting me excited about it yes so Awaken the Muse it's a three-month program where we literally do the deep work to bring women back to themselves back to a sense of wholeness in their bodies. Whoa. Like talk about for high achieving women who live mostly from here. It's not performative feminine work where we're like dancing around in boas and wearing certain things and using certain words to show that we're liberated. It's quieter. you know, it's subtle, but it's true

and it's real and it's palpable. And we do it through movement practices that, you know, a lot of people know that like dance is a big part of feminine work, but we do specific movement practices that are coupled with healing and embodiment and like gestalt work. So now I'm using all my, my history of gestalt and experiential learning and work and transformation and pairing that with what's been happening in the feminine world. We do a ton of nervous system work. Our whole work is rooted in nervous system and building that somatic field. Like what does it look like to actually own your field, to be in your full dignity and integrity, wholeness as a person, as a woman, as a human, as an animal in this world? And we do, we access the parts, we create more range in the nervous system. So you have access to the animal

parts of you that want to be predator, that want to be prey sexually with your partners, right? That want to be more expressed and alive, but that also want to be surrendered and receive. That's nervous system work. How safe do you feel to be in those states? That's nervous system work. And then of course, once you're in your body, then we tap into desire and pleasure and pleasure mapping and pleasure practices and it's just so much juice i love it so much i think of a lot of the women that have graduated and gone through it are very much the woman i was a couple years back right driven successful crushing it doing all the things all the things right and we know we're nailing that but there's something more that we haven't been able to put

our fingers on yet that we know is is whispering to us like it's that thing of like i thought this would make me happy it hasn't what else is there who else am i like there's a repressed part of ourself that's starting to go like hey i'm ready it's time and that's your muse and she's gonna look however she's going to look, but getting to know who she is and devoting your life to her and her desire, game changer. I'm going to put the link below too, if anyone wants to check it out. I'm excited. It's been so amazing to be doing life with you in such an honest way that we've both shared with each other over the past few years,

all the things that we've been going through and to see you transmute that into something like this is incredible because you take it, you could have just kept this of like, oh, I figured out something for myself. Totally. Share this with other women too, I think is incredible.

I really love that you're doing it. Thank you. And that was, thanks to my muse. She literally was like, hey, you need to put this together. And I'm like, really? I'm good. I don't know if I need another program right now.

And she's like, no, just do it. Do it really simply. The first sales page my partner and I had was a Google Doc. I remember that. It was the shortest Google Doc. I was like, it just gets to be a Google Doc. And whoever it's meant for, it's meant for. And it's like, great.

And of course, it sold out. be a Google Doc and whoever it's meant for, it's meant for. And it's like, great. And of course it sold out. Yeah. But you know what's interesting? It brings us back to a conversation that we were just having before the podcast started. It's funny because our producers were like, can we just turn the mics on, you guys? We're just like, can we catch up? Where I was just saying to you, we're sitting in a studio and Austin and I was like, oh, Lexi, I really want to build my own version of this.

Like, and I've got enough going on. Why do I keep doing this? And you said something really powerful about why. Can you share that? Yeah. Sometimes your muse is planting desires, which your muse is your direct line to spirit, right? It's literally like spirit actualized in the 3D. That's your muse tapping you on the shoulder going, hey, there might be a whole new opening it might start with a podcast studio and then turn into something else that you have no idea you don't know you don't know but like this is the next step and maybe what you've been doing for so long that's worked really well needs to go away because it's not in alignment anymore and when we start to listen to

those desires when we start to listen to our muse she's guiding us to fullest expression so you can't go wrong it may not make sense may not make sense but you can't go wrong with listening and at least taking it on and letting it marinate in your life because that is her job her job is to bring spirit into the 3d and have you closer to living that life versus the life of the ego 3D. I need to do X to get Y. It's like, no, no, you get to do this because liberation, because expression, because aliveness, because permission, because your light gets to shine in this way.

I'm like, when you look at it that way, it's like, all right, I'll listen. It's funny because when you look at it that way, I'm like, how can I say no to this right and it's so interesting because it's been this little whisper for a really long time and I feel like the way that I'm going to handle this kind of thing is like I put it out there yes and maybe when I'm here I'll like see if there's spaces and it's not that I'm just sitting back and saying okay come to me yes but I'm not forcing I'm not pushing a boulder uphill and if it's meant to be I feel like it could be easy that's it could

that was muse for us like we're like do we do this it's meant to be, I feel like it could be easy. That's it could, that was Muse for us. Like, we're like, do we do this? It's a really busy season of life. And it was like, let's make it really easy. Everything has to feel easy. And we did it very easy and it worked and we loved it. We're like, okay, we got to do one more. And then it got bigger and it expanded and more depth. And it's like, oh, we got to do more. And so here we are like, you know, three cohorts down the line. And we're just like, just like oh we just love this so much and it's taken on a life of itself it's it's become its own child in the world and we're just loving watching it grow and evolve into its highest expression it's so good i'm excited for you yeah i'm i remember that first sales page and just looking at i'm like i'm gonna crush it yeah it's so needed though yeah it's so neat and i feel like

you don't need a fancy sales page when you can speak directly to what someone needs and knows they need at that moment. I'm gonna put that link below. Do we still have a Google Doc? Do we have a sales page? No, we actually have a, I got really inspired. My muse was like, okay, babe, time to step it up.

