I spoke to Shanda Ceretti on May 12, 2023. We spoke about her history, her work and her intuition. It was so interesting to see how it all meshed together.
Bio
Shanda Ceretti is committed to personal growth, leadership and empowering others to transform their lives.
As a Certified Transformational Coach she supports individuals who feel stuck, disconnected and unhappy in life, to let go of their past so that they can feel happy, whole, and fulfilled!
Over the last 10 years, Shanda has devoted her time to her business and personal healing journey while studying human habits, beliefs, and identity.
Healing her childhood trauma has enabled Shanda to view the world from a different perspective, which transpires in every area of her life!
Shanda sees the beauty and opportunity in everyone she meets and approaches life with love, intimacy, and confidence!
Happiness is on the other side of pain and resistance.
It’s up to you to heal your wounds so that you can truly find peace and happiness to create the life of your dreams!
You are capable, and you are worthy.
I spoke to Shanda Ceretti on May 12, 2023. We spoke about her history, her work and her intuition. It was so interesting to see how it all meshed together.
Bio
Shanda Ceretti is committed to personal growth, leadership and empowering others to transform their lives.
As a Certified Transformational Coach she supports individuals who feel stuck, disconnected and unhappy in life, to let go of their past so that they can feel happy, whole, and fulfilled!
Over the last 10 years, Shanda has devoted her time to her business and personal healing journey while studying human habits, beliefs, and identity.
Healing her childhood trauma has enabled Shanda to view the world from a different perspective, which transpires in every area of her life!
Shanda sees the beauty and opportunity in everyone she meets and approaches life with love, intimacy, and confidence!
Happiness is on the other side of pain and resistance.
It’s up to you to heal your wounds so that you can truly find peace and happiness to create the life of your dreams!
You are capable, and you are worthy.
Welcome to Sears Beers, knowers and Doers, a podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me is that inner sense for knowing that something is true. And yet I have no proof. But there's so many definitions and there's so many ways it can come. I'm looking to bring together and share with you some amazing guests. You have some amazing life stories, and also some insights into how intuition can come, and I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees. I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition, and I hope that by doing that, we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.
Speaker 2:Before we get started today, I would love to share some tools with you to help with stress and feeling overwhelmed, especially for the energetically sensitive person. Feel free to go to my store on my website@www.healingvitality.ca. Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me.
Speaker 3:So I'm super excited today cuz I'm connecting with somebody that a colleague put on my radar screen. And when I heard about her work, I was like, okay, she needs to be on my podcast <laugh>. So thank you so much Shandi , for joining me today. I'm excited to share you with the world. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, please?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for inviting me to your podcast. It's an honor to be here just to share my message and my experience , um, and the work that I do with everybody. So I like to start by saying that, you know, I'm a mother, I'm a daughter. I'm a woman, <laugh>, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm, I'm many things. I love nature, I love animals, and I am just somebody who really lives life through her heart. So what I do on the business side of things is that I am a life coach. So I work with , um, predominantly parents who are struggling with things from the past. So with any types of traumas, big Ts, little ts. And we work together in a one-on-one container to allow them to heal the past so that they can step fully into their future. So that's kind of a business side of things. And then the personal side of things, I'm also on this journey as well, this beautiful healing journey, and it is something that I am so passionate about and I believe in fullheartedly. It's been almost 10 years now that I have committed to doing this type of work and studying it and teaching it for over five now. But this has just become a part of who I am. There's a saying that we can only take people as far as we're willing to go ourselves. And so my commitment to myself, my commitment to my business is a reflection to any of the work that I do , um, in the world, right? I'm always looking for ways to show up and be in service to other people or add any type of value that I can in any way that that tends to manifest. Um, so things like this, for example, just being able to chat with you where people can kind of tune in and maybe walk away with something that's transformational for them or something that they can implement into their lives. So I like to say I'm kind of like a proof of my own work, right? I, I am a living, breathing example of how coaching can literally transform lives. I have a friend of mine that I've known since I was a teenager who got to witness me in probably, you know, some of my darkest days. Tell me recently that out of all the people that he has come across in his life, which has been many people in the line of work that he's in, that I am by far the most transformed in the most quickest way. Uh , and it blows his mind. So he's always trying to pick my brain about, you know, how I did these certain things or what it was that kind of came to a head to make me take that leap of faith, so to speak. