Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to youo Odyssey Podcast, where your guides, Tara and Karen invite you on a transformative journey toward wholeness and personal growth.
Each week we'll discuss topics related to the human experience and offer insights to help you along the way.
Please note this podcast should not replace medical care or advice.
We are not licensed healthcare professionals or mental health therapists.
If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe so you don't miss out on our future discussions.
So, explorers, let's dive into today's episode.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hey explorers, it's Tara.
We're really glad you're here with us today.
I feel this conversation is a continuation of what we started last week. Talking about love. Not just as something we feel, but something that forms us over time.
And it really does form and shift and shape things within us. So today we want to stay with a very real tension about this love that forms us.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: Yeah, and what I First of all, we just spoke about how timely this conversation is, which happens so often for us because we just allow these conversations to flow through us.
What I want to say is that piece of it that reminds us to turn to love and allow that to shape and mold us over the fear instead of the fear as an alternative to to where fear wants to shape us and hold us back. So I just what would love do?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Come back to that question time and time again. This growth and love that shapes us doesn't usually look clean and it's rarely linear and it almost never announces itself with clarity.
A lot of time, yes, yes and yes, a lot of time. It looks unfinished, messy, even in progress.
And if I'm being honest, that's where love gets the hardest for me.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Easy to love the easy all day long.
When you're presented with holding the mirror up and you're like, oh, that ain't sweet and pretty and tidy as I'd like it to be.
That's where we're really called on to return to love and lean into the love muscle. Lean into the action, the opening, the reception of love, and then transmitting from that place, learning from that place, growing from that place.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we are really good at loving clean outcomes. We know how to celebrate it when it's been resolved, when it's complete. But loving something, someone, ourselves, while still.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Becoming, while in the process, that's different.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Many of us were taught that love should come after something. Like after the growth, after the completion, after the things are all figured out, after the mess is all cleaned up, after we're more certain, more stable, more put together, when we're more.
[00:03:32] Speaker C: That's when we're more worthy and seen and accepted for the clean version.
Most of us zero to seven, baby.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: And that growth after mindset quietly teaches us to withhold love from others, most often from ourselves, until things look the way that we think they're supposed to look.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: I can't even.
I can't. I can't even like how targeted and timely this is. Like, holy cow, she's just pulling it right down, pulling it right down for us.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: But what if love isn't something we offer after growth, but something that surprises, supports our growth?
Something that supports our process?
Messy doesn't mean broken. Unfinished doesn't mean unworthy.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: There's everything and nothing to say.
Love as the pillar. Love as the pillar.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: And you know this.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: You ever present, I know this. And I've done so much leaning into this and receiving and learning, and I'm still struggling with it at times.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: It happens.
[00:04:46] Speaker D: Damn.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Humanness and explorer. To be clear, we aren't asking you to stay in situations that harm you. We're not asking you to stay and tolerate things that diminish you. But we are asking you to learn to stay present with what's genuinely growing inside without rushing in, fixing it, or abandon it too soon. Don't give up.
[00:05:10] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Don't give up. Stay on the train. Stay present. Stay connected.
Stay loving and kind and compassionate. Reinforce that daily, five times a day if you need to.
I'm okay where I am.
I'm doing well on my journey. I don't have all the answers yet, but I continue to stay in it with love.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: And I think that one of the hardest parts of loving in process is resisting the urge to rush it. We get really uncomfortable with uncertainty. We want the clarity. We want the answers. We want the exact timelines, and we want to know where all of this is going.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: The ego does not love uncertainty. The ego runs the other way. The ego's like, nope, that is not safe. I need to know all of the things right now.
And that is not how it works.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Yes, we try. We try to label it. We try to decide what it means before it's actually told us what it means. Give it meaning before it's actually ready to be defined.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Like, you can't look in the oven and it's just flour, sugar.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: It could be muffins.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: It could be a cake. Let it come forward. Let it do its magic. Let the healing. Let the process come through.
