Nicole AKA fairy godmother to your inner wise woman, is the host of the Rewild + Free podcast, and mentor for coaches, doulas, disruptors, and leaders of the new paradigm who are DONE dimming their light.

She guides women to awaken beyond the  conditioning that’s kept them pretty, perfect, and pleasing, so they can unbecome who the world told them to be and let their weird witchy woo selves shine. 

Nicole’s work lies at the intersection of self exploration, decolonization, and conscious creation. Drawing from nature as a template, she merges intuition, nervous system healing, cyclical awareness, and energetics to create spaces where women can reconnect with their power and wildly profit from their truth.  

Ah so many intertwining through line som this chat. We dive into:

• past life people pleasing and how that manifested in Nicole’s earlier life
• How a home broth led to Nicole awakening to her power and wondering “what else can I do?”
• How being so disconnected from her body and feeling state led to a deep dive journeying into somatics and guiding other women through their own unbecoming
• How so many systems of oppression intersect and how waking up to the ocean wet swimming means there’s truly no going back
• Creating business from a space of sacred offering instead of the extractive “norms” of pushing, striving and ticking boxes
• Motherhood, it’s identity shifts and how being the thermometer of a family from a well resourced state ripples out into homes and communities
• And an upcoming offering from Nicole in collaboration with her friend Lauren, a somatic coach, for birthworkers and other mother serving visionaries to develop inner mastery and anchor into nervous system awareness, to better serve themselves and their clients, and build value aligned, heart led businesses. Visit the waitlist link here.

Find Nicole online on Instagram @nicolepasveer

 

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S5E7 People Pleasing to Sacred Overflow with Nicole Pasveer

[00:00:00] I mean, looking backwards, very clearly my nervous system state was, was chronically in survival, chronically in fawn, right? Which is basically a fancy word for people pleasing and, and really, that self extraction, right? 

Welcome to the wild and finally fucking free podcast show. This is a space where truth talking gets real behind the scenes. Grit of the future humans is laid bare, and we are celebrating and sharing the real world stories of change agents, neuro sparkly people, the witchy wild women, the deep feelers, the unapologetic senses, the status quo challenges, and the huge hearted healers and helpers.

And guiding you through this wild ride of entrepreneurship and full heart led contribution to the world is me, your host, Kylie Patchett, aka KP. I am a proudly neuro sparkly natural born status quo challenger and I thrive on helping disruptors, rebels and revolutionaries find their voices, amplify their message into the world and harness their raw potential.

Alchemise it into unleashing your full potency. Not only will I be sharing the behind the scenes of some of the most amazing, most status quo challenging thought leaders, I'll also be lifting the veil behind my own business. In 2024, I 18x'd my monthly income. Still blows my mind to say that. And this year I am leaning into how joyful and fun it would be to shift from six figures to seven figures in a quantum shifting year, all through leading from my full unapologetic voice, my unleashed potency, and with my big wildly lit up heart leading the way.

Every single step of the way. So together with my guests, I am going to be [00:02:00] sharing the mess and the magic. Spilling the tea on the identity shifts behind stepping into thought leadership. Breaking the ties that bind us.

Unlearning old patterns and reweaving brand new ways of living, loving, learning, and leading. We're here to break boundaries, reimagine what's possible, all while collapsing timelines and leading with joy, love, and our fiercest wild woman selves. This is not just a podcast. It is a rebellion. It is a revolution.

It is an invitation to join the Mad Hatter's collective movement. And by Mad Hatters I mean all the colourful, creative, gorgeous, world changing, out of the box humans out there. If you've ever longed to be wild and finally fucking free, this is your sign to lean in. Let's get started.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. This is going to be a delicious conversation. I know it already. Welcome to the beautiful Nicole Pesbier. How are you? 

Oh, I'm so good. I'm so excited to be here. Like, I don't think I've ever been so excited to be on someone else's podcast because I just know our stories have so many.

interconnected weavings that, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's going to be such a good conversation wherever we go. I feel 

like you are, at the moment, you're sitting in this like ray of sunshine behind your desk too and I'm like, she is a ray of sunshine. It's probably going to 

be dark in an hour. Oh my goodness.

Yeah. So where, where are we talking to you from? I'm in Canada. 

I'm in Canada. So time of recording, it's January. We're dead of winter. Um, it's what, three 30 here for me. And so, yeah, it's going to be dark in about an hour, which is crazy. This is. Uh, Canadian winter sunset that you are seeing behind me. 

Oh my goodness.

See, I'm like, it's so funny. The time zone differences screw with my head anyway. 

You're tomorrow. 

I know, it's weird. It's weird. It's weird. I mean, I'm future focused, but I'm always now coming from the [00:04:00] future. But our sun is up at four in the morning and your son is down at four in the afternoon. I remember the very first coach that I ever hired.

She was in Kitchener in Canada and we started in February. Yeah. And so I was. in positive 40 centigrade and she was in negative 40 centigrade. I was like, I just cannot. Well, 

yeah. So right now today, today is the last day of a cold snap run, so it's going to warm up, but last this entire weekend, it's been like minus 25 Celsius.

Yeah. And I'm sure you're at plus 25 at least. 

Oh yeah, today is 35. I've already got my aircon on. Oh, I thought I had my aircon on, but I don't. That's fine. So tell us, anyone who doesn't already know of your brilliance in the world. Who are you? What do you love to bring to the world? This question, oh 

my god, this question.

kills me because it just feels so big. And also I'm still in the process, a long multi year process of trying to figure out what that answer is. Um, yeah. Who am I? I, like if you, if you move past all of the labels and the identities, right, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm an ex nurse. Um, if we move past all of those things, who am I?

I am someone that is like fiercely devoted to. empowering other women and helping other women to reignite with their purpose and their, their passions and their desire. Um, and all of those words, even as I'm saying them out loud, sound kind of like fluffy, but really it's like coming home to yourself and, um, unbecoming who the world has made you think you need to be unlearning all the shoulds coming undone from really all the bullshit conditioning, right?

The good girl conditioning, the whatever it is. Um, and if that ends up you becoming this, this rebel and this rule breaker and this [00:06:00] revolutionary visionary amazing, but that's not necessarily the goal either. It's really just coming back to whoever you are and It's funny because I'm totally on that journey myself, right?

Not even able to completely answer this because I don't know who I am yet. I'm still in that journey. I'm still in this process. Um, newsflash, which is wild. You will never have the perfect answer to that question. Exactly. Right. And so I guess it's getting peace with the constant evolution. And that's actually a beautiful reflection because something I've said out loud several times is.

Um, okay, so my daughter is almost three and a half right now, so for the past three and a half years, because motherhood shook me, like I think it does to almost everyone, for the past three and a half years, I have literally been making myself dizzy with all of the evolutions I've been on, right? All of this, yeah, spinning around, kind of like twirling, untwirling, shedding the skin, shedding the identities that don't belong.

And it's like, yeah, this beautiful, it's not even like a metamorphosis. It's more of like a snake shedding its skin kind of transformation. Um, 

yeah. 

And like, so who am I? I don't know yet. But 

isn't that cool? Like There is such juiciness in not having a perfect answer because I would say if you have a perfect answer to that question, you are already not who you really are.

Right, because I'm putting myself in a box that is, yeah, putting conditions and limits. And so, yeah, I don't have those conditions. I don't have those limits around me. I also feel like who I am changes not in a people pleasing kind of way, which it used to. Definitely used to be in that kind of way. But I I'm also so receptive and intuitive to what's around me that, right, like who I am and how I respond and yeah, I don't know, there's also now this uncovering of neurodivergence in our family, um, my daughter being autistic and me realizing that apple does not [00:08:00] fall far from the tree, um, so both me and my mom currently going through this beautiful uh, discovery of our own like potential autism.

And again, learning how much I've been masking in the world. And so now again, shedding that mask and really like learning who I am and how to better accommodate myself. And also recognizing that with that neuro diversity and my incredible ability to be empathetic and intuitive and whatever other label you want to throw on that.

I do kind of like, I'm almost like a chameleon with whoever I'm with, but not in a bad way, right? I can see clearly that it used to be kind of a maladaptive response and now I'm using it more as a superpower. 

Yeah. So good. As you're talking, the word that I'm, um, like really feeling is permeable in that because when you do unbox yourself, there's this huge permission slip to just, yeah.

Be whatever 

you are. And yeah, I feel like I'm, I'm kind of going through this in a more like, this is a, it's almost a silly example, but I'm having business photos on Friday in my head. So about what look am I going for? And what blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I said to my daughter the other day, I need boho and retro to have babies because that's my style.

Right. Cause I was like, I didn't have a style. I hate having pictures. It's so triggering. And she's like, you do have a style mom. It's boho and retro. Like boho or retro. And I'm like, no, I need them to have a baby. Yeah. Yeah. Someone needs to create a new fashion. But it brings up so much of this old conditioning of like, there's a right way to show up in a wrong way to show up.