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at in my life. Uh, I'm a mother, like I mentioned, so I have a wonderful just turned eight year old son, and we just live life , uh, Foley . We live into what brings us joy. I get to , um, express the things that make me feel alive and bring purpose to my life. And I get to share all of this with him, which I find to be such a blessing to come across this work. He was only two years old when I started coaching and learning about coaching. So for me to be able to kind of shift my learning onto him and allow him to experience it as well and navigate the world from a different lens is such a beautiful blessing and gift that I get to give to my son. Uh, because when we talk about trauma, which is, you know, my area of , of expertise, there's a lot of generational trauma that happens too that is unknown most of the time to us as parents, as we pass these things down, right? So I'm a believer that we get to do the work for ourselves so that our children don't have to do the work for us. And that being said, there's no such thing as perfection. No matter how hard we try or what we do, our kids will have some sort of , um, imprint or I impression made by us as parents or guardians. And that is just in my belief, the process of being a human, the process of, of having this this wonderful experience here on earth. Totally. So with that , yeah, with that said, we get to have grace and love and patience and from a non-judgmental point of view for how we show up in the world and how we parent and really prioritizing becoming the best person that we can so that every relationship we embark in comes from a place of love, right? Comes from a place of genuine integrity and our own personal values as opposed to limiting beliefs or limitations or societal constructs that are maybe imposed upon us, rather than us choosing to live that way on purpose or intentionally.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But this is the reason that I was like, oh, this is timely. Let's talk about this because before the call we were talking about how we both see Covid as a blessing, like many silver linings, which is not everybody's experience and mm-hmm . <affirmative> , to me it's the , the silver lining is that we either were given time or we were given circumstances that were pointing us to working on our stuff and it's still going on. I call it trauma stacking. I don't know that that's actually a term, but I make up my own terms <laugh> because of based , I love it based on what I see in my head. So, and it doesn't have to be formal what we've chosen to do as individuals. It , it can be just reconnecting with gardening or mining books. Again, like there's so many different ways that can recenter us in who we are. But when I heard about your work, I was like, okay, people need to have an awareness that it is everywhere. Like there is not a person on this planet who doesn't have what you referred to as the big T or the little t And honestly, in my perspective, it's not a comparison game. It's how we receive the events that create the aspect in our body. And I don't know if that's technically correct or not, but it seems from even my work that it's just how we receive the event and what we've, what coping skills we've had to deal with it since in terms of whether or not it sits in you as trauma is , does that make sense?
Speaker 4:Yes, a hundred percent . It brings up , uh, so many things for me to be able to share actually. So like what I heard you saying , um, it would be, okay, so our thoughts and our feelings are what create our energy, right? Or our essence, depending on how you want to talk about that. And then it's our, our perspective, our experience based upon our thoughts and our feelings that create our life. So what I hold a very strong belief around is that we are the creators of our life, okay ? We are always creating, we're always manifesting, whether it's manifesting, like bringing in the things that we actually want into our lives. That's what I mean by manifesting or bringing in the things that we don't want into our lives. And the reason, which I find so fascinating why this happens is because wherever we focus is what we're calling in is what we're creating. For example, somebody who has a more healthy perspective, right? They have a lighter perspective, a lighter energy, they're kind of like, we'll say like an optimistic type of person. They're gonna call in likely more things that they want in their lives, right? So they might, you know, they might be successful in their career or in their marriage or whatever it is. And then vice versa. On the other side of that, somebody who's more of like a pessimist, pessimistic type person who really , um, experiences life from the lens of life is happening to me, not for me, is then focusing on the heavier side, right? So the heavier energy, which then they're creating more of that. So I find it super fascinating how our thoughts create our life. Like the thoughts that we create in our head that we think and we choose to think, right? We give airtime to, hmm . Is what dictates the quality of our life . So if you can kind of extract your thoughts and look at them, if you were to write them down, for example, on a piece of paper, the thoughts that run into your head, which thoughts are you paying attention to? Are you giving airtime to, are you focusing on because it is in that exact exercise that you will find out why you're living the quality of life that you're living.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, and it , so it brings you back into like increasing your awareness, increasing your presence, becoming a participant in your life. Yeah . And I don't think it's actually a process where you're ever done. No. It's just being the human, like it's just a human experience is to be fine tuning what the heck we're doing all the time. And, and because we're human, like you're not supposed to be perfect. So you're gonna be messing up, you're gonna be messing up to learn. You have to mess up in order to learn. So, right. It's , uh, a
Speaker 4:Hundred percent
Speaker 3:It, it's like the ocean. It comes in waves. You're gonna have moments when it's not. You're gonna have years when it's not and you're just bumbling long beautifully. Like it. I guess the key is not to stay where you are <laugh>. Yeah . I would love but be where you are .
