How paying attention to your own personal energy and innate rhythms means less burn-out and more fulfillment. There is payoff in listening to yourself.
Let's talk about applying energetic practices to the very "mundane" business of creation and money-making! Your biorhythms can (and really should) be used to help you create a sustainable business that won't suck the life out of you.
Also, keep in mind that the whole of you is abundant. Not just pieces and parcels of you. You might consider the possibility that you will be happier if you can express all of yourself in the work you do--no matter the work you choose to do.
Rebecca is a graduate of Princeton University and Boston University School of Law and an initiated teacher in the tantric Śaivite lineage of Neem Karoli Bābā and Mā Jāya Satī Bhagavatī. She has practiced law and tantra for 20 years. You can find her law practice at www.counseltocreativity.com and her integrative mentorship at www.ompreneur.com.
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Julia: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to Becoming Divine! My name is Julia Wesley. I am a professional medium, and a channel for my guides. And today I have very special guest, Rebecca Prien with us. She is a spiritual teacher, an artist, and an attorney, and she's helped hundreds of business owners create unique profitable offerings using their creative, spiritual, and professional gifts.
So, Rebecca, thank you so much for being with us today.
Rebecca: [00:00:42] Thanks, Julia. Thanks for having me, glad to be here.
Julia: [00:00:46] So I find it really interesting that you are a spiritual teacher and artist and an attorney because we were talking a little bit earlier, those things seem contradictory. But I think what's really cool about what you do is that, your whole thing is wholeness and how none of that is contradictory.
Rebecca: [00:01:05] Yeah. And so, you know, my path has been a lot about those things being contradictory and feeling like. I was a walking contradiction or always feeling like I had one foot in one world and one foot in another, or one foot in one way of being and one foot in another way of being. And in fact, you know, I actually had people say to me--fellow lawyers -- when I was working at a large firm, I had a piece of my artwork in my office, and someone came and commented on it in any way it came through the conversation that, yes, it was actually my piece of art. I was actually the artist as well as the owner of the piece of work. And she literally, she turned at me and said, "Well, that is such an odd way for a brain to work. And I thought, "Okay!". Or, usual way for a brain to work. I thought, yeah, that's it. That's what I'm trying to figure out. That's what I was trying to navigate. How do I bring all of this? How do I bring both of these things right? To the world, to my life? How do I live out both of these things? How do I utilize each of these or all of these capacities? Is there a way to be all of it and to use all of it and to offer all of it?
So I've been asking and answering that question for myself for a very long time. Also, integrated into this is. . . You know, it's interesting as I look back that I've been in spiritual practice, like I've been a spiritual practitioner just slightly longer than I've been a lawyer. So right at the beginning of my last semester in law school, because I had damaged my knees, so I had taken up yoga at a gym and my brother had given me a meditation book. Cause I had been doing these exercises. I had been exercising so hard to manage stress. So he's like, "you really need this!" I can't remember why he had bought it.
Thich Nhat Hanh.
Julia: [00:03:11] Oh, love him.
Rebecca: [00:03:12] Yeah. So that was my first introduction to meditation. So, as I think back, yes, being, in spiritual life or tending to my spiritual life has been intricately and intimately intertwined with being a lawyer all the time. Because I haven't known that much else.
Julia: [00:03:30] Yeah, I love that. "I haven't known much else." I that's so indicative of just who we are as people. I think sometimes if we like extrapolate who we are and try and piecemeal little parts of ourselves off and isolate them. We look at them separately and we're like, this can't be right. You know, like none of this seems to go, but it's when you finally put it back together that you're like, Oh, that makes-- of course that goes together.
And so that makes me wonder if you find that the same part of you that made these like beautiful paintings-- if you use that same part of you in just a different way in your attorney life.
Rebecca: [00:04:10] Probably. First I want to comment on what you said about if we extrapolate things seem not to fit together, but if we look at them as a whole, we have the sense of, "Oh yeah. That makes total sense." And it does because it's in us, and what I've seen, what I've found for myself and then in working with people, what I hear and see, again and again, is our compartmentalization—or more often our valuing of one set of skills, talents, desires over another set, creates this full separation.