And there's like, and I'm like, Oh my God, I do not believe that I need to. I'm going to be in one particular skin. And so like you should see the clothes that I'm gathering. Like I've gone from like a velvet ball gown, which is like a crazy over the top thing to something that's like thongs and shorts, because that is, [00:10:00] you know, that's the permeability.

And as you're saying about like the masking thing, and I really want, I mean, I want to go back backwards in life to the, you know, people, the pleasing version of Nicole as well. But once we hear like the. That discovery when you're considering that maybe you two are also neurodiverse, which I also went through when my daughter was diagnosed and her psychiatrist turned to me and said, and when are we going to talk about you?

And I'm like, what? Yeah. And that was weird for me because. Abbey, my older daughter and I are very different, but I have autism and ADHD, which very much changes the, yeah, how it turns out for me. Um, but yeah, it's that question of like, what parts of me are actually just learned. Masking learned, adaption learned, fitting in and, and I found that really discombobulating.

Like really like who, and I was going through perimenopause as well. So that's discombobulating in itself because you are shifting and changing. Well, and I was 

going through like postpartum, right? At early postpartum. So it's like, it's yeah, very similar where you're already in this, like, discombobulating period of time in, in terms of like seasons of life, right?

Like my world literally did change. All of a sudden I am the primary caretaker for this tiny human that is completely dependent on me. Um, and in the middle of that, I was also, it was COVID. So that was discombobulating. And I was also like basically leaving my career as a nurse, right? So all of those things were huge identity.

Shifts on their own. And then, yeah. So no wonder you're working in the world. Like this makes so much 

sense to me. I want to go backwards because you've said a couple of times, like the people pleasing version of me. And I know we've had such beautiful conversations before this podcast about, um, you know, the value that like we've put on different [00:12:00] aspects of ourselves or what we've been conditioned to believe are the most important aspects.

Where we've 

been praised. 

Yes. Take us back in time. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, long story short, my entire life, like growing up childhood, adolescence, even early adulthood, I was following society's to do list. I was absolutely that good girl, overachiever, a plus student, teachers, pet more so than that. I was also like my friends.

Parents favorite friend. You know what I mean? Right? Like I was the favorite friend. Everybody wanted their kid to be more like me. Everyone wanted, yeah, Nicole to be invited over. Like I was the polite one. I was, yeah, I was just an adult's favorite person. Excellent. 

Good girl. Well done. I was. 

I was. And I matured quickly, um, based on different life experiences.

I was an only child, divorced parents, like all of those things really had me grow up a lot faster than quote unquote, maybe I should have, but I was also praised for being wise beyond my years and so mature and all of these things. Right. So I, I started my early adulthood with all of those. Um, post it notes, as you call them, sticky notes on me, right?

And, um, yeah, just remembering that, like, the conditioning, even around, like, money and career and, what it meant to be a quote unquote successful adult. Um, that meant like getting a good job, whatever that means. Um, marrying rich, going to university or college, getting a degree. Like it was not even an option in my mind to not go to post secondary education, right?

Like it, so like, it wasn't even it. Yeah. I remember in high school, like, Last year of high school, so much pressure on like, Oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? Like, what are you going to do? Where are you going to school? And, um, again, I had it in my head that essentially like more money equaled more respect, more money equaled you're a better [00:14:00] human, um, more money equals more stability and security.

Right. And obviously there's. Yeah, some truth in some of that and also a lot of bullshit and all that. 

Exactly. Right? Yup. Especially if it takes you sacrificing who you are, right? 

Absolutely, right? And like in, in the middle of all that too, like I was completely disconnected from my body. Like looking back when I was.

I don't even know how old I was when I got my period for the first time, but I remember thinking that that was something I needed to hide, I remember thinking that it was something to dread and, like, get rid of, I remember going on birth control really early and being on birth control for, like, over a decade and even, like, being on a birth control that Helped me skip periods.

Like it's like mind blowing to look at now. Cause it just goes against so many of my current values. Right. So also so much, uh, compassion for that version of myself, right. While holding onto some grief that comes up too, right. Like what would things have been like if. That wasn't actually the story that I was holding on to.

But yeah, fast forward to early adulthood, I went on to get my degree in nursing. Um, funny story with that, actually. I, again, cause I had it in my head that more money meant. More respect, more money meant more security, more money was basically the goal. So what job can I do that is going to make me the most money?

And obviously I'm an A plus student at the time. So like the world is my oyster as everyone is telling me, right? Yeah. So I was like, okay, well the obvious choice then, because I love like, Health and biology and all those things the obvious choice would be to become a doctor. So I'm gonna go to med school So I thought so I I don't know how it works in other countries, but here in Canada to become a doctor you need to go get like a Pre med degree and so I thought I was gonna go take my pre med in neuroscience because I always had a passion for just the brain and the nervous system.

It's, it's [00:16:00] really cool to see the through lines in my work now because it all makes sense. It all makes sense. Cause I'm a huge nervous system nerd. And that is a big part of my body of work right now. But yeah, so I thought I was going to do my pre med in neuroscience. I literally was registered. I had moved to a different city to go to a university that Like special had a fancy like neuroscience lab and stuff and I kid you not the weekend before classes were supposed to start I don't know if there was a dream or something But I woke up with so much clarity that what the fuck am I doing?

This is not what I want like logically thinking about okay This would have been a four year degree and then i'd have to go on to another three or four year program to Get my, whatever it's called. Doctorate. Yeah, whatever. And then stuff just to be a baby doctor though, , right. And then I'd have to go be a resident intern or whatever, resident, and it would be like, we're talking like probably like 12 years before I'm actually making money and getting this like.

Promise that was handed to me if I go on to become a doctor, right? And I'm like, but how am I supposed to be a mom in that? How am I supposed to live a life? And so I really had this moment of like, this isn't what I want. This is not at all what I want. And the quick logical side of me, it was like, okay, what's the compromise?

So the compromise was nursing. Go into nursing. Nursing is the compromise. You still have your feet in the same industry. Um, but it's, it's very logical in the sense that it's a four year degree. Um, and then you have a job at the end of it and it's still very respectable and right. Everyone loves a nurse.

Everyone loves a nurse. Nurses and teachers. Well, they're good 

girls, right? Exactly, exactly. 

So literally the weekend before classes were supposed to start, I dropped out of all of the the classes and switched into more of a general science so that I could transfer things into nursing the following year.

So hilarious looking back and like, thank goodness I followed that teeny tiny impulse. And like I said, I don't remember if there was a dream or I don't know [00:18:00] why I woke up with that clarity, but thank God I did. 

And 

then kind of fast forward through my nursing degree. I remember, vividly remember so many moments where it's like, I fucking hate this.

I want to drop out so badly. None of this is fulfilling. None of this is enjoyable. Obviously, like, I like school. I've always been that person that loves learning, so I like that aspect of it, but I hated the hands on stuff. I've always joked, like, I never was a nursey nurse. I ended up going into mental health.

I worked on a psychiatry unit. So again, it all makes sense. Yep. Yep. 

It all makes sense. Always unfolding as it should. It all makes sense, but, 

um, Yeah, again, long story short, I, I went through all the motions, I did all the things that were expected of me, I got the job, I got good grades in my nursing degree, I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart, we ended up buying a home when we were 25, we had two dogs, we did everything in the right order, um, And then when I became pregnant, this was in the middle of COVID.

So, um, planned pregnancy, like, again, this was the next thing on society's to do list, right? So I was just ready to check the next box. I was just ready to check the next box. And again, looking back at that season of my life, like, I was completely, oh, what's the word? Just like a shell of myself. I don't think I would have had the language to say I hate my job, because there was comfort and security in my job, so I liked the comfort and the security, but the job created so much friction in my head and my heart in terms of what my values were, and Like, in nursing school, I feel like they teach you, like, Oh, let's think about, like, prevention and upstream thinking and all these things to, like, change the healthcare system and make everybody healthy and then you get into the real world.

And it's like, no, we're just slapping band aids on everyone, right? And then, because I was in a psychiatric unit, like, It really is just popping pills to kind of mask whatever's [00:20:00] happening. And again, because 

I was, 

Oh, God, 

no, no, I was just like, because I've worked in mental health recovery. Yeah. For God's sake.

Don't ask like, what's the underlying. 

Oh God. Yeah. No, no. We do not look at root causes. No, no, no, no, no, no. 

Like fix the systems that have actually caused the trauma that's triggered these things in the first place. Like don't look at that. 

That would be 

silly. 

Silly, silly me. Right. That would be silly. But what I'm kind of.

seeing now that I'm outside of it. Like, I was so opposed to allowing myself to, to take on the label or identity of being remotely anxious or depressed because I was working with this severely anxious and depressed. So because I wasn't that, it meant that like I was, I was, I was great. Right. But truly I was not like, I was absolutely anxious and depressed and I didn't even allow myself to acknowledge that or hold space for my experience and all of that.

And then anyways, COVID happened and COVID again just really illuminated the friction with my values in the system. And that could probably be a whole episode. I feel like everyone has a COVID story, right? It was definitely an awakening moment too. Not just in like the government and policies and the healthcare system, but also just the bigger picture of the systems at play, the water we swim in, in how marvelously they're actually working to disconnect us, disconnect us from each other and disconnect us from ourselves.