Speaker 4:Yeah. Okay . So I would love to add to what you've said, cuz I think it's beautiful and absolutely some people depending on their perspective, right? And their experience might feel like that is heavy. But I want to, I want to offer this to, to everybody. Even, even if you agree or disagree with, with what was said there, right? So we're never done, right, this healing journey, this growth journey, it's, it's a never ending thing. And this is why I find that exciting in case you can't tell what's my energy here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, this is, this is again, like what I, I get to share with my clients and help my clients understand and I got to do it for myself as well, is that when, when we have the realization that this work of, of evolution is never complete, it allows you to get excited about the opportunity that's waiting for you that you haven't tapped into yet. So for example, just I'll, I'll try to make this super simple. If somebody's experience in life right now is a three out of 10, they might wow. Be like, holy cow, that's really low. Whereas I'm like, okay, let's come from a place of curiosity instead of judgment and look at this as like, holy cow, I still have 70% capacity left to create what I wanna create. Right? So I see it as an invitation , um, to, to expand and evolve even more into the being that we are. And that said, as we grow, everything grows around us and with us. So when we reach this quote unquote 10 outta 10, it , it's like, it's then shifted again. And because our wants and our desires are also evolving and shifting with us, which is why we never reach, you know, that optimal, I'm finished, this is the final destination point. That's kind of my understanding around it, right? So as we up level , so do the things that we want, and we we're just continuously expanding into a newer version, a higher version , um, of who we get to become
Speaker 3:Very true. So you've moved around a lot and we haven't talked about that. And so you're, you're from the Maritimes, but Yes , correct. You've , you've moved across Canada few times I think is what I understood from before. Yes. Like what were you doing before you were a coach?
Speaker 4:Yeah, <laugh> , I love this question so much. It's such a good one. Cuz uh , <laugh> if you, when when you understand, if you could, if I wrote a book for example, about my like biography, it's, it's quite interesting how I'm sitting where I am today. And it's, I was just doing some thought work around all of this actually. Um , so I am from the east coast. I'm from Sackville, new Brunswick originally. And at the wonderful, beautiful age of 18, I moved to Ontario at right smack in the middle of Toronto, right downtown. Um, I went there for school. So originally I grew up wanting to become a veterinarian, and that was like up until high school. And then I realized that with that came the heavier side, you know, I thought as I was , when I was younger, I thought that it was all butterflies and roses and rainbows. And then I learned that, okay, sometimes you actually have to put an animal at that age. At that age, it was very difficult for me to come to that realization mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And I immediately was like, oh no, I can't, I could never do that. Right? Right . So it made me kind of explore a little bit into, well, what is it that I wanna do? So then I actually really became fascinated with marine biology and specifically with, you know, the larger mammals , um, like whales and dolphins. And I wanted to start studying marine biology. So I had applied, I got accepted, got some bursaries and such to go down to Dalhousie , uh, university to , um, study marine biology. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the January before I graduated, this very unique personal side of me came out , um, and it was a , it was a form of expression and I started creating garments and clothing and I never thought anything of it actually until one of my friends asked the question, why aren't you doing this? Like, why aren't you going into something? And like, you're, you're talented, you enjoy it. Like, have you explored this? And I was like, whoa. I didn't even think that this was an option. So I explored and entertained that idea. Very long story short, I ended up , um, getting accepted into a fashion design school. So here I am, we're about March of grade 12, my last year of school before graduating. And I am accepted to a course in marine biology, which would be about an eight year program or fashion design program. That was 18 months and it was in Toronto. And I, I actually sat my parents down and said, okay, like, I proposed the idea of what I was entertaining and just got to put everything out on the table. Long story short, once again, I decided to embark on this , um, newfound passion of mine. So I moved , uh, to Toronto. I lived in Toronto for five years. I was in Ontario for nine years. And , um, what happened there was that in , during that time was when I really hit my low of lows and a lot of addictions came up and a lot of traumas came out, and my coping strategies just got very unhealthy. So eventually I moved out of the city into something that felt a little bit more rural, a little bit more like home. So then I lived in this different area for a while, and then I had missed home. What happened was my oldest sister was pregnant and I wanted to be a part of my nephew's life. So this was our first nephew to be born, and I just really wanted to nurture that relationship and explore that relationship. So I moved home and then I ended up working with my dad, who is an entrepreneur as well. He owned a wholesale bakery. And so I started working for him , um, which is, this is how I got into coaching, this is how I learned about coaching. So the idea was succession planning. So for those of you who might not know what that means, the idea