Whereas what we're really doing is it all exists together anyway. And we already know on some level what to do with that, because we are that. Culturally, we don't know how to ask the right questions around that, particularly as it relates to pursuing a vocation, or entering a profession, or deciding what we do.
We don't usually bring those qualities, the whole of those qualities to answering that question. We usually ask questions, like, what do you like, or what are you trained in? Or what are you good at? We don't go back. Like we don't ratchet it back to, "wait a minute, what do I do innately?
And how do those qualities exist across everything I do.
Julia: [00:05:38] Yes.
Rebecca: [00:05:39] So that's one of the things that I bring people back to doing. And it's actually surprisingly, both simple and really challenging because we have been separated from that. Because most of us what we do innately, we don't see as a skill or a talent or something that we put to use in service of work or as part of our vocational pursuits, because it's so innate to us, it's so endemic that it loses its value, because it's just the way we are. So we think everybody's like that.
Julia: [00:06:14] Yes.
Rebecca: [00:06:15] So the example I always give, when I teach on this is, One of those qualities for me is listening.
I'm a very auditory and verbal person. I'm an auditory learner. So I learn by listening and then that innate skill has been enhanced by being trained as a lawyer, you know, negotiating. And then again, being trained through spiritual practice to listen at subtler and subtler levels; so that I'm listening at the subtle energy level, as well as at the sound gross energy level.
But the funny story that I tell is that when I got married, my brother stood up to say a few words at the rehearsal dinner before my wedding. And he started in about how closely and intently I listen. And I would, this is the funny part I was sitting there going, this is the weirdest speech I've ever heard.
Like, why is he talking about this? This is like, thanks a lot, like kind of like, this is all he had to say about me? So anyway, you know, go through this story, his point was: she listens, like in a way other people don't listen and she actually really hears you. And then he said, "but this is a phenomenal part she remembers.
And she brings up to you something that you can't even remember you talked about like two years later in a conversation that's completely related, where it's exactly what you need to hear." And so his point was. That's how much she cares, but if I think about it, so that, that quality of that ability to listen and hear people clearly and then remember, and bring it up at the point at which it's useful.
Julia: [00:08:06] Right, right. Yeah.
Rebecca: [00:08:08] That quality runs through everything that I do. It's a quality that's highly valuable in being an attorney, it's also a quality that's highly valuable in being a spiritual teacher and being a business advisor and being a spouse and being a friend and a sibling. That's my example.
But, you don't go out thinking, "I'm going to get a job or I'm going to build a career or I'm going to build a business around listening", right? We don't think that way, but to bring the wholeness to it, we need to take a step back and begin to reconnect ourselves with those qualities within ourselves.
Because we can begin to see that innate wholeness and the pattern that's naturally there.
Julia: [00:08:52] Yeah. Yes. I love how you put that. And I didn't expect to talk about this, but this is actually exactly what I teach as well. Yeah, no, I love it. My favorite! So, it's funny. I was taking the same approach.
So when I first got into doing what I was doing-- I also got into it through yoga and meditation, oddly enough, and I did it to heal stress and other mental health issues like depression and anxiety. When I finally realized I had access to people who had more answers than I did, like my guides, I was like, great! Tell me who I am, what am I supposed to be? And they spent forever-- cause I resisted this lesson for a very long time--being like, "No, it's who are you? And then we try and create something that fits who you are so that you can express the totality of you." So they would give me examples of, well, you really like to learn, or you really like to teach, and you enjoy mysteries.
And I'm like, no, tell me I'm supposed to be a banker. You know? Like tell me I'm supposed to be a NASCAR driver. Give me some, give me like a box I can fit into. And that's funny because the example I give as well as I'm like, see, when you're a teacher, that's just an energy that you run all the time. Right?
So a second-grade teacher is, a teacher when they're not on the clock. It's just an expression of who they are and they have found a job that currently exists that fits them, I just, I think it's funny how those two things are exactly the same, what you're talking about when I'm talking about.
Rebecca: [00:10:22] Yeah, because it's universally true. I mean, that's how, that's how we begin to witness universal truth. That's how we know something is that people come to the same types of experience, same type of approach, same type of discerned wisdom from different paths, right? When you can get there from different paths, we started to go, Oh, wow.