Trust it.
Trust love.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: You are worthy already. You are enough. Allow the transformation and the journey to unfold.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Stay with it. While it's unfolding, love isn't asking you to move on.
This is great.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: By the way, I love those earrings. And also, I want a pair, so you let me know where you got them.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Karen. So what do you notice shifts when someone stops rushing their own growth? Or when you stop rushing? Something that hasn't found its shape yet.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: What I notice is my whole self, my whole body relaxes. I can breathe more deeply.
I can just go into a space of, okay, my mind is really wanting to work here. It's really wanting to be in control.
And that's not how our duality of physical and metaphysical operates together. I need to just have a nice little deep breath, do something I love.
Have fun. Go do something you love. Get out of your head, get into your body, into your heart, and just relax.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Just relax. I found that rushing disguises itself as being responsible. I'm in a hurry to get this thing done because I'm motivated and super responsible. And what you touched on earlier about underneath that layer of rushing as responsibility, there's the fear. Fear that we're wasting time, fear that we're getting it wrong, fear that this isn't in alignment and fear that we're not good enough.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: Point blank, every human fear that we're not good enough, someone's going to find out I am not good enough. And that is what we're running from.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: That very human response to uncertainty. The fear that ramps up when we're like, wait, this is not happening the way that I thought it would. It's not unfolding. What is happening here in this process? And I know we've done an episode about that. The comfort zone, getting in that in between. Like, once you leave your comfort zone, what happens? Like all of that anxiety that bubbles up in your body, physically, mentally. What I want to reiterate is that growing and loving what's growing means letting the things actually be in process without demanding they be a certain way. Right?
[00:08:53] Speaker C: Letting them bubble up and letting them be what they are. Noticing, observing, processing them. Talk to the emotion or emotions, whatever it is. I see you fear, I see you anxiety, I see you judgment and just kind of sit with it. Really, Honestly, doesn't research support. Yes, 90 seconds, sitting with an emotion.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: It is not even that long.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Like, that is not even two minutes. If you can sit with it, breathe through it, notice it and accept it and just love it. Put your hand on your heart and love it. Whatever that feeling is, wherever it is in your body, connect to it and just send it love.
I'm reminding Myself.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Send it love.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Send it love.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Like when I'm not rushing to be in a certain place. It's interesting and weird at the same time. Like, this thing happens. I notice this subtle difference between staying with the growth versus settling out of fear.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: I get that.
Settling versus staying with growth.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: And this is like, where that discernment kicks in. You use your emotions as data, like, you'll be able to notice that difference between staying with the growth or settling out of fear.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: I think that getting in touch, that discernment, that the more we practice staying connected to what we're feeling, helps us to understand it when it comes up again.
The clearer, the more connected we are to that feeling, the more we can notice it more easily and embrace it without judgment and allow it to be there.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: What? What?
[00:10:27] Speaker C: It's a practice.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: A practice. And like, it's a practice. For me, the question that in this 90 seconds is asking myself if I'm being patient or am I settling?
They look similar on the outside, but they feel very different on the inside.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yes. It's funny, I can't ever picture you feeling or choosing the settling because I feel like you're so good at this. It is a discernment that you've developed.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
Through trial and error.
Yes.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: I mean, there ain't no other way.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: But to do it, folks, about the staying, like that choice between staying in the growth involves honesty. It involves being present. It definitely touches on that discernment that we've been speaking about. But settling, that tricky one, happens quietly in those moments when we deny our truth to ourselves or others because it feels safe. We settle when it's safe. We lean into the fear because it's safe. This is what I know. This is all there is when that is not actually true.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: The staying in the growth, staying in process, like, that's what expands us while the settling out of fear erases us.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: It just cuts us off. Right. It shuts it down. And I think too, something to notice is as we're practicing this new skill of staying with that and choosing love and choosing the path forward, which might feel uncomfortable and messy, is to notice that when we're getting close to really getting it, like really learning a new skill, we feel frustration.
