Does embracing femininity at work mean that you have to sacrifice success?
Inside this episode, my client Katie Rodwell and I discuss this common misconception and how a shift towards embracing feminine energy can lead to both personal and professional success.
Katie’s journey is a testament to the power of feminine energy, and the transformation that can occur when you trust in your skills and abilities.
Inside this episode we discuss:
Elevate The Mastermind is your pathway to calm, sustainable access and more balanced relationship with your work.
All the details are here: https://annabellematson.com/mastermind
Check out Ep 38 on the podcast to get an inside look into the program.
Work With Me:
Elevate The Mastermind
The 4 Step Process To Release Emotional Stress Digital Course:
Visit my website: annabellematson.com
Social Media
Find me on:
If this podcast serves you, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review.
Share this episode with a friend who may enjoy it too.
Does embracing femininity at work mean that you have to sacrifice success?
Inside this episode, my client Katie Rodwell and I discuss this common misconception and how a shift towards embracing feminine energy can lead to both personal and professional success.
Katie’s journey is a testament to the power of feminine energy, and the transformation that can occur when you trust in your skills and abilities.
Inside this episode we discuss:
Elevate The Mastermind is your pathway to calm, sustainable access and more balanced relationship with your work.
All the details are here: https://annabellematson.com/mastermind
Check out Ep 38 on the podcast to get an inside look into the program.
Work With Me:
Elevate The Mastermind
The 4 Step Process To Release Emotional Stress Digital Course:
Visit my website: annabellematson.com
Social Media
Find me on:
If this podcast serves you, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review.
Share this episode with a friend who may enjoy it too.
Hi, it's Annabel Mattson and welcome to the Steep your Soul podcast. Soulful guidance for women who are seeking deeper truth and meaning to their lives. If you're ready to move past what's been holding you back and awaken to your full potential and purpose in life, then let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. It's Annabel Mattson here. I'm recording this intro just at the tail end of a virus that I've caught, so I'm sounding a little bit nasally. I promise I recorded this conversation that you're about to listen to prior to getting sick, so it'll be much less nasally for you to listen to the episode. But, in the interest of getting this recorded, and getting the episode out done is much better than doing it perfectly. So inside this episode, I'm having a conversation with my client, katie Rodwell, and this is a conversation about really choosing to show up at work in a different way.
Speaker 1:So you'll hear in this episode how she's had a real journey with burnout at work. She noticed in the early stages of her career how she was really pushing and trying to prove herself to people that she was working with and that her health really suffered as a result. And now she's talking about this journey that she's been on to make this shift to sitting back a lot more at work and believing more in the value that she's offering. And another way that we could say this is really embracing much more of her feminine energy in the way that she's working. So Katie has been beautifully successful in her career and I love that she's willing to share some of these things like self-doubt and not feeling good enough, because it really normalises it for all of us. We can often look at people and see outwardly the things that they've achieved, but we often don't get the chance to hear about the inner workings of that journey. So it's just awesome that Katie's willing to share that and open up about that, because it's stuff that we all experience. One of the things I think people often get worried about is if I embrace more of this feminine way of working, will I sacrifice my success? Will that mean I won't be able to achieve the things that I want it, and I know that's a conversation that Katie and I had when her and I first met. But the opposite is actually true and Katie's journey and her experience is evidence of this. She's seen how new opportunities have continued to flow to her while she's embraced more of this feminine energy and how she's worked. So she's talking about some really practical things that she uses in her day-to-day work to embrace this style of working, to experience work in a lighter way, to feel more confident in herself and also in her decision-making. That.
Speaker 1:If what we discuss in this episode resonates with you, then you might like to check out my Mastermind programme, elevate. It's currently open for enrolment and we begin on the 2nd of November. So this is a four month experience with me and a small, intimate group where we're redefining work and success and creating a pathway to creating more of what you want in your work life in a calm and sustainable way. So you're going to experience the power of working light and emerge from the Mastermind with a much more balanced relationship with your work. You're going to feel more relaxed, more at ease and more grounded as you step into your next level of success and do things outside of your comfort zone, and you're going to radiate a belief and a confidence that welcomes in new opportunities and supports you to expand into your full potential. So if you've been looking to reclaim your energy balance, your relationship with work, or you're ready to step into your next level of success, and you want to do this in a calm and sustainable way, then Elevate the Mastermind could be a great fit for you.