That seems to be a state of the human condition. Right. Yeah. And I laugh to myself, not out loud, well I'll laugh out loud now, when you use the example of a second-grade teacher, because my mother is literally, or was literally a second-grade teacher. So I can say to you that literally, that is true. My mother was a second-grade teacher for 30 years.
Julia: [00:11:13] Oh, wow.
Rebecca: [00:11:14] She's a second-grade teacher every day of her life.
Julia: [00:11:20] Yeah. Well, it it's so true, right? Because it's just an expression. It's part of your, I was going to say part of your wholeness, which is contradictory, but whenever I have someone come to me because I do life purpose readings and--sort of my sneaky way of getting them to be like, no, we're talking about who you are as an energetic expression.
That's your purpose. Your purpose is to figure out how to express who you are, even if it seems like it doesn't fit. Even if it seems contradictory, like to say, be an artist and an attorney and to, and to find a way to meld that and to create something that is it an expression of you that will support you.
Like, that's the fun stuff, right? That's where it gets cool and exciting to be a human, to be who you are. And then to be able to express that and to have the universe support you. That's magic, I think
Rebecca: [00:12:10] It is. And it ironically seems to be the biggest challenge for each of us. I mean, and I say ironic and yet it's not, it's also a reason we're here.
Julia: [00:12:22] I agree. And so, as someone who helps people, is it that you help people create businesses based around that energy of who they are, or do you just help make their ideas profitable? What does that kind of work look like for you?
Rebecca: [00:12:38] There's a couple of different aspects to it. Primarily it can come in the form of how does someone who has had, a professional life for 20 years, but also had less expressed parts of themselves, creative aspects to themselves, or spiritual prophetess aspects of themselves who now realizes there needs to be a shift in their professional life, in how they're doing it in what they're offering. So it comes to getting clarity around how do all these things come together for you? And what does that mean that you're going to offer as work in the world? Now related to that?
There's a number of different things that we work on. One is rooting downward. I found that most of us, most business owners, most entrepreneurs, we operate from about the rib cage up, and we're leaning forward a lot. One fun thing for everyone who's listening to do might be to stand up right now, or even where you're seated and just notice what your posture is. Like, are you somebody who leans forward a lot in life, or are you somebody who leans back on your heels? It probably tells you a lot about how you energetically approach things. I had a friend who reflected to me, and I don't remember how she came to this realization, that she was leaning back all the time.
And she was digging in her heels and she was really stuck. This was somebody who had a lot of stuck and stagnant energy, like took a long time to make decisions procrastinated about anything that she wanted to do. . . That kind of stuff. Like not a lot of engagement or forward motion, that really was challenging for her.
Particularly at this period of her life. And so she realized that, and I thought "that is so interesting". That is like super useful. And so then I started observing myself and realized that I actually lean forward. And my head and my face and my neck and my head are usually in front of the rest of my body.
Like I'm doing it now as I'm talking to you.
Julia: [00:14:53] Me too. As you're saying it, I'm like "darn it!"
Rebecca: [00:14:57] I ended up having a lot of, neck and shoulder issues because of it. But also I've realized that-- and this has really come to light in 11 years of being a solo business owner--and that is, I also expend a lot of extra energy that doesn't necessarily move things forward.
And it's kind of hard to be still a little bit. And so there's that like, if I'm doing something then I must be productive. Right? Like that must be what is creating our results is this forwarding engagement and this constant ideation and creation and, that is not true.
I used to have a business model where I was recreating stuff all the time.
And I don't have that business model anymore. I have a very long standing, like very slow cycle, rhythmic business model now, because that supports the kind of fast energy of my mind from burning out quickly. So some of the aspects are to the profitability and the civility of people's work and businesses is what, at one point I used to call energetically attuned earning. Back to your point of, the energy that is you is this business model actually conducive and supportive and balancing of the energy that is you.