So that just became like completely eyeopening. And of course, like once you see it, you can't unsee it. So that just became this massive ripple for every other kind of aspect of my life. And I was pregnant. And the first time in my life, I couldn't like outsmart my pregnancy, like I couldn't be more logical to make pregnancy any better.

What a uncomfortable truth that is, right? So it was the first time in my entire life that I actually had [00:22:00] to, like, reconnect to my body. And it was a beautiful invitation to ultimately, like, come home to myself for literally the first time ever, which was discombobulating as well. 

Yep. 

Um, and then 

I've been taught to value myself from the chin up and all of a sudden you're expecting me to live in the rest of my body where all the stuff that I've never looked at.

Yeah. Is actually stored. So that, you know, scary, uncomfortable, discombobulating, doesn't align with the identity I've chosen for myself. What the actual F. 

Basically, basically learning how to be in relationship with my intuition in a world that has taught me not to trust my intuition, right? Yep. Yep. And I'm saying that kind of not just a me thing.

That's an everyone thing, right? We've all kind of lived that experience, I think, if we're in modernized life. So yeah, what is this? This is now 2021. I'm about to have my baby. I knew I wanted a natural birth. I, considered the idea of a home birth and talked myself out of it many times saying, no, first time moms don't have home births.

Like I need to make sure I can do this before I do something crazy like that. And this is where I say, thank God for COVID. Thank God for COVID because COVID was the tipping point for me. The policies that were, um, currently active in our, in our healthcare system at the time, I was only allowed to have one support person in the hospital with me if I was going to give birth in the hospital.

And we had hired a doula. So, truthfully, I would have brought my doula and my husband would have missed the birth of my daughter, which is, is absolutely awful. So that was the tipping point of like, okay, you know what, I'm actually going to consider a home birth. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. And obviously not attached to outcomes completely, but doing what I can to prepare for that.

And I did end up having a beautiful home water birth. It was an amazing experience. And [00:24:00] after that, I remember almost being, like, shaken up by the power that I felt. Like, I literally walked away from that birth experience almost fearful of my own capability. Like I said, I, if I can do that, what else can I do?

And so that was a really big moment of like, holy shit. Like, I, I have a lot of power. Again, I've kind of spent my entire life Feeling disempowered and not having the language to know that that's what I was feeling, but for the first time I was like, holy shit, like, whoa, like I am capable of, of literally bringing life into the world in the middle of my living room.

What else can I do? 

And it feels dangerous, right? When you haven't met 

those pieces of 

yourself. But also if you've been ticking the boxes, like the boxes don't say, The, the the full power of magic. Like that is the opposite of the boxes. Because the boxes are designed to keep the systems ticking along the systems that want to keep us away from our power, away from our magic, away from our reasoning, away from our intuition.

All of the felt sense stuff all into this matrix of like, this is the right way to do life. Because this is what works for people at the top of the tree. 

Yep. 

Oh my goodness. Isn't that was 

a big moment, right. Like a holy shit moment. And it's funny because I keep coming back to that. There's been various instances since that in the last like three and a half years where I've had another moment of like, Holy shit, I did that.

Like, I didn't know my words could be so powerful. I didn't know that one thing, one piece of content on Instagram could create as many waves as it did, right? Little things like that where it's like, holy shit, if I can do that, what else can I do? Yeah, 

yeah. And I guess to really 

like speed up the story, like this, this what's alive recently, the past couple of months, I've really been stepping into this identity of being an activator and activating someone.

Again, I feel like [00:26:00] I was conditioned to believe that that was bad and dangerous and I would be doing harm. And so it's better for me to bite my lip, not say anything. I don't want to trigger anyone. I don't want to cause harm. Right. And so, and so now I'm really stepping into the power of that and the ripple and the waves that that can make in a, in a positive way.

Right. Obviously it can do harm too, but I'm not coming with it, that intention. So 

yeah, yeah. 

Just recognizing that there's a difference there. 

Uh, there is so many parallels in our stories, it's quite funny. 

Because I actually went through I didn't even talk about the neurodivergent stuff yet, but like, that's somewhere in there too.

Um, I, I really wanted to be a naturopath the whole time I was in schools. I got really, um, sick in the second, last year of high school. Like, with glandular fever to the point where I couldn't actually stand up. Like, I was very, very bad. Very, very sick. Yeah. Which is a direct reflection of being disconnected from your body and pushing through.

Yeah. And only mm-hmm . You know, living from the chin up. And, um, my dad who was like, I don't know, he would've been like 70 at the time. He was like, we are going to a naturopath. 'cause one of his friends had said, naturopath. And I was like, oh, this is new. 'cause he was, you know, like that was definitely not the done thing.

And, um, went to this naturopath and I remember walking in and I saw this like whole wall of those like brown bottles that they make up the herbs in. And I was just like, yeah. Oh, but something inside of me was like, Oh, there's something happening here. That's like a, I don't know, remembering of something or a, like a, one of those like little anyway.

So I, by the end of grade 12, which is our final year at school, I was like, right, I'm going to do naturopathy. And I'd got, I'd gotten into naturopathy. And then my dad's like, I'm really just don't know whether you're going to make any money in natural medicine. I was just about to 

say, but Kylie, do naturopaths make money?

I would have been a shit ton happier than going into science. But I then, so my next thing was, well, I'm going to be a doctor then. But in Australia, you have to have a certain amount of points to get into the medical degree. And I [00:28:00] was like five points off 

and I was like, you weren't smart, you, you were smart, smart enough.

Then not that one. No, not because it was like, it was a quite a high entry requirement. And I was like, well, I'm just going to go to uni and I'll just do one year and then I'll upgrade to pre med and thank God, kind of similar in that year, I just became really obsessed with genetics. And that's what I ended up doing my degree in.

And then I did forensic, but yeah, same sort of thing of like, I want to be in health. I want to empower people. Thank God I didn't do medicine. Like, Oh my God. Because then my kind of second career path, well, no, as I was doing my master's in forensic, I, um, we had a neighbor up the road who was the nurse that ran the sleep and respiratory lab at a hospital and she's like, you've got a science degree, right?

And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, we need night techs, like come and work for me. And so I'd never, I know. So anyway, I did my whole training and everything. And so I found myself. In a sleep and respiratory specialist lab, but is it going. Uh, okay. So we've got these people who are also like huge heart, like cardiac patients.

They've got diabetes. They've got, no one is telling them about anything to do with lifestyle. We're just whacking on all the medications over the top. We're not saying the fact that you're carrying 50 extra kilos is part of the issue and helping them to do something about it. Not just saying, Oh, you know, disgusting person go and lose weight.

Like the medical system likes to do. And I was like, Who the fuck made this system up that we pull ourselves into silos and don't even talk about mental health in relation to physical health? Like, no, we don't know. Those are never, ever connected. And I'm just like, yeah, this is just so wrong. So wrong. And I felt it.

Same sort of thing that you're saying, like that value misalignment where It was so heavy to carry around. I'm like, you are actually doing harm because this system is doing harm and you are part of the system. 

Yeah. For me, that really was illuminated during COVID, right. Because I was forced to follow policies that I didn't agree with, like not letting family members come in and see their loved [00:30:00] ones.

And like, I don't, it's funny, like that part of my brain has like almost blocked some of it because it's, looking back, like parts of it were traumatizing and the fact that I was a part of it, I was the middle man doing what I was told. Just to keep a job. I am 

two days before our first lockdown in the state that I'm in.

I started working as a health and wellbeing program manager in an aged care facility, never worked in aged care before. And then we locked down two days later. So I was personally responsible for the wellbeing of 110 older people. And I love all the people to bits because my dad, you know, was always Older, but far out.

Some of the things that we were forced to do because of policy was, um, heartbreaking and even like, Palliative care wise, like, yeah, no, you can't come in and see your dying relative. And I'm just like, what are we doing? 

Yeah, I was on a geriatric unit. I forgot to mention that. So yeah, similar thing. Right. I was, yeah, we were, yeah.

Yeah. I don't even have words like to look back and like, I can't believe like, Yeah. Yeah. 

And I think that kind of raises the, like, it's not unusual for those of us who have played the good girl role to have this like rebel underneath once we start. And as you said, not always, like, we're not saying everybody has to be a rebel if that's not their nature.

Yeah. But I do feel like there is a pattern of this like people pleasing good girl. And maybe that activates the rebel in us. I don't know, in response, like to. Seek the balance or something. But 

yeah. I also 

love that you're saying activator because um, one of the things that I now say about what I do is Yeah.

Catalyst, because yeah, that is definitely, and I really hear what you're saying about like activation. 'cause I think like we were just talking about like triggers versus activations, like Yeah, so different, right? Yeah. But very different. 

The, the, yeah. The trend right now, the buzz word is Yeah, like.

Trigger. 

And to 

avoid triggers. Yeah. 

And [00:32:00] I'm like, but what if, anyway, there's a whole other conversation about safety versus comfort and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, I do feel like those of us that are naturally challenging have received often a lot of conditioning saying, don't rock the boat. Don't say the system doesn't work.