Speaker 1:The link to all of the details about this program are in the description of this episode, and let's get into the conversation. Welcome, katie, to the podcast. So happy to have you here and I'm really pleased that we are recording this conversation. It's wonderful to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to sharing some of the sort of insights that we've been covering over the last few years working together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wonderful. Why don't we, why don't you just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself, and we'll go from here.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, nice. So I'm Katie Broadwell and I am currently living in Christchurch with my husband. I grew up in the UK, which you can maybe tell through the accent, sometimes to pick it up and think that I'm from in Bacargo, but actually from the UK, so born and bred there. Mum and dad moved us over to New Zealand back in 2002, so a long time ago now and they bought a farm just on the east coast of the South Island, just north of Quaiquora, and I was schooled in Christchurch, went to Lincoln University and then started my career in agribusiness and currently working for Rava Beek as the sustainability manager and, yeah, loving it.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, so good. We're going to get into all of that and some of the things that you've learned along the way, and you have a wonderful sister, sarah, who's also been on the podcast, and I've been so unbelievably lucky to be able to work with both of you, which has been amazing. So, yeah, sarah, the episode was wonderful. I think it was called letting go of the five-year plan and stepping into the news, so I'll link to it to that below, but it was a really great conversation too, so I'm stoked that we're now having the opportunity to be able to talk on here too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've both got quite lots of similarities in terms of lessons we've learned over the years, but quite different paths. So it's cool to be able to unpack both of Kaiba experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And then you know you guys being twins, me having a twin as well. It's just a nice connection, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I will travel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I recently attended an event where you were asked to speak on your career to date and some of your experience, and you are an incredibly humble person, but I will say for you that you've been very successful in your career to date and you've achieved a lot.
Speaker 1:But what was really interesting attending this presentation and seeing you speak is that that was not where you chose to focus the presentation.
Speaker 1:You brought this beautiful level of honesty and vulnerability to the presentation and you, instead of kind of talking many focusing your presentation around your career highlights you actually chose to talk about things that I think a lot of people, especially as women, we don't often talk about the struggles and challenges that we have at work, and you put a lot of words around that and you know, just based on the feedback in the room afterwards was so powerful for people to be able to hear someone who has achieved things in the way that you have to see. You know that you've struggled with many of the things that they have as well, so I think it's just so freeing and that you've been a real theme actually to some recent episodes that I've been recording. There's just so much freedom in us being able to speak about those things and you know to put words around it, because you know we need to be talking about them more, and so I'm sure we'll get into that today.
Speaker 2:I was just oh yeah, I was just going to say I think when I was starting, when I was asked to do the presentation, the first thing that came up for me and we'll talk through this, I'm sure is that I didn't feel like I didn't want to speak in front of a group of other women in agri-business, because that felt vulnerable for me and speaking about yourself in front of people is vulnerable. And the second thing was I didn't really feel like I had anything kind of inspiring or empowering to share. But I think, just to look back into what you were saying before, when I was starting to do some prep to think about what I was going to cover around my career, I was getting really stuck and kind of putting together like a this is what I've achieved and these are the awards that I won, and I didn't feel like nothing was flowing for me there because I was like it didn't feel like that's what I wanted to share. What was coming up for me, which is what we'll dive into today, is like the lessons that I learned going through the 10 years of my career today and openly sharing what that experience was like, because I feel like throughout my career I've seen a lot of women succeeding and men succeeding, and I've got mentors that have helped me through my career and succeeded.