Julia: [00:16:31] That's a revolutionary idea coming from a capitalistic society. Our life force energy is used to fuel the engine of the business and not the other way around that the business is to support us instead of--
Rebecca: [00:16:50] Or that there can be a symbiotic relationship with that. That there's going to be an equilibrium, that the model doesn't have to burn you out all the time. And believe me, I came to this from the point of view of having been burnt out all the time. So I would go through this period of time--well, first of all, when I was an attorney working for someone else, I worked a lot. And so it was a lot of constant work. And so I came into owning my own practice, thinking that was what needed to happen in order to run a practice and ended up working harder in my practice than I had in many, many years working in practice elsewhere.
But what ended up happening is, I'd work really hard, I put a lot of stuff in, I'd bring in client work. And so I'd have, bring in a bunch of money and then I'd literally be on my back in pain. And then I would spend the money getting well and the time getting well, and then I'd have to figure out how to execute the work for my clients.
And then the cycle would start over again. And so I never felt like I was ever getting anywhere either financially or with my health. So it was like what's happening here? I found that most of the models that are taught are models that work for a particular dynamic of person. Right? You know, Ayurveda has an energetic explanation for that. It has a blueprint. You have a type. Your biology and your biochemistry has an energetic pattern to it. And there are characteristics to that pattern. And, what I see still, is that most of the business models, most of the marketing models that are taught are, aimed at one particular energy blueprint. So it's like really exciting for people who are, what's called a pitta type, who are focused and structured and intense, put 125% into something and then stop. So it's all or nothing for them. Right?
And so you see these launch models, where you do a big to do, and hopefully bring in the money they need to bring in, and then there's a downfall and then you wait some time and then you do another launch, right? That's typically what's, being taught. But it's exhausting and people are burnt out.
And so one of the things that people come to me, saying, particularly recently, like this past fall has been that they're depleted, that the work of their work is depleting and that their energy is demanded in all kinds of different places in a way that feels like I described, which is that they're kind of spinning their wheels. That they're expending a lot of energy.
But there was not necessarily a lot happening for that. Or I used to feel this way, that I would expend a lot of energy and not really get the energy back. I'd be like, I didn't really get the reward for what I just put out. So people come with that kind of depletion. And so one of the things we do is we do practices. We're actually pulling their energy in.
So there's a way in which you can probably feel this, you know, you can know what it feels like when your energy or your focus is really scattered. Or when you're not well “boundaried”, let's say. So we do practices that route them down into the earth and engage their center, fire up the fire of their will and their power.
And what it ends up doing is it ends up creating their own energetic container so that their energy is strong and well “boundaried”. I describe it as, going up and down as opposed to banging around the room. And then what we're able to do is say, okay, now from here from your own center, right?
What rhythm is right for you? Where are you naturally acting? How much energy do you actively naturally have to give? Because you can take that as an internal organizing structure to what you offer and how often you offer and how much you have to charge and how you're going to set up your marketing.
You can use that, write your own rhythm of energy. How much you are engaged, how much you need to rest as the basis for, what does my business model need to look like?
Julia: [00:21:22] This is probably why we were talking about the leaning forward over your energy, spinning your wheels- - I'm very much that kind of person as well. And I had recently realized that, well, I'm expending a lot of energy, but it seems as if all of this energy I'm expending is just pushing everything away. Like I'm creating more work for myself before I'm allowed to get my “reward”. And I realized that it was the way that I was relating to work.
My belief about it was that it was supposed to be structured and difficult and stressful. And so that's how I was relating to it. And that's how my work was coming to me. I was literally creating it that way. And I love how you teach people to go and to ground because wealth and abundance, at least in physicality, literally comes from the earth.
Like our money is backed by gold. Theoretically, at least it's backed by gold, which is of the earth. So the more that we're able to get into the joy for our physicality to get into that root chakra, connected with Mama Gaia, you're going to feel supported and you're going to be supported. And I love how you're teaching people to connect into their own internal rhythms, like literally working with themselves to build a business, which is like an extension of them.