And the frustration is a sign that you are right about to have a breakthrough. It's not a sign like a construction sign that says, turn around and go back. It's a hang in there because something really good's coming. You're real close.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
Staying in the process, that love is Inviting us to is asking us to be patient, trusting, truthful. We don't have to rush it. And we also don't have to ignore what's happening in our bodies, the feelings that are coming up, the way that our spirit feels in these circumstances or what we know true about our values, we can stay with that.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: It's like this gentle unfolding, right? I'm picturing like, you know, here I'm just going into another garden metaphor because I love them so much, right? Like that tight rosebud. You know that it's going to be like this amazingly beautiful big, right? But right now it's like this. But if you start pulling back, that that's gonna fall off. Those petals are just gonna. You can't force it. You can notice it. Maybe it looks a little fragile or maybe it looks like it's never gonna get there, but it's gonna get there. And you're gonna start seeing the evidence of that as each little petal starts to unfurl and open and being in that process and starting to see the results of the love that you are giving yourself and the presence and that you're keeping in the moment. That is the evidence. That is the gift.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: The invitation is to really lean into and understand the difference between the staying and the settling. Because then this love that's forming us is less about endurance and more about integrity. More about staying true, more about staying in alignment, like.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Snapping that all day long. Say that again because I think our listeners might really need to hear that.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Understanding the difference between staying and settling that love invites us to becomes less about endurance and more about integrity.
[00:14:12] Speaker C: You're not here to hold a heavy weight, start sweating, improve anything.
It's not about, can I just keep pushing through? It's about, am I aligned? Am I connected to the truth of who I am? Am. And does this serve my soul, my heart's growth, etc? Does this serve love?
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Oh, does this serve love?
All right.
So when we love ourselves in process, as we are blooming and blossoming, many of us only offer this love after growth. I'm speaking specifically about ourselves. And then we have this self criticism that we disguise as like motivation, like, I'm not where I'm supposed to be, or this doesn't look the way that I thought it would look. And we're like, oh, this is just my motivation. It's just my motivation speaking. I'm telling you this, Karen. I'm telling you this. Explore.
[00:15:11] Speaker C: It's judgment is what it is. Right? It's so harsh. It's criticism, it's judgment. It's like you're not actually where you should be.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: And who said it's so mean.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: It's so mean.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Said that you're not exactly where you're supposed to be. Who told you that?
[00:15:26] Speaker C: Who told you that?
[00:15:27] Speaker B: That are only allowed this love or we. You are only allowed this care. After you figured it out, the first step to dealing with your problem is admitting you have a problem.
Ain't that. Ain't it what they say in the program?
[00:15:42] Speaker C: You have to admit that there's something.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: That'S something that needs to grow, something that needs to blossom.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Some truth needs to come forward, something needs to be addressed. And your heart and your soul are sending the messages. And you're feeling it in your body. You're panicking. You're like, what? You want me to look at that? What?
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, look at that.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: With love.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: With love. I'm going to issue a declarative statement. Stop treating love, self, love like a finish line.
Stop treating it as something that you earn, something that you're worthy of after you become this better version of yourself.
This love that is shaping you and is forming you, is not waiting for you when the work is done.
It's meeting you where you are right now.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: It's there all along.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: You're allowed to be loved while you're in process, while you're growing, while you're figuring things out. Because what I know to be true, as long as we on this side of the grave, we gonna be figuring stuff out and growing and forming and shifting and growing.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: That's the beauty of this lifetime, that's the beauty of the journey. And if we can make PE peace with that and just be like, okay, that's just how it is. Great. Like accepting that. And easier said than done.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: I like to picture my little self, my little three year old self standing next to me and we're walking up the street holding hands.