Speaker 2:But very rarely do people share about the realities of how you feel making hard decisions or choosing to go left or to go right in your career and all of those kind of things people don't share, like the experience and the feelings that they have going through those processes. And so when you're faced with them and you start feeling all of these feelings of I'm not good enough or I don't know enough or I don't feel like I deserve to be given this opportunity, you then start questioning yourself and having all of this mind chatter. So I mean, obviously I worked with you and about to help sort of guide my thinking around what I was going to share there, but it was. Yeah, it did feel, although I was nervous doing it, it felt, I felt empowered being able to share that story with other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's so true. Like we only see so much, don't we? So, for every sort of outer success or external success that we can see with our own eyes and someone else behind, that has been a whole, often like quite a silent journey where people have had to walk with their own fears, their own doubts, their own uncertainties, and that's just the reality of the journey of creating success. But it's the reality of being a human, isn't it? That we all experience those emotions and it's part of the human experience. Yeah, it's life, really, totally. So why don't we zoom back for a minute and just do you want to talk a little bit about what was going on for you when we first met, when you and I first kind of connected before we jumped into some coaching work together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'd had a change in my role. So I was working for Farmer's Cooperative, which is like a big agree rural supplies business and the Ags actor and I'd been there for eight years and had some amazing experiences there and I had had a change in kind of what I was going to do next. And I was sort of in between, as you like to call it, and I wasn't really sure where to go next. And I think that's probably where I first started. Doing some work with you was kind of I reached out to you to kind of think about from a business perspective, like what's going to be the right next step for me and where should I go. And we really are in that first session, dove into kind of starting to feel comfortable in that uncomfortable space of like not really knowing whether to go left or right or straightforward or backwards or whatever that looked like. So that's kind of where we first started working together. Cool.
Speaker 1:And how do you think your experience of uncertainty has changed, or maybe your perspective on it has changed through some of that work? I think there can be many times in our career, in our life, where we're in that space in between, where we know what has been is like it's no longer something we want to stay in or we've left what we were being. We're not quite yet where we want to be and this can feel really understanding being in that space. There's lots of stuff that can come up for us in that space. So what did you kind of learn through that time between when that next role showed up for you?
Speaker 2:A lot, a huge amount, if I'm being honest. So that was, I can't remember it was a couple of years ago now, probably just shy of two years ago, and at the time I was like you know. I felt like a lot of my work was placed in who I was in that role.
Speaker 2:And so when you move out of that and you're ready for something else, you suddenly feel like who am I, am I worthy? Like, do I know what? I think that I know, and sort of all of this uncertainty and sort of self doubt and the sort of lack of self worth starts bubbling up. Yeah, and so it is. It's really uncomfortable place to be. But if I look at where I was then versus now in terms of how I handle that uncertainty, which you know comes up all the time, I feel so much more grounded in knowing that what is meant for you A will never pass. And I've learned tools through the work that I've done with you to feel help myself, feel safe in that uncertainty.
Speaker 2:And for me, you know I've had, since I've been with the bank that I'm with now with Rabo Bank, I've had quite a few job opportunities that have come up that have been much more senior roles and I've I've got to a place where I'm like twang with myself, like should I take it so, for one example was a role that was more senior.
Speaker 2:It was paid a significant amount more than what I'm on now. It's was. You know, I'd be learning a huge amount, and so my, my head was saying like yes, you should definitely do like that, that's the rational thing to do. But my kind of heart and my body were kind of like no, that doesn't feel right. And so over the two years of doing the work with you, it has helped me kind of have tools to sit in that feeling of uncomfortableness and work through it. And by no means an expert, I still had many tears trying to like make decisions you know around whether I should take the role or not but I think I've just I feel much more prepared in terms of I've got a toolbox to help me manage the feelings that come up and the chatter in my head kind of helped me kind of work through that basically.
Speaker 1:And through that process, like that recent example that you shared about that new role that came up, I really watched you use your body as a guide around that. So when we speak about you know, having a toolbox of things that can support you in some of this uncertainty or when making decisions, I really watched you use your body as a guide around that. Do you want to talk a?