Rebecca: [00:22:37] Yes. And at the same time, to know that it's not them. Right? So there's this place where you have to do this dance of going, "Oh wait. But it's not me. It's its own thing that stands on its own." Hiro Boga, I don't know if you know of her or are connected to her, but she's a beautiful teacher about this, that your work and, and your business has its own energy pattern. And what I'm getting to is yes, we use that to create a model. And then the next thing is we also do practices to detach from it. So the other reason that people get depleted is because we're attached to, and we're taking in a lot of times all of the energy that our clients and everyone else around us are bringing to something.
So another piece of work, that I do with people is okay, how do they detach from-- I should describe it differently. A client recently asked me, can you explain how you're using the word detached? So I realized that I need to back up a little bit in this work with people. What I mean is how do you not take on what people are throwing off. In other words, when you're the one they come to for this transformation?
Well, if you're the one they come to when they're under stress or falling apart. How do you hold that space for them and not become enmeshed? Either emotionally, energetically, mentally. So you're not carrying that weight forward, with yourself because it piles up. And it adds to the depletion.
So I've spoken with people that, have been say in, let's call it caretaking industries, but industry or professions where people are either in traumatic or coming out of traumatic situations are under a lot of stress. So I think a couple of people I'm thinking of right now, we're both in mental health fields, 25 years of being therapists, or the like. And there was just this heaviness of energy that they brought. And I couldn't quite at first understand what it was, but I think that it had a lot to do with how much they have taken on, for and with other people just by virtue of their profession.
Because they're not necessarily trained on an energetic level how to release that energy or not take it on in the first place. Same thing with lawyers. it can be true for lawyers that we work with people who are in stressful situations and they don't have anywhere to put their stress except for in their conversation with us. And then they're not happy with what's going on and then they're not happy with the outcome.
And then they're not happy with the bill. A lot of lawyers find themselves in that situation, which you can imagine. And then we have an ethical obligation not to share that with anyone else. So the buck stops with us much like the buck stops with, those who are in the mental health field.
But we're definitely not trained for it. We are absolutely not trained psychologically and emotionally or energetically and how to metabolize that.
So one of the things that we do is work with clients on, okay, how do they detach and metabolize, which is really like being in a space of witnessing as opposed to being in a space of taking on.
Julia: [00:26:04] I think that's where it gets really practical in terms of energy. I use the term "woo" just because everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say that word, but It also comes with this connotation of, well, it's unrealistic. It's crazy. It's not real. But this is when it gets practical. If you're someone who's in a caretaker position or someone who, is a therapist or is an attorney and your job is hard, maybe, you're in law enforcement in some way, and maybe you're a detective and you're really dealing with gritty, dirty stuff every day.
That's a really practical, important thing to do is to figure out how do I manage my energy? How do I disconnect from other people's energy? What is that even like? And I recently had someone ask me, he was like, how is this practical? And I was like, well, thank you for asking. Let me tell you.
And I think this is why this isn't just for psychics and mediums and spiritual teachers and artists, everyone needs to know how to do this. And I just really like how you said metabolize it, because I think, people who might consider themselves to be empaths or just even sensitive in general, there's a real martyr complex where "I will suffer for someone so that their suffering will be less". And I think, I have a suspicion, that perhaps energetically untrained, mental health professionals may do this a little bit. And this is why being so aware of your energy is going to be incredibly helpful and practical.
Rebecca: [00:27:31] Yes, I agree. And I agree with the quote "empath" part of it.
And what I would agree with without trying to sound too harsh is that I think that that's what it is, there is an openness, an ability to perceive-- I'll just speak from my own experience. There's an ability to perceive in ways that we don't even know we are perceiving.
And therefore the boundary is permeable. And it's because we're not trained in how to navigate that and how to metabolize it. And we're not trained in discerning. And creating the reality, the being-ness, where we are actually separate from what's happening over there. And so it's not that this is not real for people, right?
It's just that the story doesn't end at, "Oh, I'm an empath. So I can hear, I can feel everything that everybody else is feeling". Um, okay.
Do you know what I mean? That why would you want to do that?
So I agree with you. To those who are just encountering it for the first time, it sounds kind of harsh, but I saw somebody say, "Hey, you know, it's not that you're an empath, it's about you're unboundaried." But when you put it in this context, that is true. It's a skill, that we are not readily taught, but that is highly, highly useful. Particularly if you find yourself to be somebody who's a highly sensitive person, Which I do believe as a, psychologically technical term at this point in time.