Don't, you know, disauthority or whatever. And I'm looking back at myself at school and similar thing, like such a goody two shoes, like, so like. So, so, so, and my husband, my husband loves watching, um, there's a program overnight here in Australia called rage that he always used to watch. Like it's just music videos, but he was used to watch when he came home from like a big night out, like, you know, way back when he was a teenager.

And so he's still 

going for big nights out right now. 

There's no way that we are going. I'm like, Whoa, one drink in bed at nine o'clock crazy, but, um, yeah, he was watching the other day and some like. Really like edgy rock sort of somehow I can't think what it was, but he's like, you would have been all over this when you were at school.

I'm like, I just don't think you understand how square I was. Like I was so perfect. And same thing. I was the kid that everybody's parents were like, Oh, 

of course you 

can 

have Carly. 

And I just think I look back and go, Oh my God. Like when did this behavior of squishing your natural self Down. And I do think that that is part of the neurodivergent, you know, experience of like, Oh, I'm literally not like these people.

I'm like an alien. I'm going to have to pretend that I am like these people. And I 

think like my, my current experience or my, my perception of my daughter's experience right now, like I said, she's three and a half. We recently got her autism diagnosis and I'm seeing that already. I'm seeing how quick she is to mask in group environments, especially with like other kids her age.

And it's. It's really tricky to navigate because obviously like, I am not her and I can see where my own projections [00:34:00] of my own past experiences are wanting to protect her from that. And it's like, yeah, what is my place now as her mom and her guide in the world? Um, yeah, I don't have answers for that in this moment, but it's definitely something that I'm, I'm watching and it's really interesting to witness just that, that tendency to want to fit in.

Because that honestly is like our innate need as a human. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And fitting in means being good. Fitting in means doing what everyone else is doing. Oh yeah. Fitting in means. Conforming to the rules. Fitting in means biting your tongue. 

Fitting in means having tolerance for things that actually no one should be tolerating.

Like that is, this is the, this, I, I feel like that's the, the most concerning thing for me. I was at a cafe the other day and there was a kid next to me at a different table and it's a cafe in our little town where it's, there's quite a wide open area that's all fenced and so kids can play and you know, huge trees and whatever.

And I already know that this little boy has been diagnosed with autism. And I've been talking to his Nana about something else, and it came up in conversation. So she mentioned that, but anyway, he was like just so outside of his window of tolerance, like just not being able to cope and I'm sitting there and I've got like my Noise cancelling headphones in, because sometimes I need to be in another environment, not by myself in my own office, but I don't want the sound.

So I've like, I've got every single, you know, noise cancelling apparatus and I'm playing my bionic beats and I'm in my little zone. And still I'm like in sensory overload, right? With all of those protections and setting myself up to not be, you know, but this kid and. The mother kept on saying like, you know, just put your socks on, put your socks on, put your socks on.

And I was just like, I wanted to turn around and go, Hey, he's out of spoons. Like, do you not like, because you are expecting him to be able to cope at the same level that you can with all of this sensory stuff, you are not [00:36:00] actually allowing him to give you the feedback to say I'm deeply uncomfortable and I cannot cope.

And I need a change of, and I was just like, How do we navigate a world that yes, it has all these rules about what you should be able to tolerate. And I would say like this, the superpower of being neuro sparkly is often the things that we can't tolerate, which causes us to create different pathways for ourselves and humanity.

And so I don't, yeah, I don't know when you're talking to your daughter about. Do you say autism? Like, how do you sort of speak to her about Figuring 

that out still. Um, I've used, I've used that word, right? I don't, I don't sugarcoat it. Um, my husband and I have had a lot of conversations of like, this isn't something that we want to hide.

We, we know that the way we kind of define it, is going to be how she defines it for herself. And so that is taken with like great honor and responsibility, right? Like there's, yeah. Um, I'm still, yeah. I mean, she's three and a half, right? Like, so she doesn't necessarily understand what we're actually saying, but I'm definitely not shy around using that word and kind of explaining in toddler language that like everyone's brain works differently and like there's challenges and there's also like great gifts that come with this.

And. Yeah, it's interesting. We, since we got the diagnosis, like she goes to daycare and that was a whole trip for me too, because I didn't realize how much I was clinging on to the identity of being a stay at home mom. Mm hmm. And. Making the decision to send my child to, like, external child care of some sort was, yeah, huge ego death.

I've also held the vision of wanting to homeschool her since before I even was pregnant, and so now, of course, that's all up in the air. I don't know what our school journey is going to look like yet. Um, but anyways, since she's been at daycare and since we've gotten this diagnosis, we now get [00:38:00] access to extra supports.

Yes. And there's been guilt that comes with that because I'm so quick to gaslight. This is, I, this is my pattern in almost everything. I gaslight my experience. Yep. And I go to, well, other people have it worse. So there's, there's more autistic kids. That need more support. We aren't worthy of the support because it's not that bad.

That's basically the story in my head. Um, but what I also see in all of that is the supports that she's being given should be available and accessible to all kids. Like it shouldn't matter what the diagnosis is. It shouldn't matter. And even the story of the little boy you were talking about being, having the demand to put socks on, like.

There's this obsession in our culture, our society to make kids grow up faster than they should. There's an obsession with like the independence. We see it in like, early newborn days. Like, oh, are they sleeping through the night? Are they, are they still breastfeeding, right? It's all of these obsessions.

Yeah. It's a race to develop faster. It's a race to be the most mature. It's a race to be the most independent. And yeah, so I'm seeing all that in her daycare. And yeah. Yeah. Just really coming out of it with this reflection of like the supports that she's being given, like every kid should have access to.

Yeah. 

This isn't just like specific to a neurotype. Like this is, this is just what life should look like. 

And as you're talking, like the differentiation for me is like the race of everything is like, it's so achievement and productivity based, which is what we're being trained to do. Right. Whereas actually, and this is how I've always felt as a parent, like my job is to walk alongside my Like, whilst they become themselves.

Yeah, not 

to try and mold them into a particular way and obviously work in progress as always, um, because you, you know, as you said, like you, you're projecting as well, like, you know, I want you to have the sort of one and blah, blah, blah. It may not be their journey. And it's so tricky because. They get measured everywhere else.

And you know, the, the, in [00:40:00] our family, it's funny. Cause we've got almost like an anti, an anti ticker box thing. I'm like, I don't care. Like neither of my kids finish high school. I'm like, I'm not attached to you finishing any of these systems. Cause I don't fucking believe in any of them. So to me, that actually just delays you becoming whoever you're meant to be.

Right. And yeah. So, but when you're in a, it's funny, I was in a social situation the other day and there was a lot of, um, Um, I live in a little country town, but 45 minutes away is a, like a major center that boarding kids off like massive big properties, lots of like money to farming families send their kids to the.

And so I was unfortunately, cause I don't like swimming in these circles in this social situation where there was lots of moms from like a private school where it's all very like, you know, Oh yes, we just bought him a new Mercedes three 17th birthday and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I just don't fucking play the same game as you.

Like, I just don't, I have no desire to play your game of worth is attached to money status, what grades you have, what, cause I know if you are saying that that is the best thing about your kid, you have completely pulled them away from who they're meant to be because that's your rules, your value system, your everything.

And it just makes me sad and a little bit irritated. I had to go into the toilet. A little wet. 

It reminds me, so my, my dad sends us money every year to put towards Aubrey's college fund. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is no college fund we are putting that money to, right? Like, I'm talking from the mom who's literally thrown out her university degree, like, right?

Like, no, like, that's not, if she wants to go to college and university later on, cool. We will figure out ways to support her through that. But. It's not the expectation. 

And it's, it's kind of, um, deciding the path before the, like, she's, she's three and a half for God's sake. Like we don't have to like, let us just enjoy right in the, like right here.

[00:42:00] I'm interested when you started like really understanding that you wanted to Like leave nursing, you'd had this experience of being in this powerful, like the home birth experience where you're like, Whoa, okay. That is amazing. And also feels a little bit dangerous. What's been your journey in terms of, um, because I know that you use a lot of like somatic, like returning to the body, coming home again and again.

So what's been that unfolding like for you? 

Yeah, that's such a beautiful question, because again, there's been so many evolutions. Yeah. Between then and now, and it's only been three years, which is wild to think about, right, it literally feels like it's been a billion years. Um, but it started with me pursuing a passion in birth work, right?

I wanted other moms to have a similar experience to me. I wanted more women to be able to experience, you know, an empowering birth as opposed to the mainstream normalized traumatic birth, right? Um, so that's where it started. I went on to, um, a doula training and yeah, kind of thought that's where I was headed and quickly realized that I was teetering into really What's the word I want to use here?

I guess just like save your mentality, right? Like if I was actually going to pursue that I was in it to try to save people. And I had enough self awareness to know that that's not actually the energy that I want to be serving from. And so I kind of, hold the reins back and really, I guess, like widen my lens of like, okay, why am I actually, what, what's the why here?