Speaker 2:little bit about that, yeah, so I think there's a couple of things that come up for me there. As one is and I did actually talk about this when I did my presentation was that very early on and when I was at university, actually, I made quite a significant decision around which degree I was going to do based on how I felt at the time. It was quite unconscious, like I wasn't consciously tuning into what my body was telling me. I just I'd chosen a degree that I thought that I should do within a week of being there. It didn't feel right, so I moved to another one. So that was kind of the first quite significant life decision that I made based on a feeling, not a rational thought. And so over the years I've been doing work with you and about and meditation and stuff, I've got much better at trusting that kind of gut or intuition and we hear that saying a lot and I used to, and still sometimes do, get really confused about what is my head and what is my gut.
Speaker 2:And so for me, being able to distinguish between those and really feel into what my body is saying is kind of one major thing that I do, which we've talked a lot about is creating space, yeah, so space between the mind and the body, and for me that looks like getting out of nature, going for walks, like creating the space for me to kind of drop into that deeper feeling that you know is the right one.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think I talked about this the other evening as well is trusting that body feeling the first feeling often that you experience. So, excuse me, when you're offered a job and the first thing that comes up for you, that's often the truth. So in my experience for this role I was offered, you know, I asked to apply for this job and I said thank you. But no thank you because it just didn't feel right. Before I did too much thinking about it and then I went through a whole week and a half of kind of milling it over in my brain and I was like maybe I should do it Anyway. But the point is that often the very first feeling that you feel deep down is the truth for you.
Speaker 2:And so trusting that, I think, has been the biggest thing for me because, like, even just in the last week, I've had an experience where something else has come up and my initial thought was like no thanks. But then I'm like, am I turning down another opportunity? Like what am I doing? But it's just learning to trust that feeling and that can be really hard when you can't see anything further ahead of you. But just knowing that the more you practice trusting that, the more you feel slightly more comfortable doing that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and the more evidence that starts to stack up in favor of, like you know, when you do trust your intuition, you trust your body, and then you eventually see the positive outcome from that. You know, whatever that might be you, then it starts to build more and more trust, doesn't it? Because you have more and more evidence that, oh, I did that last time and then it actually turned out well, so I can do this again. So I think it's a passage of time thing as well.
Speaker 2:I think, also just on that, for me, something that's been really important is like writing down the things that have shown up for me when I've trusted, because it's really easy to you know like things good things can happen to you and you go. You know your mind goes oh that was just a coincidence or you worked really hard to get that. Rather than, like you, you trusted yourself and you made the right decisions, and that's why more things are flowing in for you. So for me, because my brain goes. Now that can't be right. I've been writing them down so that I can, like visually, go back and say, okay, I made this hard decision, I trusted myself, but here is the kind of positives that then fell out of that, and it might have been a month later, six months later or a week later, you know.
Speaker 2:So having that kind of truth or kind of example for my brain to see has really helped kind of keep trusting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a great practice. I spoke about something similar actually on the podcast a few episodes earlier about keeping a manifesting journal and it's kind of more or less the same practices and it being able to really take note of times where we weren't sure how things were going to work out. But we chose to trust and have faith and then we saw the positive outcomes that came through that and, yeah, my needs that, doesn't it? It needs physical evidence to be able to be like, oh okay, I don't need to panic, like it's safe for me to come out of that doubt and that worry. So what does a yes feel like for you versus a no? When we talk about trusting your body and decision making, how do you know that something is a yes versus a no?
Speaker 2:I think as soon as I get into my head, then it's a no. Like, as soon as I start thinking in my head like should I, shouldn't I? What would that look like? How do I feel about it? Asking like my husband like what do you think about this? Should I do this? Asking you like what do you think, should I? Like, that's a no for me. Like, as soon as I have to question it and really make myself myself feel comfortable with a decision, that's a no for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great.