was that I would be taking over the company when my father decided to retire. So we had set the wheels in motion. I worked with him for multiple years, several years, and then one day, like a ton of bricks, it hit me, wait a minute, I am not doing this for me. I am doing this more for him. And that was a very hard realization to come to. And at that point I knew, because what he had taught me always was in business as an entrepreneur, if you do not have passion behind what you're doing, what you're creating, you will likely not be successful. Right. Passion is, is like the glue that holds everything together. And even in those moments where things feel so difficult, you might not even have the answers. The passion is what will keep you going, persevering. So I sat with that for a while and I said, okay, listen, I didn't know how to tell him. I was terrified what he was gonna say. I thought he was gonna be so upset with me. So I said, I, I made an agreement with myself. You're gonna commit to finding out what it is that you wanna do because this isn't it. But if this isn't it, then what is it? Right? So I, I set out on this quest to find my purpose and I, I made the agreement, okay, we're going to commit to figuring out what that is, and when we do, then we'll have the conversation with dad around what my, my decision is. So it didn't take very long. I think it was like , uh, it was either 30 or 60 days, I don't even think it was 60. Um , or what I did to , to find my purpose was I binged any sort of free webinar training introduction to anything at all. So I just, every night in the evenings, I would go on and I would just google stuff that I resonated with, right? Like keywords , buzzwords, and see what came up. And so I came across coaching through a webinar. And the moment the hosts, there was two of them, two, two women, the moment they introduced themselves and started talking, I was like, this is it . I don't even know what this is, but this is it for me. Um, that, and that ended up being the school that I enrolled in for my health coach certification, life coach certification. And then I went back just two, three years ago and did transformational coaching and another certification that I'm failing to remember in this moment, <laugh>, it's all good . So that is how, that is how I came across coaching. That is how I stumbled upon this. And for me, it is such a gift to be able to take my own personal experience and even the most painful things that I've gone through to heal those things. And then to turn around and be able to teach others and encourage and inspire others to do the same. Right? Because what I remember so deeply in my body is that when I was going through all of my traumas, my trauma started when I was very young. I was four or five years old. And I just remember, especially as like a teenager, how alone I felt, how different I felt. I felt like such an outcast. Even though if you looked at my life from an outside perspective, you would never think that I felt that way. Right? I, I hid it very well. It's not really until you look at some of my cries for help is what I call them, or the ways that I coped with things that you really get to understand is that I, my cries for help started when I was very little and they went all the way up until , um, I started doing the work for myself, which would be in my twenties. So yeah, that's kind of a long story short and in between there as well, I did move to Regina for a year that was with my, my son's father to, for his line of work, which again, was a beautiful opportunity for me to be able to spend the first two years of my son's life, just him and I building this beautiful bond and relationship together. So I was a stay-at-home mom and I did some m l m stuff on the side, like direct marketing sales that never flourished into anything, but was a beautiful introduction to kind of creating those relationships with people, which is a beautiful thing that I get to do now in my line of work.
Speaker 3:Right . So you used a few words in there that I'm not sure if podcast guests are gonna pick up on, they might, but I'm gonna ask you, how does intuition come to you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, intuition. So we all have intuition, right? It's, it's in every single one of us with no exception. The issue with this, which is what I struggled with, was that the way society is, the way that we're raised, we are taught to disconnect from our own intuition, to not trust our own intuition and to outsource it to external things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for me, intuition comes up in little moments. Something's like, do this. And I'm like, Nope. Or yep . And I do the opposite. And then I'm like, oh, now I get it right. Or sometimes I might get like this feeling of like, oh, I should message my sister or my dad or friend, whatever it is. And then I do and they're like, I was just thinking about you or whatever they needed my support or whatever it is. This also comes up beautifully in, in coaching sessions when we go through sessions, we're so connected to one another that I get the , I call them downloads. I get these like downloads or these intuitive pings and I get to act on those. Meaning I get to be vulnerable just like they are being vulnerable by showing up to the conversation, showing up to the session, right? So that I can bring them closer to their transformation. If I don't act on my intuition that comes up on our calls, I'm withholding that transformation for them. Even if it might be uncomfortable to say something or ask something, it's my responsibility as their coach, as their mentor to bring those things up. Because again, I have a different perspective. I'm not in it, they're in it, I'm not. So , um, I'm not sure if that really answers the question that you had asked about intuition, but those are kind of little examples of how intuition plays out in my life.