The other thing I was going to say, when you were talking about things being practical is yes for everyone and comes to that third prong about, the work that I do with people. And that is, it gets to be really practical as a way to also make decisions about your business. So not just decisions about, "Oh, this is it's who I really am. And I'm going to come from that in what I do." And one of the things we do is ask, okay, what are you aiming at. One way to integrate all of yourself is define the focus that you're aiming, your creativity, your spirituality, and your professional training, at. Are you aiming at all at the same end?
So not only can this give you wisdom that bubbles up from inside internally about how you actually are, But you can use it as a decision-making tool. You commented when we talked the other day that you love that I had described myself as a master of both strategy and spiritual practice.
And the way I think about those things are in relationship to each other. What you understand about strategy, how you've engaged in it, what your experience around strategy in your business is the knowledge base you have. The training you have actually informs the intuition you're able to receive and cultivate and execute.
Right? And then the intuition then garners that feeling of, "Oh, you know, huh. This is really tapping on my shoulder or nagging at me", or however you experience it, that makes you go and investigate sometimes other strategies. And so one informs the other. It's not that they're in a vacuum from each other and that your intuition is completely detached and devoid of the practicalities of strategy?.
No, because all of that's packed in their field right. In your conscience and your sub-conscience and the field of knowledge that your intuition exists in. I think it's interesting that it's becoming more and more common to meld these two things together.
But I find it interesting that we culturally, as humans have decided to separate them out because they're more useful together.
Julia: [00:31:37] Exactly. I love how you keep putting this it, because the way that you're describing it and the way that it is, is so intensely practical that it's literally like we're hobbling ourselves, going through life saying that I'm actually not going to use my intuition to inform my strategy within life.
My intuition is always active and online, but I'm just not going to pay attention to it because I can't empirically prove it, yada, yada, I'm not supposed to be able to do it. And it's, so then that lends us that "I'm stumbling around through life" kind of feeling. And I'm not saying that as soon as you tune into your intuition, everything is sunshine and roses, but it'll be easier.
Things will, not be so stressful. And again, back to that practicality sort of thing, your beliefs literally do inform the way that you relate to everything. The way that you interact with anything. If you have a belief that money is supposed to be stressful, the way that you interact with money is going to be very stressful.
And that's how practical this stuff is. So I love the energy that you bring to this, the mindset that you bring to this, I think is what I'm getting at. And it's nice that you're an attorney, because if you're someone who's listening to this and you're struggling with this concept to hear someone like you, who's so educated and who has so much experience with perhaps the left brain side of things, as well as the right brain side of things, bringing that together and saying, "Hey, I'm not crazy. I'm making this work for me."
I think that helps other people examine themselves and be like, well, all right. So I've just been putting this thought in this belief on the back burner, silently letting it simmer and be resentful of it. But what if I engaged with this belief and I don't know, maybe changed it? See what changes? I think that's really practical. I think it's useful.
Rebecca: [00:33:28] It is. So if you have knowing, we call it knowing, whether you call it intuition, whether it's source spirit, the universe, when you're connected in that way, and you received that wisdom and then you say, no, that can't be right.
And what you're doing in a very real way is rejecting yourself. You're saying I'm wrong in some way. This thing that's external to me is right. And so I'm going to take that above what I know. And so it is a way of rejecting yourself and reaching for something that is outside of yourself as the authority for you.
And so in that way, it's very practical also, and that really tends to land for people. Like when they get that recognition of, "Oh, boy. Wow. Okay. In a real way. I'm saying no to me." I talked earlier about valuing some qualities or attributes or skills higher than others. We can de-value ourselves and our own knowing wisdom and that way, our own decision-making process for external modes of decision-making because they've been somehow externally validated. And what it ends up for many people leading too, is this kind of downward spiral effect, to a feeling of frustration or confusion or depression or anxiety, or just kind of being lost to themselves. That feeling of what, what am I doing?
Where is there any meaning in this? How do I have any agency?
Julia: [00:35:18] Yeah. And I know actually for it to be true. The thing about giving away your authority to someone else is a large part of my work because it's how I got into this work.