Speaker 2:Whereas a yes is like it feels light, it feels easy and it just feels like you feel comfortable. I suppose You're not kind of doubting yourself. Yeah, that's probably the main difference that I would feel now, but it's not. I'm not gonna pretend like it's easy for me to feel those differences straight away, like if something's shown up to me. I have to really go through like a whole process to kind of get clear on that, because it is so easy to kind of get into that spiral of like is this the right thing to do? It's logical, it's rational this is what feels right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And that's where that we spoke earlier about the importance of space. The space gives us the ability to discern between the two and sometimes we'll have both of the feelings at once and then we've got to work out okay, there'll be a lot of mind chatter around something, but then underneath that there's that feeling of, yeah, this decision feels right for me. But we often have to move through a lot of that mind chatter to be able to access that truth. And that's where creating the space, like you say, getting out into nature, that kind of thing, and also like the emotional space, so being able to clear out some of that mind chatter. We talk a lot about using the breath. Things like EFT tapping, those sorts of techniques are really journaling. They're great for clearing out some of that static. That allows us to access what sits underneath that which is normally our truth, and it's like that place that we can really trust to guide us in the best way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the mind chatter for me and a lot of the experiences that I'm thinking about right now all come from fear, like they come from fear of if I say no to this opportunity, maybe there will never be another opportunity.
Speaker 1:Or if I say no to this.
Speaker 2:Maybe they think I'm not appreciating the fact that they've offered me promotion. So another kind of tool or practice that I'm really working on is like being sort of sitting in that discomfort of like disappointing people or not people pleasing, like being okay with not letting people down because, like you're not necessarily letting people down.
Speaker 2:You sort of think that you are, but just being okay with like honoring yourself, because by doing something that you think someone else should do, you just dishonor yourself and you're the one that has to live with those consequences or the stress of being in a job that you might not like, or so it's just practicing like not worrying about what other people think and I know that, you know it's very easy to say and it's much harder to do but just always remembering to like, honor yourself and what's right for you, because then more good things flow in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, because we then kind of get ourselves into a space of alignment. The more we honor our uses and honor what feels true and right for us, life begins to flow a lot more easily. Things flow into our life. The clarity that we need, the steps we need, start to come. Everything starts to flow, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:As opposed to when we're in people pleasing and sort of trying to fit ourselves into doing things that we think other people want us to do or that are expected of us or that, will you know, cause people to like us more, whatever it might be. It's almost like we're going against the grain. There is no flow there, and that's where we'll often experience a lot of stuckness. So you're right, it's not. The crazy thing is it's not actually all that easy to honor ourselves, at least in the beginning. When this is a practice that we're doing in the beginning, we think that that would be the easiest thing in the world to honor ourselves and to do what feels right for us, but often the hardest thing to do. But just because it feels hard and it feels uncomfortable, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.
Speaker 2:Mm. Yeah, and I think it's okay also to know that like you do just have to keep practicing it, Like you've often said to me, cause you know, I'm like, am I not doing enough work to like make this feel more easier. And you say to me you know, like it is a practice, so you just have to keep practicing these things. It's not, it doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1:Yeah and like. The more life that like brings us opportunities to apply this work, you know, the easier it becomes.
Speaker 2:Mm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cool, I love all of that that you've shared there, like if we zoom right back to sort of your role that you got out straight out of uni cause I think there's some gold there to talk about you shared in the and I know this too, but you shared this in the presentation that you you got this role out of uni and you progressed quite quickly in this organization, but you ended up getting quite sick and experiencing pretty severe burnout. Do you want to talk through a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So there's kind of two parts to that experience, that kind of tie in together. So I might cover both off. But the first one is I was in a marketing role and for anyone who's done marketing before knows that it's quite high stress. It was for me anyway. I was looking after a big portfolio, there's deadlines. It was just like a stressful experience for me.