Speaker 3:Cool. It's interesting how it can all come in and people have listened to this podcast for a while , know that every person's individual, and you bring up a good point, we do have lots of things telling us to discount what we know or what we feel or what we do. And, and I had a podcast guest, actually, Margo Nielsen, who said very early on, she's like, we give too much credence to not listening and it being painful because we didn't listen. Mm . And she's like, it doesn't matter whether you listen or not per se, because you're gonna end up exactly where you're supposed to anyways. It's just you're taking a different path. And I've brought this up on several podcasts, <laugh> , because when she said that, I was like, huh. Yes. True. And so it's to put that awareness on people's radar screen, you talk about judge judgment and we can judge ourselves when we don't listen as opposed to seeing what came from listening or not listening. <laugh>, it just sparked me to add more to what Margot has said that I brought up in other podcast guests . Cuz the judgment piece is the part that gets you stuck. Yeah . Or stay stuck there. So thank you for bringing up those words cuz it , it's just raising the awareness that we can take things and create a stuckness that isn't necessary if we just kind of go with what then presents itself. Cuz um, there's something from access consciousness that they're like, you can choose a different reality every 10 seconds. Yes. And so yeah , it's like a
Speaker 4:I love that, I love that. And I think, you know, it's, it's all about progress, not perfection. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we, we are so committed on this, this perfection, the idea of perfection. I have to have the perfect this and the perfect that and look the perfect way and talk the perfect, you know, way and, and just sound so perfect all the time. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And again, I think when perfe , when the , when the desire, the need or the want for perfection shows up in our lives in simple ways. Like, you know, allowing, it's like an invitation to allow grace and compassion into our lives. Mm . For us and for other people as opposed to judgment, like you said. So it's like, another thing again is, is trading judgment for curiosity. Like, oh, isn't it interesting how X, Y , z oh, isn't it interesting how I'm feeling this or thinking this? Right? So instead of being like, why am I thinking this and why did that happen and why did that person cut me off? Oh, isn't it interesting that this person cut me off? And then you could be like, clearly they're in a rush. Maybe there's an emergency. And that's why that happened. And just allowing grace and compassion to, to be there and, and take the space, fill up the space as opposed to getting ticked off or aggravated or angry and judging that person. Cuz we don't know that is the reality. We do not know anything outside of ourselves.
Speaker 3:So true. Well , thank you Shonda <laugh> .
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah . I believe you work with people online like I do. So there are no boundaries in terms of connection, which is awesome. Thank you so much for everything you shared with us today. I truly appreciate the fact that you said yes.
Speaker 4:Yes. Well thank you so much for inviting me once again. And if, if I may leave with one last thing to, to offer all the listeners here today is that anybody who is struggling with anything from their past, we, you likely have this belief or this feeling that you're broken, right? You're broken. And I want to encourage you to open up to the idea or the possibility that you're not broken. And in fact, instead of looking at it like something that is broken or shattered, if we looked at our experience in our life as something that is just disconnected, unplugged , um, or turned off, then it's much more inviting to step into that healing journey and that healing process. Because when you look at something that is switched off or unplugged or disconnected, it's like, oh, okay, well I can just, I can plug it back in, I can reconnect it, I can turn it back on. Right? So it's just a little piece of encouragement to, even though it might feel scary to step into something like this and really work on healing, it's definitely worth it. And it's not, it doesn't have to be as , um, difficult as what we may have perceived it to be. So you're not broken, you are absolutely perfect the way that you are. We're just simply disconnected and that is fixable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that final share. <laugh>.
Speaker 4:Yes. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives. And I'm so grateful for Peter Trainor for his time in giving me this original music . It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place. Until next time, keep seeing, being, knowing, and doing. If you like this podcast, please share it. If you want to find others like it, go to www.healingvitality.ca or wherever you would find your podcasts. We would love to have you join us on this journey. Come be a crow sitting in the tree, be part of our community.