And I realized that birth is just a teeny tiny moment of that. And for me, birth was the catalyst. It's not going to be the catalyst for every other woman, right? There's going to be different teetering points that, that, yeah, right. Bring them, awaken them, let's use that language. Um, and so I widened my lens a little bit.

I was really nerding out on kind of the evolution of motherhood. I was exploring matrescence and understanding just the, the, [00:44:00] uh, just, yeah, the developmental and spiritual and, and physiological and psychological ness of becoming a mom. And obviously in the middle of it myself, right. Cause I was literally like what, like a year postpartum at this point.

So I was in it, right. I was in it, but the entire time I was in it. I always had this beautiful, this beautiful way of naturally just like, yes, human design. I'm a projector. So it makes sense. I didn't know this at the time, but it makes sense now. I'm a projector. So like, I naturally just kind of have this bird's eye view of the world and I see things, right?

My gift is to see. And so I was always just looking at things from this like outside perspective and like, man, just seeing the dysfunction specifically in In motherhood, but even wider than that in like womanhood and just understanding the impact of, again, not just the patriarchy, but bigger than that, like capitalism and white supremacy and like just all of it, right?

I was soaking it all up. And in all that, I was also still on this journey of, quote unquote, coming home to myself and relearning, remembering how to be in relationship with my body. So at the time I was. reconnecting with my menstrual cycle for the first time ever, right? Because I said I was on birth control literally from, yeah.

So first time ever even experiencing what that is like in my body. With, oh, I'm a cyclical human, right? Right. Yeah. Like, whoa, mind blowing, mind blowing. And in all that, I was also, I don't even know where this came from. I think, well, no, I do know what it came from. I was, I was hungry to figure out almost like a cheat code for my business, but knowing that it wasn't going to come from some proven strategy or, or, or formula.

Right. I wasn't looking for the next right business coach. I knew that it was. The cheat code was coming back to my body, and so that brought me down this [00:46:00] road of nervous system work, nervous system regulation, nervous system hygiene, all of that, just understanding, learning the language of my nervous system, which like, prior to that, I, well, it's a nervous system, right?

Like, I obviously learned it in nursing school, but no relationship with it, right? Yeah. So that was really, I guess, another tipping point because it helped me better understand like my people pleasing tendencies weren't just a personality trait, it was actually like a protective mechanism. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right? It was a phone response. So that was a really eye opening, um, experience for me. And that's definitely, again, become this kind of pillar of my work of helping other women to learn the language of their nervous system and learning how to, you know, Not even the goal isn't to regulate because even that like that's like this this energy of controlling and fixing the goal is to just be in relationship with it totally is the goal is to just be in relationship with your nervous system and like, yeah, just allow its communication to be A compass for you.

 Um, when we're talking about, um, nervous system regulation and that just being. another, like, unattainable goal that we, you know, are all striving towards. Well, and 

something that I think we're trying to, again, logic our way through, right?

We're trying to intellectualize our nervous system. So it's just becoming another tool to gain more control as opposed to a tool to actually reconnect with your body. 

Oh my 

God. 

I'm interested, when you started doing that sort of work, have you ever looked back at yourself in your younger years and been like, this is the state that I was?

Pretty much in like, I don't even want to say dysregulated, but like automatic fawning protective mechanism versus now. When you look backwards, how would you describe your nervous system state with the awareness you have now? 

Yeah, I mean, looking backwards, very clearly my nervous system state was, was chronically in survival, chronically in fawn, right? Which is basically a fancy word for people pleasing and, and really, that self extraction, right? It's really, [00:48:00] it's, it's, it's abandoning yourself to please someone else. So that explains my life really up until I was basically 28. My entire life, I was putting everyone else's needs ahead of my own and maybe it wasn't even like a tangible need, but it was putting society's expectation of me ahead of my own desire, right?

I don't even know what my own desires were because I, I tuned that out so early on. Well, also 

we've like, women are conditioned to not trust their desire or their power or their magnetism or any of the other.

You've, you've spoken about this and I've tried to ever since you kind of shared this story a couple times now where you kind of describe your childhood as being these two different. Um, right, like you have, you're, you're, basically what your nervous system state would have been like with your mom versus your nervous system state with your dad, and I've been reflecting on that too, because like I said, my parents have been divorced, they've been divorced since I was one, so I literally don't know what it's like to have a mom and a dad together, but my mom was Quote unquote, unstable, not financially secure.

She actually lost custody of me. So I was living full time with my dad for literally those like primitive moments of, of childhood. I didn't, I think it was, The fourth grade where my dad, I remember actually this, he asked me, like, do you want to live with your mom or do you want to live with me? And I definitely chose my mom.

Cause I was a mom's girl for sure. Um, but again, just reflecting on how different it was. I, I actually felt quite safe at my mom's house. I didn't feel like I had to be anyone. And also I was helping to, to regulate her, right. Because she was. Yeah, right. It's this weird, I don't know. And then with my dad, he's always been kind of the judgmental type.

He, he doesn't have much of a filter. So it wasn't so much him [00:50:00] saying anything judgmental to me. It was more so me witnessing. His comments to the world and internalizing that and making sense of, okay, well, this is how I have to act then to have his approval and his respect. 

Making meaning, which is what we do.

Do you look back now at what was going on with your mom and go, that actually all makes sense when she's undiagnosed potentially? A 

thousand percent, right? And so that's kind of the beautiful journey. Me and her on right now is, you know, is kind of looking back at that. Well, first of all, like she had me when she was 21.

So, I mean, I feel like that's important to know here too. She wasn't, right. Like, like, like I, right. Yeah. Um, and yeah, now, now understanding that there would have been this, undiagnosed neurodivergence. She also, again, like obviously this is not her story to share, but like she had a rough childhood herself and I knew all about that, right?

I was carrying all of that with her. Um, and yeah, like it, I don't even remember what the question was. 

Oh, I don't know actually. Oh, no, you're talking about different nervous system states, like two different houses, two different nervous system states. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Well, I think earlier you asked me now, like, what's the difference now, I think, like with my nervous system state and just recognizing the, the capacity I have now for, I would say like both pain and pleasure has greatly increased, right?

Like I can just hold more and I think maybe that comes naturally when you're a mom, right? You have to be able to hold all the plates, but it's not coming from this, like, I have to. It's coming from this, like, I just feel anchored and grounded in, in myself and my, like, ability and in my different Like, 

yeah, 

places that I am in this world, right?

Like I, yeah, I don't even know if that makes sense, but it just feels very different. It's not coming from this energy again of trying to gain respect and approval and meet someone's expectations. [00:52:00] It's, it's more grounded now. There's also this Um, I think like the word presence is coming to mind and I don't know if I even understood what that would have meant a couple years ago, right?

To actually be present and have my, my senses heightened to actually experience the world, right? To actually feel and not even just like feel what's happening outside of me but also feel what's happening inside of me, right? Like noticing when I'm hungry or when I need to go to the bathroom or when I'm tired or like I said being reconnected to my menstrual cycle.

So being able to notice like, oh, like. This is what ovulation feels like, right? Like it's just so wildly different. Um, I would also say that when, when things say like a headache comes on, like it's again, very different because I hold space for the headache. So it's not something that I'm quick to want to go away.

I'm not popping pills to suppress the pain. Even now, when I experienced like. Like a cold or a flu. I'm, I'm just riding the wave of what's coming with it. I'm not, I'm not trying to suppress it. I'm not trying to fix it. So that level of presence is so different. 

I feel like, um, yeah, the, the popping, I mean, societally, I can never say that word.

We've made pain and inconvenience because it interrupts our productivity. So we've got lots of feedback to say, this is not convenient. Pop a pill. We used to have this, um, I'm not sure if you have the brand Caudrill in Canada, but we used to have this cold and flu ad. And the song is like soldier on with Caudrill.

And I'm like, what's the actual fuck. How about. Your body is giving you a message, some feedback, asking for some rest and some, you know, more care. And if it continues to happen, there's also obviously some sort of imbalance happening. 

So 

instead of being curious, we're just going to pop a pill so that we can still go to work so that we can still be part of the machine so that we can still be productive.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. One [00:54:00] thing I've kind of been, been playing around with is like all this nervous system work we're doing, all this like inner. Inner healing, self healing stuff we're doing. I feel like for a lot of people is just to continue feeding capitalism, right? It's just to continue being a cog in the wheel to continue meeting that pace, that expectation that so many of us have, have experienced when really like we need to be doing this stuff to feed our soul and our heart.

Yeah. How fucking revolutionary is that? I know, right? Wow. Imagine if everyone did that. And as 

you're talking, it's like, as you're talking, if we stopped, because I've been really feeling into, there's so many different systems that interlock, like you said, like, you know, it's white supremacy, it's capitalism, it's consumerism, it's like all of these things that have been set up for, you know, the benefit of few and the self abandonment of the rest of us, because that's what we've been trained to do.

Yeah. 

And when you feel into that. At the very root cause of a lot of the kind of ways that they're set up. It's like someone's winning, someone's losing. So it's always a competition, but also in 

that hierarchy, 

yeah, hierarchy. And so by definition, it's like, if I'm not keeping up, there's something in me that needs to be healed or fixed.