Speaker 2:And while I was at Farmlands I got the opportunity to do a leadership program which was like a six month course. So you do a whole lot of leadership training and you do a report throughout that process and doing that basically kind of open my eyes up to kind of another whole area of business which essentially landed me in the role of working in sustainability. But the reason that I shared that is that at the time I kind of finished Kellogg and I wanted to go and work for a business that kind of more aligned with my values. I did my research project on the relationship between soil health and human health and that tell the sort of sustainability kind of thing kind of played into that. And a mentor of mine at the time said that would be easy for you to go and work for another organization that aligned to the values. The challenge for you is like how do you bring that thinking into the business? And so I applied for that. There was a sort of a restructure and there was a head of sustainability role that came up which I applied for and was successful in. And it was important for me because while I was interviewing for that role I knew that there was another couple of guys who were also interviewing for it and they were much older than I was. They were much more experienced in terms of their time in the industry and their kind of technical knowledge and I was feeling really nervous about like what I could offer and I at that point in my career I wasn't confident in my skill set and what I had to offer but getting the role was. I guess it sort of helped to affirm to me that my skill set of having like strong communication skills, good stakeholder management, being able to influence business change those skills which for me didn't really feel like skills, were actually really valuable in a business and like diving into that from a more, a kind of a deeper level was like the importance of supporting your self-worth, like really deeply knowing that like having a different skill set to someone that you think has kind of got what it takes to be in a role is actually different for what it is for you and I think for me that was really important and how that relates into kind of my burnout experience was for kind of four to six years while I was there at Farmlands.
Speaker 2:I worked really hard. I really enjoyed my job but also because I felt like I needed to prove myself, like I was always hustling, like what's the next thing? How do I work harder, you know, getting to work early, leaving work late and getting really sick, like I bet it was Glangela Fever for about four years and had, you know, rashes on me. I was holding on to weight that I didn't need to. And my sister obviously, who we've mentioned before, sarah, she's amazing she said to me like I can't out supplement stress, katie, like you, you need to make a change in your life to be able to support your system. And so that's kind of where my relationship with work really started to change, because a, I got this new role and I started to understand the value of my skillset versus thinking I always needed to prove myself. And then I also started working.
Speaker 2:I did a whole lot of work around meditation, which kind of helped me just like get out of my head more and kind of more into my body and, I think, also really understanding the difference between masculine and feminine energy and and Abaulah, you and I have obviously done a lot of this work before, but I spend a lot of my time in my masculine energy, because that feels really comfortable for me and how I described that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm sure you've talked about this on heaps of your episodes, but masculine energy for me is like having structure and like to do lists and getting stuff done and like, really you know, like sitting up tall and kind of bringing that kind of sort of strength, whereas like being in my feminine which I've done the heat, heaps of work and I'm still still really working hard at it is like letting things flow, sitting back, trusting that like your skill and your worth is so powerful and so moving into that more of that, a feminine energy for me has been really really important to help kind of how I work and how I show up to work and my relationship with work.
Speaker 2:And it's not like I'm not working less hard, I'm just not hustling all the time and use and I'm still getting results. So it's really nice to kind of experience that shift and it is still such a balance for me, as you know, like managing the masculine feminine energy and it plays a huge role even in my relationship with my husband and, like you know, I come back from work and if I've been sitting in my masculine all the time, I'm just, like you know, I come home and I've got washing to do, I've got this to do. You've got to take the dog for a walk rather than just like leaning back and being much softer. Yeah, sorry, that's a super long winded answer to what you asked, but no the kind of things that came up for me.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Okay, so much I want to ask you about around this. They think you're really speaking about something. What's really sitting underneath the burnout, what's sitting underneath the hustling energy, the stress that we often experience and I love to talk about this on the podcast that stress is just such as a surface symptom, that there's something underneath it that's driving it and I think for a lot of us as women in life and in work, it really comes back to a belief or a set of beliefs in ourselves that there's a gap in our belief. So we're feeling like we need to push more. We're feeling like we need to hustle, we need to prove ourselves more because we're not fully sitting and the belief of ourselves are not fully sitting and who I am and what I have to offer is enough.
Speaker 1:If I'm in that energy, I don't need to be working all hours and staying late to prove that I've done enough. I can sit in, I can do my work and I can get it done really well, but I don't have to is always aligned that we cross over when we're in too much mass energy, where it becomes like it's an unnecessary amount of work. It goes into needing to push, needing to prove, and I think it was so great to hear you just say how you're still achieving and getting your work done, because I remember that was one of your big concerns when we first started talking about the difference between mass energy and human energy and you'd learning how to bring more of this lighter way of working into your experience. You were really worried but like, am I going to be able to achieve things? Like am I still going to be successful if I work more from this feminine energy? How does that feel now? What do you think has helped you have that shift in perspective?