I had given away so much of my authority to society, other people, friends, whoever, things that I knew to be true for me that were central to who I am, my makeup, my identity, what I like, what I don't like, things like that. And. I had listened to society, other people, media telling me that those things, that's not true.
That can't be, that's not how that works. That's not how that goes. And I had sort of believed that to the point I had given my authority away, stopped listening to what I knew was right for me, and then accepted someone else's idea of what that was. And I had, you know, ground myself into a state of anxiety and depression that literally took me years to dig my way out of.
And when we're talking about something like giving away your authority, that's kind of how dangerous it is not to make it sound, you know, life or death, but to invalidate yourself in that way to seek outside validation to who you are, it's so corrosive to your own-- well, your own inner divinity.
You are the first and last say on who you are.
Rebecca: [00:36:36] Yes, exactly. And it's also elusive. It's not ever stable. It's it's ever-changing. You get in that state of you need more of it, so there's kind of a constant reaching, grasping experience.
Julia: [00:36:55] And I want to be mindful of your time, but there is one other topic that I wanted to sort of get back to.
So there's this idea of work-life balance. That's how people deal with having jobs that they hate. Right. They try and balance it with, you know, outside work life: going on vacations, yada yada. And so I think when people who are going into a spiritual business or are just trying to incorporate a more holistic mindset into the way that they do work is part of what that burnout was, was trying to maintain that work-life balance. Because they're like, I hate eight hours of my day. I hate it. It's so exhausting that balance looks like going home and sleeping for 12 hours, you know, like how is that balance?
And so I think when you get into like a spiritually based business and you have this idea that this can't be separate. This can't be a separate part of me. And so where is that balance? Right? Because if you are your business and everything, it's supposed to be an expression of you, do you run into, or do you work with people sometimes who just have this belief that finding any type of balance or finding any type of separation within my business from me is just so anathema to what they think they need to create? And how do you help coach people away from that ledge?
Rebecca: [00:38:15] Hm. I think that I do encounter tales of constant doing and when not doing, the mental pressure to be doing. So I think what it comes back to from my perspective is returning again to that innate rhythm that exists.
So back to your innate rhythm and innate brilliance. Another one of my innate brilliances is seeing the structure of things. So the organic composition of something how does this have its own structure?
Somehow I seem to be able to feel or see into that for myself and for other people. And so to know that each of us has our own internal structuring mechanism that goes along with, our energetic patterns. So how we are as an energetic being has in it, an organic structuring, a pattern to it.
We have a rhythm at which we like to work at and play at and do various things at. And so when we connect in with that and follow it, and allow it to structure how do we structure our work, how we structure our business model, how we structure our time. We start to move out of that idea of balance at all.
So it doesn't become any more balancing like there's these two things that you put on a scale and they have to be even in order for it to work. Like I think that is an, perhaps intentionally false, construct. We're not going to be balanced because we're not really balanced people.
But we can come into like our natural state of equilibrium. Where we are what's right for us. And we're intentionally directing our energy in a way that keeps us in equilibrium, more or less.
And that might not look like balance at all to other people, but it feels supportive to us and it is actually supportive of our nature. And so when it's supportive of our nature, that's kind of how we know, you know, it can be more or less supportive of our finances at different times.
That's an ebb and flow also. You know, this kind of organic, this internal innate organizing mechanism that we have for ourselves will lead us to what the equilibrium looks like for us. How much play, what kind of play, how much work, what kind of work, you know, with whom and what kind of groups, you know, what time of the day, how many times a week? You know, these are questions we try and answer from the perspective of our mind or strategy, right? Like kind of, strategic planning and this idea. And, again, I'm asking people to flip that on its head and say, let's start with yourself. Let's start with rooting, connecting to the earth. Let's engage, our bodies, our energy and, let's let our knowing of ourselves well up and over into how we do things. Let it lead us. And, you know, people understand that.
I mean, I'll just give the example that my husband and I were visiting my parents last weekend. You know, My dad was commenting about how my mom seems to be able to get all of these things done in a day and a week. And he can't
And then my husband chimed in and commented about how he and I are so different. Like he likes much longer periods of like steady work on a single project. That makes me crazy.