Like when you were saying that, that flashed in my mind. I'm like, yeah, we all need to just be like, yeah, you're just learning that. It's cool. You fascinate me. I love you. I think you're amazing.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: I don't know why you said that. I think I told you about the letter to my younger self that my therapist had me write in writing it. I was like, oh, this is fun. And she had me speak it out loud. And I was like, oh, this is real. All I said was, hey, love. And I like lost it because I was like talking to my younger self like, you are good. You've done everything you know how to do, even stuff you didn't know how to do, and you figured it out and look where you are now. I got you.
I got you. Don't worry.
We are going to be fine. And that is the truth. Like, I come back to anytime she tried to cut it up because she. She cut up all the time. Every day, I'd be like, please go sit down.
[00:17:51] Speaker C: Yeah, mine too. And I just. Guys, I say I love you anyway. I love you. In this moment, I will never forsake you. I got you. You know, I call that our little squishy.
A little squishy inside wants that love and that kindness and that attention and that acknowledgment of like, you are good. Like, you are just fine where you are. I love you and I see you. Yes. You're going to keep growing and learn that skill, but stay connected with love to Lil Squishy.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Yes. Stay present, stay patient. Don't pressure yourself.
Treat it as a relationship that you have to tend, like with any relationship ship to this love. That is for me, it's true. It is a relationship. And it is something that you practice daily.
[00:18:34] Speaker C: Yes. Buddha said, you more than anyone else deserve your own unconditional love.
You deserve your own unconditional love. And the rest spills out when we're being kind and gentle and loving with ourselves and taking care of ourselves. We have so much more to give.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. I mean, after the Buddha. You done dropped a Buddha quote. I'm like, well, okay then. Well, all right. Buddha and Karen. I'm good with it.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Beautiful.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: All right, so we're talking about loving what's still growing. We're not rushing it, forcing clarity. We're not disappointing sighting too quickly.
I got a song that is really.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: I have to move.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: It is really. It's gonna be good then. Cause it's not asking you to hurry. It's not asking you to try to clean things up. It's just honoring your pace and letting it unfold. The song is Slow Burn by Casey Musgraves.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: Oh, I love this song.
I love this song. It's funny, I usually listen to the song thinking about my perfect love partner, but I'm listening.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: You better get the message.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Check out this week's song on the YO Podcast playlist on Spotify.
[00:19:59] Speaker C: Righteous, Casey.
Oh, yeah. Woo. That is my new go to song. When I start feeling like this ain't happening fast enough, that's a great production. I love that album's production.
I also really want to encourage explorers to pause and listen to the song because music sort of resonates on a different frequency. That's sort of the message that we're, you know, what we're talking about and helps you kind of internalize that. And so if you can attach to that beautiful, graceful self love in the midst of messiness and chaos, attach it to that song and then feel it every time you need it. You turn that song on and that's what you return to. And it's beautiful.
It's powerful.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Like, I didn't know how grounding that song could be, especially when you look at it, frame it from the lens of being in process, not rushing the resolution. When she said it could all burn down. Like, we gonna be good.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: We gonna build it back up. Whatever has to burn, just let it burn.
Yeah, Yeah. I just got goosebumps on that, right?
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. There's something there.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: It looks like this, like taking that. It looks like trusting the pace.
Be good with the slow burn.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: Yeah, right? Because it's natural for change and evolution like that to happen. The deepening of your love and awareness and your own connection to your journey and your purpose and fulfillment. It's all related to.
And it happens while you're a parent or while you're a kid or while you're working full time in a job you may not love, but it's gonna be happening in those places.
So notice when you're being called to that, to feeling the process and being in the process, being present.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Oh, it is time, my friends.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: It is time for Q O T D. Yes, ma'.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Am. The question of the day.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: You're laughing already.
Great.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: This is a great question.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: What in your life is still growing?
And what would it look like to love it without rushing it?
This is being recorded, so I'm gonna play this back for you whenever. Whenever you need it.