Speaker 2:I think, just firstly, the hardest part for me was that because I have achieved things in my career. Today I felt like I was being rewarded for being in my mass energy, absolutely. I had promotions every year or year and a half and so I was being like, kept being affirmed for like you work hard, you hustle, you'll be rewarded. And so moving out of that mindset has been really, really hard. I'm not going to sit here and say it's been easy. It's been a lot of work to really deeply start to change that belief.
Speaker 2:And I think I mean you just hit the nail on the head in terms of all of that surface stuff is just a gap in a belief system and for me that's a self worth belief. Like I don't feel, like I'm enough. That's always what comes up for me and you know you could look at and say I've won some reasonably good awards. That would, you'd think, would make you think like of course you're enough, but like it has done nothing to that, to that effect. It's just, if anything, it's maybe been like I don't deserve it.
Speaker 2:Someone's going to look behind the curtain and realize I don't know anything. So to answer your question, like, what does it feel like now for me, and the feminine is is just trusting, like it's for me, that's what it comes back to. It's just like every single day, like doing belief work and trusting myself and trusting my skillset and knowing that, like you know, just recently, in the last year, I've been much more conscious of being in that femininity and I've still had opportunities to grow or move into new roles or like lots of good stuff that I have wanted has come to me and I've been much more in that feminine energy. So I think it's just knowing that there is truth in that, like sitting back and being more relaxed, like it does. Still, the goodness still comes in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And again, just like what we were talking about earlier, it's an evidence thing. We just need to try this on with a bit of faith and go like, okay, I'm going to hold work more lightly, I'm going to work from the softer place, I'm going to honor myself and my own boundaries and my own limits, and then we just try this on and see what might happen. And then you know, as you said, you see that there's still been things that have flowed in, and so we start to stack the evidence up. So then the mind starts to think, okay, well, maybe this might be okay for me to leg of this old pattern and work more from this place. So, yeah, it's definitely a journey of trusting a lot of this work isn't it?
Speaker 2:I think, also for me, like I've sometimes like made a bit of a game of it, like tried to take it a bit more lightly, like, just like okay, use this meeting as an example, like to practice being in your feminine, so don't say so much. Like sit back, just listen, whereas I'd typically go into a meeting and like want my voice to be heard and want to like speak my views on things, whereas I'd come into a meeting and go, okay, let's just play a game with this and see what flows out of something. When I'm sitting back and much more relaxed and it's, it's been really cool just to like take that all the bit a bit more lightly and just like trusting that You're meant to be where you are and like that the lighter you take things, the easier things feel, which is just makes life much more enjoyable.
Speaker 1:to be honest, it really does, and this is how, like, we can really change our relationship with work without necessarily needing to change our job, and like sometimes people will come into my space and it's really clear like okay, it's time for you to move on from where you are, like it's you know they might have outgrown the role, it's become toxic. They really need to move into something new. But also, a lot of the time is that we actually don't need to step into something new. It's that we need to change the relationship with what we're currently doing and it's everything to do with this, isn't it? It's like the work can stay the same and even those like difficult people that we're having to interact with at work, they can stay the same. But it's how we show up to that that changes, and that changes our whole experience. That changes everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and just like knowing that you do have to practice that like because that sounds really easy and for me it has been. You know, like I've been working with you for a couple of years now and I still have to practice that a lot, but the more you practice, the easier it gets and the more like decision making feels easier. Or you know, like I don't wake up now thinking I've got heaps to do and I'm stressed like whereas the first eight years of my career that like every morning I was like already wired before I got to work, whereas now like I'm not, but I'm still doing good work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good, so good, and like even like this is a little takeaway for people who are listening. You talked about that example going into a meeting. This could also be you could apply this to like a conversation that you're having at home with a partner or with a family member or a friend. You know, we can apply this sort of sitting back energy in lots of ways. I always say, like a great first step is to just take a deep breath in, so like if we just do this together now, we take a deep breath in and out and then like roll your shoulders back and then really sit back in your chair and then feel your whole body and your heart opening and then think, how would I communicate from this place, how would I show up from this place, see where your intuition is guiding you from there, and that's a that can give you like a great template of what it means to work from this more feminine place, to work from this life's energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I like I always do that quite often, like if I'm at work and I am noting, noticing myself like moving quickly around the office, or like really up in my head, like I'll just be like, okay, what do I need to go and do, and sometimes it will literally be I'll go to the loo and I'll just take some deep breaths, do some tapping and just like drop back into my body.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then, like what you know, within 30 seconds you can make a shift. It's not, like you know, you have to do two hours of work at home to move into that different energy. It's just like a little reminder to be like, okay, that's dropped back into the body, you know, as you say, like move your shoulders back and just take some breath, takes and breath. It really helps.