And I'm like, or you're inside of a system that's actually not. For your benefit and actually maybe what needs to be looked at is the system itself. And I'm like, I, you know, as someone who's done a lot of work on childhood trauma, like I'm not, I'm not dissing the whole healing things. I feel like there's a lot to be said for setting yourself free from old, you know, stickiness, uh, particularly when it's like, Um, but I do think it's a flawed thing to think that the more fixed I am, the more productive I'll be like the hierarchical system.

It's like any time that someone is over and someone is under, I'm like, that's an automatic no for me. That's why those [00:56:00] pissing competition discussions with private school mothers. I'm just like, 

I just don't play the 

game. So I don't. Yeah. I just don't play the game. I just don't, I don't see any value in what you're saying because all I'm hearing is I'm harming my children to fit.

Some sort of idea that I have, that they're going to be better people to other people that don't have whatever. And that kind 

of reminds me of, I think another reason why I kind of left the birth space is because I was seeing the hierarchy even there where like the hierarchy is. home birth, natural birth is better.

And I mean, I mean, we can have our, like, yes, like, like, yes, there's, there's reasons to say yes, but it's not better in the sense of your worth as a human. Right. And there's, yeah, these pissing parties of like, I'm a better mom than you because I had my baby at home versus like you had a right, like, and then it goes on and on.

I'm a better mom than you because I'm still breastfeeding. I'm a better mom than you because I, I didn't use formula. I'm homeschooling. I'm right. I didn't vaccinate or did vaccinate or whatever it is, right? There's all these things where we're now put in these boxes of yeah, better or worse. And coming back to what you just said around like the pace of like keeping up, I think that is so huge too, to bring language to again, looking back, like, as Teenagers, pre adolescents, like, learning about our period and kind of being, being taught that you still have to keep up.

Like, I vividly remember being in gym class and, again, I don't know that it wasn't necessarily me, but, like, having friends that were, like, crippled in discomfort by their cramps and basically told, like, well, you still have to participate. Suck it up. Yeah. Right? Suck it up. Like, you have to do anything a man can do.

And, again, I think as women, we've been conditioned to believe that, well, we have to do anything a man can do. Yeah, 

exactly. Totally. And be linear like them. And I'm like, Oh my God, have you met a woman who's ovulating versus someone who's bleeding? Like, Yeah. And then 

now, now sprinkle in some neurodivergence into that too.

It's just the whole mind part. Cause [00:58:00] the, the hyper focus and the, yeah. And then again, now me learning my human design as a projector, like I have access to energy in a different way than a lot of the population. So learning that too, it's just been, wow. It's been incredible to Um, but what I was going to say coming back to that like language around this pace, like I can see it so clearly it starts with with our menstrual cycle and then we see it again in in birth and postpartum where like bounce back culture and you need to get back to like the job you're at and right like even in like The United States, they have like six weeks of maternity leave, right?

It's just so, so dysfunctional. And then, I mean, we see it in almost every stage of life where there's this obsession with, with pace and productivity and yeah. And so my, my current body of work has kind of been found in more of like the business. conscious entrepreneurship space. And it's, it's really for that reason.

It's like, holy fuck. We have to change the trajectory of the pace that we are moving in the world and how we are tangling our self worth with it. This has to stop now. Oh my God. 

100%. That's what I, you know, we've had this conversation before. This is why I'm so passionate about amplifying voices of change makers, because without us all rising and taking our seats at the tables that will create different pathways, all we're doing is just proliferating systems of oppression again and again and again.

And we're doing it to our kids because we're forcing them to fit into the same sort of, and I'm just like, I just am not available for this. Um, as you were talking, the other thing that's happening pace wise that I'm seeing just at a different life stage and is the same sort of like How you do menopause is the right way of doing menopause and it's the wrong way of doing menopause.

Again, there's that hierarchy immediately. Exactly. That you have to go a hundred percent natural. There's other people that go slap HRT on me and expect me to keep the pace right and I feel like, you know, for every [01:00:00] individual experience there is individual ways of the best holistic, you know, care for yourself during any of these transitions.

But it's the same stuff again, it's women like. Yeah. With this scoreboard of how to do womanhood. Right. And I'm like, you know, the scoreboard isn't even our scoreboard. Right. Like the way that we are judging each other is just an end result of being conditioned in a system that doesn't honor women at all.

And particularly not women who are honoring their cycle and will, you know, stand their ground, et cetera. Um, Sematic wise. Um, actually no, what's going on for you coming up? Because you've got an event that you're collaborating with that I wanted to circle back to as well. I know that's more than the doula space, but share.

Well, yeah. So it's funny. Cause 

I just said that I'm not really in the doula space anymore, but I absolutely still am like, I feel like I got bit by the birth bug and you can't take that away from me. Still very passionate about it. And I see, I do very much see it as. a catalyst. I mean, birth changes you no matter what your birth experience was.

So obviously there is a passion of mine to help women have better birth experiences because it changes the trajectory of your life. Hands down. I will die on a hill with that statement. Um, so I, I am very close with a friend who I met in my doula trading program. Her and I are literally the same in so many ways.

We were both nurses. We both have the same age daughter, like just complete, like, Serendipity to meet in this do a training program, right? And we've now both kind of gone on in our own businesses She's stayed primarily focused in birth and postpartum support But we've both heavily nerded out on the nervous system and somatic work and we're constantly having these conversations around like Specifically, the maternal nervous system, because again, everything we're learning about is based off of a white dude, everything, [01:02:00] so bringing language in around what the maternal nervous system looks like and what, how we can actually support.

Nervous system, health, hygiene, nourishment in, in mothers, not just around birth, but really that, that period of life. And so we're both very passionate about creating, this is what we're doing. We're creating a program for birth workers and mother serving professionals to ultimately, I hate the word master, but I haven't found the right word yet, to master their own nervous systems first, because ultimately the best skill that I think a birth worker or any professional serving Women and mothers can have is self mastery of their own nervous system, right?

So we're going to be creating a program to I don't even want to use the word teach either because like I'm not an expert of your nervous system. I can't teach that, right? But we are, we are guiding, we are guiding just the opportunity to to come into relationship with your nervous system to learn the language of your nervous system.

And for lack of a better word, master what those practices can kind of look like. And then hopefully see that ripple in, I mean, that limitless ripple, right? Because then they're going to go on to support births and they're going to go on to support mothers. And those mothers are then going to have. A different life experience and be able to, to, to model that to their kids.

And oh my God, like my heart lights up thinking about the ripple of that. Right. It is absolutely limitless. It can change the world. 

And like regulated, like, like it or not for most families, still the mother is like the thermostat of the family. Oh, I don't, I 

honestly, I've sat with, actually, I love that you brought that up because I've sat with that.

I've sat with a lot of anger. With that, like, why is it on us? Why is it on us? Right. And I've really had to reframe that for you, reframe that for myself, because I think, I think truthfully, like, as, as women, we are supposed to be leaders of our home, right? We, we are the creators. And [01:04:00] so to actually like tap into that, as opposed to trying to like run away from that, and that's been, A big part of my own experience too in the last three years is like, yeah, what does that actually look like?

And I don't mean like, Because me and my husband, like our entire relationship, I've definitely been the one that quote unquote wears the pants, right? Yeah. But it's not about that. I actually, I do want, I need him to lead. I need him to initiate. I need him to take on more things, which he does. He's amazing.

And also I am the thermostat. I do, I do set the tone and yeah, that's not even a construct of the water we swim in. I think that's biologically like nature's design. And so owning that, again, that like. activation, that potential, that catalyst. impact that we have when we actually start owning it. And again, like what I was talking about, if we're using all this nervous system work and inner child healing and reparenting and blah, blah, blah semantics to just keep feeding the system and feeding capitalism.

Like what if we actually do it to feed our soul, feed our heart, then we get to show up as these present, happy, joyful, curious, compassionate women, mothers, wives. Yes. Right? It's actually like a joyful experience as opposed to, again, what's kind of normalized in this world as like, motherhood being so hard and like you just have to like drink wine every night to like hope and right like yeah I could go on right and it really never goes away.

As you said before though when you're talking about like growing your own capacity to feel much more I feel like for me like there's a there's a question that I often ask clients it's like are you giving from a place of obligation are you giving from a place of generosity right? We talked about this recently yeah and that is the difference between a woman who has resourced her own needs.

I was going to say that inner 

resourcing, so you're, you're serving from a place of overflow as opposed to depletion, right? The world expects you to serve from depletion. Exactly. 

[01:06:00] Because that's the tick box that we've, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so I feel like that's the difference. It's like, okay, so if we can learn, and with your work, be able to actually You know, this is why I love doing what I do too, because I'm helping the people that are helping the people.

And that's exactly what you're like. You are helping the people who are out there in homes that have, you know, all of the, and that ripple effect. Because then you're normalizing that there's actually a choice between what is happening in the ocean of average society versus actually, no, there is actually a choice.