[00:22:19] Speaker C: I think what's asking to grow in me is loving myself regardless of external perceptions. Right. Regardless of I should be here. This is where, you know, frustration or why isn't this landing with, you know, in the process, just allowing myself to breathe, relax, and be in the moment of the journey.
Loving the journey, even when it's hard because it means I'm alive, doing it. Expressing, growing, and evolving. That is a beautiful thing.
I'd much rather that be happening than none of that happening.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Being at peace with it, having patience.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: That's what. That's not rushing there.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: It is being at peace and patient with the process, which can feel uncomfortable and messy. But knowing that ultimately where I'm headed is exactly where I meant to head, and where I am is exactly where I'm meant to be.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: I love that you said patience, because, like, the quote, it supports that. My answer to this is, what do you think, Tara? What I think and what I feel and what I know and what I live is to love the uncertainty.
Love the uncertainty.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Like, hug it and kiss it. Get in there.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: I really love the uncertainty. And stay with it and stay curious long enough to hear what it's actually asking of me.
Is it asking me to let go of some of the control? Is it asking me to loosen my grip? Is it asking me to just be so many things that uncertainty could be teaching me that I am learning in real time. When I let go of the reigns of the map of the timelines of the outcome. Like, I am. Okay, when. Oh, this didn't happen. This. Oh, that's fine.
That's actually good, because now we know what to do moving forward. I'm loving it more and more because I'm like, oh, yes. It's proven time and time again that it's gonna be just fine.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And as much as I intellectually know that feeling it. How is the disconnect? What on earth? Yeah, you reminded me. That is a beautiful thing to just sit with the uncertainty and be like, okay, what are you trying to do?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: You need to loosen this up a little bit, or, you know, this is bumping up against this other thing. Let's handle it a little bit differently this time. Okay.
All right. I have a quote from author and speaker Joyce Meyer. Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.
[00:25:22] Speaker C: Oh, dang, Joyce.
Patience is not just the act of waiting.
Right. It's waiting.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Well, with weight. Well, well, like, explaining patience in that way, like, it is beautiful. Like, it's really beautiful. Because it's like you're not forcing yourself to feel peaceful or settled even or positive. You're just staying honest. Like, yep, this thing has not happened yet. Yes, I'm in this moment. I'm staying present and staying kind and staying open to the process. Like, patience.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: And I think, for me, getting too attached to specifics, to details that'll just boom right into my.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Which is crazy. Cause I don't think, like, I'm doing what you do with me. Like, I don't even think about you that way. Like my free range chicken. She ain't attached to the details. But you are on certain things.
[00:26:19] Speaker C: I can be on certain things, but.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: I don't think was repping that. What are we doing?
Wayne, right?
[00:26:25] Speaker C: Isn't she in the forest, right?
[00:26:26] Speaker B: What are you doing here?
Yeah, I don't even live in this lane no more, girl.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: It's so funny. It's so interesting.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Growth, this slow burn, this love that is shaping, informing us.
It don't need some constant evaluation. It just needs time, your patience and care to take root so you're not behind, you're not late, you're not doing it wrong. You are in process and that matters.
Explorers, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Until next time, stay curious about your growth and let love meet you right where you are.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: This unfolding, this beautiful unfolding and this patience and this love that we hold in that process is everything.
We love you so much. Thanks for spending your time with us today. Take good care.
Please let that laugh be at the end of this episode.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: I didn't stop recording because.
[00:27:44] Speaker C: Because.
[00:27:49] Speaker D: Thank you to Queenies in downtown Durham for the use of their community podcast studio and for welcoming us so warmly each week.
We'd like to give a shout out to Coco Cinnamon, the birthplace of 1023 Media and the yo podcast. Please support your local women owned minority owned coffee shop in downtown Durham.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Durham.
[00:28:15] Speaker D: Brought to you by Durham based 1023 Media, a heart centered woman owned multimedia company.