She's like, make it look pretty. Because my muse, she loves beauty. She loves aesthetic, which is a huge lean for me because I have kind of been like against that for so long and so my soul my spirit my muse is like beauty is everything i love like make this beautiful and i'm like okay so i made i made in devotion to her i did make a sales page i'm excited okay we're gonna link it below awakenthemuse.com it is an official sales page now and what's your human design? I'm a manifester.

Oh, interesting. You know, I just got a reading from like one of the best astrologers in the world, actually. And it was interesting because she, a lot of people think I'm a generator because I have a lot of energy. Yeah, I would have thought I'm a generator. Okay. So yeah, I was going to say you're probably a mani-gen or gen. But I'm a manifester. She goes, yeah, but it's all, I have all these houses

in fire. So she's like, you have so much fire that you just have to like, go, go, go, go, go. And she's like, it's your whole life. Like it's everywhere. She said, but your life's lesson. And this is like what I wanted to share. She said, your life's lesson is that pleasure is everything. And I'm like, she knows nothing. She knew nothing about me, nothing about the muse. And like, muse is all about living a pleasure led life, you know? And she's like, your whole life lesson, like when you actually come into communion with your spirit self, your highest self, your highest expression, it's around pleasure. Pleasure is everything. And I was like, how did you know? yes and on that i love that oh my god i love that yeah i'm a generator i'm like go go go but my lesson is not to chase anything yeah to just allow things to come and be able to yeah discern is that for me is that not for me but like let it come versus i'm not going to go super hard chasing something otherwise it's probably not for me yeah which is interesting

because i would say for you probably most of your entrepreneurial life it's been like you create it you go for it right it's what's made you so successful but that next step the next step and also i would say the biggest leaps in my career have been when things have come at me so i've had the path of going after things but also the biggest like quantum leaps i've had have been when something out of nowhere has come and landed on my lap that's like an opportunity and i've just said yes wow and then i'll go all in then i'll put the force behind it the fire i have all the houses in fire too yeah i'll put that behind it but it's been somewhere out of nowhere can you do this are you interested in doing this do you want to partner on this what about oh interesting so good so that's why for you like getting into that coherent state with what's

happening in the earth is so powerful because then you become, you magnetize that. Oh, I'm going to start. I need to read up on all this. Yeah, there's actually, you can actually, there's all this research now from the HeartMath Institute that you can actually practice through nervous system, somatic work and heart work. You can essentially get into coherent states. Is that their device? It's their device, but you can use a heart rate monitor okay yeah so in element in my training institute we actually have a 40-day

nervous system reset that builds coherence right it's 40 days that's building your coherent state i love that i found out about the device um during joe dispensers yes because during that i was it's so funny i manifested this where it was like you know there's thousands of people's at every one of his events he was taking 20 at this event to do brain scans blood work coherence testing everything and I manifested being selected so then I got into as they were testing me I'm like what's this can I buy it at home yes and then obviously I never used it but now that I know you guys are using about hot math but i never actually used it i like got all inspired after joe's and i'm like i'm gonna do it and then i didn't do it well a lot of joe's work

is based on that coherence yeah yeah so i knew about and i his books are great for anyone listening that want to start yeah but i didn't know it went as in depth on the nervous system yeah so that's really i'm gonna well that is the heart rate is the only way that they've been able to accurately measure what state of nervous system response you're in so that is the heart rate is the only way that they've been able to accurately measure what state of nervous system response you're in. So that's why heart rate monitors are key in the research around nervous system. I'm wearing my aura right now, too, because I'm so I need to get back into HRV tracking and starting to see where that's at. Or I get to get back into it. Yeah, it's huge.

It's huge. And that's the thing. Once you get into this world, you realize how deep it goes. You're like, this is amazing amazing I'm never coming out yeah but we we really have so much that we can feel empowered around this work which is so great and the work never ends right it never ends it never ends and what a joy what a joy and what a thank you for doing this yeah seriously I'm so glad can you tell everyone where to find Awaken the Muse and where to find you? Yeah, awakenthemuse.com. You can find me on Instagram at Alexi Panos. I actually don't currently have my website up because I feel like I'm like a brand new person. So I get to reinvent

that. One more thing on the to-do list that gets to be done beautifully and like in a beautiful space. And anyone who's interested in learning how, if you're a coach and you want to facilitate this work, Elementum Coaching Institute, we actually train coaches on how to understand know and work with your clients in nervous systems somatic trauma all the things so yeah come find me online let's play yeah and if anyone wants to find out more about elementum we did a episode with alexi and one of her co-founders christine yes a couple years back i was pregnant pregnant at the time. Yes. Oh, my gosh, you were pregnant. So they can go back and listen. Well, thank you.

Of course. Thank you so much. This has been great.