And for a lot of us who are still swimming in the ocean and don't even know we're in the ocean, we don't even know there's another choice, right? So, I definitely as a young mom, like I look back and I'm like, I, we went from a family of two to a family of five and 12 months. So I had two kids in 12 months and my dad had a stroke.

So we went to like five of us in the house. Right. I was dysregulated as all fuck. And I remember like, Um, being like, not able to not scream at the top of my voice. Like I just, and I look back now and I think, Oh my God, if I knew, and you can't, you know, with compassion, as always, um, and I talked to my kids about this, I'm like, Oh God, please don't tell me that the only things that you remember is me screaming.

And she's, and they're like, we don't actually remember you doing that very often at all. Um, except for a couple of key times, one of which we have on video because my girls were so like, cause they're so close in age there. Um, and my younger one has always been like far more determined. Abby, the older one's very like chill and whatever.

Um, yeah, there was always like this, like the younger one was always trying to do things in front of the older one. And sometimes the older one learned that you could just like poke her a little bit and then she'd be like, Oh, completely. And it's just like looking back, I'm like, Oh my God, we were a family of completely undiagnosed off, off, off reservation, neurosparkly people with no idea that we were off the reservation.

Anyway. Yeah. Um, so we will share the link to that in the [01:08:00] show notes, um, for people that want to check it out. Is it online? 

Yeah, it will be completely virtual, completely virtual. And it's, it's interesting because just the conversation we just had also really reflects us. The current thing in my business that's lighting me up and that's around like sacred offer creation I feel like the past let's call it two years of my business of coaching in various identities.

They can have 

Different versions. 

I keep finding myself in this pattern and of course because this is all I've ever known right of martyrdom and self extraction and as much as I'm doing so much work to Break those patterns. It still shows up in the sneakiest of ways, right? Oh, I know, yes. So, so that's the thing that's really lighting me up too, is like, how do we, how do we create offers that aren't extracting from ourselves?

How do we, how do we actually build our businesses so we are serving from a place of overflow, not depletion? And I have so many examples where I've tried so many different, Business models for lack of a better word, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Memberships and like one on one containers versus group things versus masterminds.

And one really big example of this is last year around this time, I was running a membership. And I, I, looking back, this was totally performative. I didn't think it was in the moment, but I wanted it to be accessible. I really wanted to be seen as, oh, look at Nicole. She's so accessible. Right? She's being so generous.

And so, I created a, uh, tiered pricing model, um, three different tiers, right? You join at the price that supports you. And again, this is all looking back, but I can see so clearly where I was totally extracting from myself and then, and, and walked away from that offer. I ended up canceling it because I could just feel that the energy around it was not clean.

I was, I was. I was feeling resentful to it. I was feeling bitter. It just did not feel like a good exchange. 

Yes. 

And so again, just coming away with so many different experiences of like, okay, again, I can't necessarily teach you what the exact offer and pricing model you [01:10:00] need to do. But I can help you explore and help you actually figure out like, what is your capacity in the season of your life?

What is your desire? What are your values, right? What is your why? And really bringing all of that in to create a juicy offer that doesn't feel extractive and also is creating like meaning and impact in the world, right? Because again, the people that I work with, the clients that come to me. are visionaries, right?

They are wanting, they're, they're cycle breakers. They're, they're wanting to make the world a better place in some way. So how do we do that without burning ourselves out? 

Yeah. And it's, it's such a different point of view to the, someone outside of you has the business model for you. It's a five step formula.

You must do it this way. You must ignore your bodily sense or your capacity or the phase of life you're in or your emotional and energetic bandwidth. And you must do it that way. And I'm like, no, we must not. This is more. External power hierarchy driven behavior. And so the, the more of us on the planet that are like, well, how does that feel for you?

What would feel nourishing for you as well as your clients? Like what, like, and this has totally been part of my journey. Like I look back at my first business and the model that I had then, like I was running a, Oh my God. I just look back and think, what the hell was I thinking about? My parentification and the, and the codependency stuff was playing out so strongly, but I was it's so sneaky, 

right?

In the moment you don't necessarily see it. It feels 

normal. It feels normal. Of course. Cause it is normal. It's your comfort zone. Exactly. And, um, but I was available 24 seven. We had a Facebook group. I was in there like 3, 000 percent of the time, like, Yeah. And I'm just like, no wonder you ended up resenting it.

And no wonder. And so then it's like, it's not clean energy. You're not doing the best for the clients in there because you're not doing the best for yourself. And therefore like it's, it's same, same energy. And I'm just like, Oh my God, I just did that again and again and [01:12:00] again, and again, and again. 

When you've re you've recently shared this and I'll echo it because I'm, I'm kind of taking it and running too.

Cause it's so true. Right. We don't want to, we Just give them the fish. We want to teach them how to fish. Exactly. Right. And to trust themselves. The, the, the thing that we're seeing in kind of the, the online coaching space is like incredibly disempowering and it's harmful, right? We, we are seeing people, it's like this hamster wheel of like, you always need more.

There's always going to be something outside of you that you need next. You need to go spend money on this next coach. You need to invest more. You need to, whatever it is. Right. And I think like you just said, there are no, there are no proven frameworks or strategies, but I think if we did want to say there was, it's like reconnecting to your nervous system.

It's reconnecting to yourself and like learning your own like rhythms. Yep. And joys and desire and pleasure, like even, like, understanding what does pleasure feel like in your body? And not like in a sexual way, just like, what fucking feels good? Because like, being able to orient to that and orient to your desire and orient to your why and your values, that gets to be your compass.

That's the framework. 

Oh, I am so here for this. Every time I see the, you know, the magic pill marketing out there, I think, Oh, I'm so cranky. And that's when my like, you know, businesses and active rebellion kind of comes to the surface. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Remember you can spend all your time and energy fighting against and talking about and dissing what is not working, or you can create different pathways for people and invite, because that keeps my energy clean.

It keeps, you know, it's a, it's a different feel. And I do believe that we are like, you know, every time I see a new astrology report, I'm like, yes, this is a year. Like every single thing about this year's astrology is like rebels, revolutionaries, breaking patterns, et cetera. So yeah, I am here for every pattern 

disruption.

I am so here for the path. And again, I think that. [01:14:00] The neuro sparkly gift is that pattern recognition, right? I think we are literally here on this world to see that those patterns and then we get to help help others disrupt them. Um, 

I actually think that that's why neurodivergence has such a stigma because the system doesn't like that.

We can see 

a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So 

I'm like, what if your neuro sparkliness was actually like you being a 

future woman? Well, and I think There's a lot of, I mean, I don't know how, how deep into this you are because obviously you're, you girls are much older now, but I think there's a lot of conversation around like, oh, why is, why is there so many more people being diagnosed?

Every, everyone has autism nowadays. Everyone has ADHD. And it's like, well, actually, right? Like, I think, yeah, there is more people getting diagnosed because obviously there's, there's a been a shift in how we're diagnosing. There's more, yeah, there's more awareness. And also, I think this is the future of humaning.

This is the evolution. A 

hundred percent. 

Yeah. I actually read 

somewhere and now I wish I knew what the reference was. I clicked through and read a journal article, but basically in a, in a nutshell, it was like, you know, we see these different neurotypes as like issues, not normal, blah, blah, blah. But actually the research is actually playing out that these are the neurotypes of like the nomads and the people that were actually constantly evolving.

And, um, finding and resourcing and seeing and like pathway creating weren't the weren't the people that were in fixed like, you know, we farm and we do this every summer and we do whatever it's all that sort of responsiveness and seeing threat and keeping. Yeah. So I just think 

like way, way back, right.

The. The witches and the, the village healers and the, the midwives and the, right, whatever you want to add on to that list, like, I, yeah, for sure they were neurodivergent, [01:16:00] right? And that's why they were outcasts from society. They were outliers. They've always been outliers, but they were the village healers.

They were, yeah. They were the, yeah. Mm mm 

That's what I just, yeah. I think the, my like, mic drop moment from this was so many, but just when you said, you know, having a home birth and you realize how powerful you were and you're like, what else is possible? It's like that I, there's so many women across the world waking up to this like, oh my God, I actually have a choice and I can do, yeah.

Not do I don't want to use the word do there is so much innate, natural, intrinsic power inside of me that I've been taught to downplay, minimize, dilute people, please away, blah, blah, blah, hide. Um, and I'm like, bring your full self out to play. Cause we need your full self at the table. Like we need women in their power to create new pathways.

And I know I didn't actually realize this. I don't know if it's until I checked in Instagram, but today of all days, as we're recording with some of the things that are politically going on in the States, we need us more than ever. Yeah. 

Um, there was one other story that just popped into my mind that feels really potent and all of this and everything that you just brought up and again, leaving it back to my place in the work in the world right now.

Mm hmm. So. Last year I was, I'm going to try to make this a long story short. Yeah, that's all good. It could be a whole podcast episode, but really this does kind of shine light on where I'm going and where my values are. And I think it's, It also shines light on like, yeah, just the current offerings that I'm birthing in the world right now.