I get completely burnt out. I used to think, especially being a lawyer, I used to think that that was what I needed to do.
But that was like the "right" way or the "productive" way, or just "what had to be done" to get things accomplished. Instead of trying to like lean back into my own rhythm. And it took a lot of years and I'm still practicing at it really, but to go, "Oh, that's not really the way I work. Like I'm not really built that way." So I have to like give myself a lot of time. If I know there's a quote "deadline" or some time I want off or something or I have to get something done, say for a client in the law practice. I have to give myself enough time so that I can spend two hours on it here and an hour on it there.
Right, right. And then spend an hour on something else in between. And so I have to have that variety and rhythm. And if I don't, where I get caught is when things have to be done, in the web universe. So when things are like opt in pages or newsletters or updating the website or that kind of stuff, somehow I think this is just going to be done.
And I ended up throwing myself into it and having to work at the single task for substantially longer than I intend. And I always end wound up highly irritated or angry, hungry, depleted, like not sleeping well--all the things like completely out of balance. You know, we're built a certain way and it's best if we go along with that rather than fight it. And yet, there are many forces culturally that are asking us to fight it or that tell us that that's the position that we need to be in. And so there is, there's an unwinding of that. There's an unlearning.
There's a grief, there can be a grieving process that goes along with that. Then on the other side, you coming in with the cultivation of that, that trust that, "Oh, I can trust myself in this. Oh, I can trust my body in this. Right. When it's telling me it's tired, it's tired."
Julia: [00:44:26] Yeah. I love that. I feel you on the grief thing. That was something I didn't expect.
Rebecca: [00:44:30] Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people don't expect it. You would think that if we, again, it's like, it's funny doing this work, both my own spiritual life, but also, bringing it into how I run my businesses, and then working with other people on that.
It's so interesting because it reveals these little pockets of what's unspoken in our culture. I don't think it's that nobody knows it's there it's, somehow that lineage of knowledge, the lineage of, wisdom has been broken or silenced.
So it surprises a lot of us that when we actually step toward and into something that we think, "Oh my gosh, this is going to be great!" And then we're hit with the, the emotions that are like not great.
We experience grief of the loss of something or a way of being that didn't even work for us or that we didn't even want, and that we were taking on. But we grieve it.
Julia: [00:45:38] Yeah. You know, it's, it's kind of funny when I quit my regular nine to five, to do what I do now, there was a stretch of time where I'm like, "I'm excited to do this! I mean, I'm scared, but I'm excited!" But I spent like two months on the couch and it took me a while to be like, "Oh, I'm grieving." You know? Like I was working, but then I would spend any time I wasn't working on the couch, I'm like, what's wrong with me? What's-- what is this? You know? And it was so unexpected that it took me two months to figure out that it was grief.
And I didn't expect it because I was so angry at my previous job and the previous paradigm that I was part of that I thought I was going to be, you know, like I'm just taking the leap and it really wasn't, and it threw me, it did.
So thank you for bringing that up. Cause I think that would throw a lot of people who wouldn't expect to grieve something that they hated.
Rebecca: [00:46:30] Exactly. And then we think there's something wrong. We can have some more compassion for ourselves and also just let it be part of the process rather than being resistant to it, or again, thinking like there's something wrong.
Julia: [00:46:46] I didn't have anyone to warn me that I was going to experience grief when I did that.
So heads up everyone. That could be a possibility!
But thank you so much, Rebecca, for speaking with us and sharing your knowledge and wisdom. Would you mind telling everyone how they can get in touch with you and how they can work with you?
Rebecca: [00:47:03] Sure. Thanks for having me. And I'd love to, you know, I offer a free five day, practice.
The practice is aimed at unwinding confusion. So it's aimed at that thing that you're like, "Oh my God, this again?", like the thing that keeps coming up and up and up that keeps us from moving forward with what we want to do. And you can find that at www.ownpreneur.com/this-again.
Julia: [00:47:32] Perfect. Well, I will have all of the links in the episode notes, and thank you so much again! All right, that's it, everyone. We'll see you next time.