Speaker 1:like need to do it more, yeah, but such a great little mini practice and, yeah, it doesn't have to be some long winded thing, it's the ability to recognize and be aware. Or I've gone into hustle mode. I can feel it in my body, my body's communicating with me, like I feel tense and tight. Okay, let me just take my thumb off to the bathroom and take that two minutes, because that is such an amazing investment of time, because that two minutes or that five minutes will really change how you experience the rest of your day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't like that. I know when I've been in a good flow of energy versus maybe not so good, because when I get home I'm not like totally exhausted.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, whereas, like days where you've been like in your masculine or hustling, like you get home and you're like absolutely wrecked, like I'm like the sort of going for a walk is just like hard, whereas like when I've been in a really good flow and taking things more lightly, I'll get home and I'm not feeling so exhausted, and so for me that's quite a good like sort of mistest, I guess, for me being okay, how have I shown up today? Yeah, which I find quite useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah great, and just being compassionate with ourselves. When we do find ourselves back in that energy or working from that place, it's like, oh okay, there's no need to judge ourselves. It's just being really compassionate and go, okay, where did I slip into that? Or what person, what interaction, what thing came up to me that caused me to go into that hustling energy and then like, how do I want to do that differently from here? Just that awareness, creating that space to reflect, is a really powerful way to shift some of these patterns. Yeah Great. Oh, katie, thank you so much for everything that you said. There's just been some absolute gold in here. Is there anything else that you want to share before we finish up?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think just like knowing that it's okay to have that kind of self doubt or those wobbles or the kind of chatter in your mind, but, like, my advice is, just do what you can to support yourself through that. So, whether that's getting a coach or a mentor or talking to some close friends around, what's coming up for you, like, really help yourself through that, because it's really normal to have those feelings. It's just like not something that people talk enough about. So I think you know, when you're making decisions whether it's in your career or in relationship or life or whatever you know be gentle with yourself and really trust that kind of deep intuition feeling, because it will always guide you.
Speaker 1:Amazing wisdom. Thank you so much, Katie. You're so welcome. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I loved having this conversation with Katie and if you know a friend or a colleague who might benefit from what we talk about in this episode, I would love if you shared it with them. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and have a look through the podcast feed and see if there are any other episodes that might have some value for you as well.
Speaker 1:And if you're interested in joining us for my mastermind program. This is the place for you if you want to step into calm, sustainable success. So if you've ever felt the weight of burnout or you've struggled with self-doubt or the pressure to constantly hustle for success and to get to that next thing, you can really think of the mastermind as your sanctuary, as a place for you to take a deep exhale and fundamentally change your relationship with work and achievement and success. You're going to create a new way of creating career achievement, a way that really honours you and your body. You're going to develop deeper belief in yourself and your skills and what you offer, not only so that it makes work a whole lot easier for you, but you're going to start to see opportunities really begin to flow in as a result of that shift. It's the place to be if you want to expand into your potential, but do it in a lighter, calm and sustainable way.
Speaker 1:I've recorded a podcast episode it's episode 38 that discusses in more detail about the mastermind, how it works, what it's about. You might like to check out that episode if you're interested in joining us, or click the link below. That has all of the details about the program. We begin on the 2nd of November and I'd love to have you join us if it feels like a fit, and you're welcome to book in for a call with me if you're interested in discussing it with me further. So thanks so much for joining me for this conversation and I look forward to connecting with you in another episode.