So this time last year, I was given an incredible opportunity to be a, essentially a contract coach in a doula program. I was stoked about it. Like it felt like, Oh my God, like I am. The projector in me just felt so seen and recognized and it's like these are my people. I literally get to be a coach inside of a community that is already full, right?

I don't, I don't [01:18:00] have to try to fill spots in my own programs. I get to just show up and find my light, right? It felt like an amazing opportunity. And I On my personal, on my personal Instagram page, I made a comment about my views on Palestine and I got fired literally the next day. And that's not even the story that I'm trying to share.

The story that I want to share is that casted an entire ripple. It, it, it rocked the boat and created waves that I never could have imagined. Cause first of all, when I made that post, it was about being nice and white during a genocide. When I made that post, I knew. I was, I was bracing for the unfollows.

I knew that people were going to have their opinions and disagree, right? I was fine with all of that. I was ready for it. What I didn't expect is, is the waves that it made in this. Do the community that I was in so I got fired and then there was a whole rally of people that were like, hey Hey, hey, if you are firing Nicole for that What does that mean about like my safety and my sense of belonging in this community and it create totally looking back?

It illuminated a fracture within that community that was already there. Yes, and that was really this this, um, like perpetual nature of continuing to, to kind of create businesses from this, like profit over people mentality and kind of, success at like any cost and self extraction and all the themes we've already talked about, talked about, right.

And like really, um, yeah, it really illuminated the, the white supremacy that is underlying in the coaching industry that I wasn't, I really hadn't even seen yet. Right. It just, yeah, it illuminated that for me. And again, once you see it, you can't unsee it. So again, that has now been this underlying value for me, which I recognize has always been a value, but I was kind of suppressing because I didn't know how to express it.

I didn't know how it could look. In my body of work. And I'm now realizing that again, all of this, like I said, it's, [01:20:00] it's the patriarchy, but bigger than that, it's capitalism bigger than that. It's white supremacy bigger than, I don't know what's right. It's, it's, it's looking at all of that. And then now this, this autism neurodivergent unraveling in my family is now bringing in this flavor of like ableism.

And what does that look like? Right. So now I've kind of touched on. racism and how that was showing up. And now it's like, wow, it's just this beautiful opportunity to have like ongoing deconditioning, ongoing decolonization. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, now it's really like, okay, we are in these like heart led.

heart led business spaces, spiritual business spaces, feminine led business spaces, and yet they're still all being run like the bro marketers. They're still all being run with this profit over people mentality and it's just so disgusting. Yeah, 

I know. I've got a, um, a friend, how will I share this story without being, so just has had a similar experience in a, a very, very large.

coaching community of a specific type, very spiritual in nature. And she's just like, I have to leave. I have to be clear with my opinions. And it was all through the election stuff unfolding in the States. And, um, just, yeah, she has a similar kind of viewpoint. It's like, it's just illuminating again and again, and again, anything that I've got still unconsciously playing out.

And the fact that I've got work to do. Yeah. As a business leader and someone who leads other people as well as just a human, but even more so if you are creating circles and, and saying that you are safe and inclusive and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then actually looking at, well, are you really, really, really, 

yeah.

And how safe do all different people of all different, you know, I just had a really interesting conversation with someone I invited onto the podcast and she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, just want to be clear, like, do you just interview women? And I'm like, no, I interview [01:22:00] people. And then I'm like, well, I actually have historically just interviewed people who identify as women.

Um, and because she didn't, I didn't, they didn't identify as a woman. She was like, I'm just seeking some. And I'm like, fuck again, like a, not a conscious decision to exclude people by any stretch of the imagination. I've been talking for ages about having, like, you know, like men that I'm like, I really love to interview them about their backstory and all of these things, but just not understanding that when people don't see themselves represented, it automatically excludes them.

Even if that's not your surface intention, but we've got to be more. It's that in 

intention versus impact. And as annoying as it is, impact is actually like the thing that we need to be looking at, right? Our intentions can be from a heart of gold, but if we're not actually holding space for the impact that we create and that ripple, those waves that get made from what we just did, then we are doing a huge disservice as leaders and coaches and whatever other label we're putting on ourselves.

I'll also save it like this. this flavor of work, right? Like beginning to look at what it means to create safer spaces and be more inclusive or whatever it is. Like there's, there's a flavor of perfectionism that really comes in, I think, especially as good girls. Right. Cause we don't want to do it wrong.

And we don't want to, we don't want to say that we don't want to offend. Yeah. All of it. And again, that's, that's just like, Colonization and white supremacy, right? It's, oh, it's all interconnected. That's 

what I said to this person. Like, I am like super aware that I always feel clumsy when I'm having any conversation around gender identification or multiple things, but for this specific, and all I can say to you is that I do value all individual voices.

And I would love to have you on the show. And I also understand If that does not feel [01:24:00] safe slash comfortable slash whatever. And I think that that is to me, the key of like, I'm not going to get this perfect because I don't know what I am swimming in. Like there's oceans that I'm swimming in that I'm not even aware of.

And so just continuing to do the work. And take the responsibility. It's like, we don't get to like show up online and create these amazing businesses without the flip side of the responsibility. You are like super in the dark now. 

Well, yeah, I was like, let's turn on the light here. I told you this was going to happen.

Um, but this weaves back into like nervous system and somatics, because if we aren't creating that felt sense of safety in our body, if we aren't resourcing ourselves internally, how the heck are we supposed to save, hold space for someone else through their discomfort? Right? Yeah. From a grounded place without projecting and without whatever it is.

And I think, oh, there's something else I was going to say to this. The, uh, I don't know. It lost me. 

It's so good. We've gone everywhere. 

We will have 

to wrap it up. But my goodness, we could talk for hours. This has been delightful. I knew it was going to be. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story. And we've touched on so many different threads of, and I, I think like, to me, it all comes back to all of them, like all the cogs in all of the machines and all of the isms and all of the everything, everything, everything.

And as you said, originally, it's like just. Yeah, unbecoming all the shit that we've been taught that we have to be and coming home to the truth, truth of our body and truth of our heart and our values and what we truly want to, you know, contribute to the world and do it in a way that's not abandoning ourselves, 

which is fine.

As you named that, that sense of truth, that sense of like identity. there isn't a final destination there, right? That is a constant evolution. So making peace, making peace with that evolution. And I remembered what I was going to say. I was just going to echo like the importance of finding safety and showing up clumsy, showing up clumsy, showing up imperfect, showing up messy.[01:26:00] 

Vulnerability truly is like our biggest superpower. Oh 

my God. Yes. And it totally opens the door for other people to not expect themselves to be perfect in your own spaces. That's why I'm always like, God, no, don't feel that you have to stand up. Like I swear like a trucker and I can't spell the same.

Well, I can spell, but I can't touch it. Like, you know, like all of the things that are really obvious. I'm like, I've actually been thinking about rewriting this week. And I'm like, Oh my God, I reckon I should just get that out of the way, like on the homepage. Do not expect perfection. I will be swearing.

There will be typos. I don't care. You don't need me to be perfect. Um, yeah. So permission slipping. Totally. Not that we should do this. 

As you say, widening the permission field. 

Exactly. Just being okay to be who you are without feeling like you have to tame or shame or whatever. Thank you. Such a good conversation.

I can't believe it's so dark where you are. Far out. I just, I don't know. I know time zones should not confuse me, but they still do. My little brain's like, can't we just be all at the same time? It's mind 

blowing. It is mind blowing. Yeah. To think about that you are tomorrow. 

Yeah. It is weird. And it's like, I'm just about to have my second coffee and you'll be heading to have dinner or whatever.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Kylie. And we will put the links to what we've talked about and also to your Instagram. Actually. Do you want to tell people where they can find you on Instagram? Yeah. Instagram is 

just my name. So at Nicole Paz here. 

Perfect. Perfect. 

Perfect. Thank you so much. That's a good chat.

This is so good. Amazing.

There you go beautiful one, another delicious, juicy, truth talking episode with a Disruptor, Rebel or Revolutionary sharing the identity shifts. And the mess and the magic of leading right on the edge of your expansion and going first as a visionary leader, as a woman creating a business, and inviting people to completely new ways of learning, living, loving, [01:28:00] and leading.

It is not lost on me that you have invested your time and your energy in listening to the show. I am so grateful for your beautiful heart, for the work that you do in the world, and I know that if you're here you are more than likely one of what I call the Mad Hatters. So the quirky, colourful, creative, out of the box, often neuro sparkly paradigm shifters and thought leaders.

So I'm so grateful that you're here. If you loved this episode, which I'm sure you did, please do me a favour and share it with someone else who needs to understand that their quirkiness and their full unapologetic self expression is more than enough, and in fact is the secret source to growing a wildly successful, abundant, nourishing, sustainable business.

So here is to us, the Mad Hatters. The crazy out of the box people saying no to old paradigms and inviting into the new. And if you'd love to go the extra mile, please make sure that you subscribe on the platform that you're on so you never miss an episode. And hey, it would be sweet, sweet, sweet if you would leave us a five star review.

It means the world to us and it helps us get this truth talk and this magic and this power out to even more Mad Hatters. So have a beautiful day and I will speak with you next week.