Ever reevaluated your life at a milestone age and realized something had to change? Shelley Marenka did just that, and her story is one you don't want to miss. After ending a two-decade-long marriage at the age of 50, Shelley faced a period of grieving before she discovered a newfound passion for physical activities. This was more than just a hobby. It was a form of self-expression that led her on a path of self-discovery and personal growth.
Join us as we unpack Shelley's transformative journey, from living a life driven by external self-care to embracing a path of spiritual connection and self-love. As a result of her coaching work, Shelley sheds light on how to navigate the tumultuous waves of change and cultivate a deep sense of self-love. Her insights on internal self-care, self-worth and mindfulness will leave you pondering long after the episode ends.
In the final part of our conversation, Shelley explores the power of seeking support amidst life's challenges. She candidly shares her experience in finding mentors to bridge the gap between her true self and her limiting beliefs. Her deeply personal experience with grief and loss brings an enlightening perspective on mourning. Tune in for this inspiring and empowering episode with Shelley Marenka and prepare to be transformed.
Ever reevaluated your life at a milestone age and realized something had to change? Shelley Marenka did just that, and her story is one you don't want to miss. After ending a two-decade-long marriage at the age of 50, Shelley faced a period of grieving before she discovered a newfound passion for physical activities. This was more than just a hobby. It was a form of self-expression that led her on a path of self-discovery and personal growth.
Join us as we unpack Shelley's transformative journey, from living a life driven by external self-care to embracing a path of spiritual connection and self-love. As a result of her coaching work, Shelley sheds light on how to navigate the tumultuous waves of change and cultivate a deep sense of self-love. Her insights on internal self-care, self-worth and mindfulness will leave you pondering long after the episode ends.
In the final part of our conversation, Shelley explores the power of seeking support amidst life's challenges. She candidly shares her experience in finding mentors to bridge the gap between her true self and her limiting beliefs. Her deeply personal experience with grief and loss brings an enlightening perspective on mourning. Tune in for this inspiring and empowering episode with Shelley Marenka and prepare to be transformed.
Welcome to. So you Want to Move to the Country and Raise Goats? This is a podcast about change. Change is all around us and sometimes we're ready for it and sometimes we're not. When it overwhelms us, well, we just want to move to the country and raise goats. This podcast features stories from people who have gone through change. We hope that their insights will help you better understand and deal with the changes in your life. I'm Peggy Kanick and, along with my co-host, katherine Greiba, we chat with insightful people with interesting change stories. We hope you enjoy our podcast.
Speaker 2:Jelly Marenka is our guest today and she joins us from Sierra California. She's a leading expert in the field of transformation and empowerment. Shelly's a force today, but it has been through trials, errors and lots of hard work on herself. A turning point for Shelly was when she was at age 50, she realized that her marriage wasn't working and her life wasn't what she wanted. She decided to end her 20-year marriage. Her children at that point were old enough that she found herself in the proverbial empty nest and shortly after that, three members of her close family passed away.
Speaker 2:Shelly describes how she learned how to grieve, let go and look for possibilities through the opening of small doors. Looking after herself was always low on her priority list. She looked after others first, and while she was always into physical fitness, she needed to dig deeper. She began to journal. Journaling gives us an opportunity to have a conversation with ourselves. We begin to understand who we are and the questions we have for ourselves, and thus began her transformational journey. And today Shelly is the owner of Inspired Living, where she is a personal life-changing coach, gives workshops and coaching on wellness, nutrition and inspires others to change their lives for the better. You won't want to miss this story and you are sure to be inspired by Shelly. Our guest today is Shelly Marenka, and Shelly is the owner and founder of Inspired Living, and Shelly joins us from the mountains in Sierra California. Welcome Shelly.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you so much, Catherine and Peggy. I've really been looking forward to having a conversation with you both about change. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we've been looking forward to this with you also. You know, I just went on to your website and did a little bit of reading about you and a fabulous website, by the way. It's so inspiring. You're a leading expert in the field of transformation and empowerment. You do what I picked up from your website and, just in talking briefly to you, it sounds like you've been really committed to yoga and meditation and self-love and spiritual rituals looking after yourself. I'm curious though, shelly have you always practiced this self-care, this self-love, and how did you get to where you are today? Because I know you have not had an easy journey through life. So how did you get to your business today, and has it always been kind of part of you that's looking after yourself?
Speaker 3:Those are great questions, thank you, and I see them as two different ones. One that has always been a part of me, the self-care thing and that's an absolute no. That, I have learned, is part of my soul's journey, and not unlike many other women. Right, ladies, we do a fabulous job caring for others, but when it comes to caring for ourselves, we're often low on the list.
Speaker 3:And I learned at an early age that there wasn't a lot of care in my home growing up and I was going to have to take care of myself. But I found ways to do that that really kind of blocked my emotional field. So I got really good at taking care of myself and I chose the physical method. I chose that outlet to be able to have self-expression, because my emotional field had been shut down at such a young age I didn't know how to communicate my emotions and therefore our emotional state is everything to do with self-care and self-love. So I took the physical aspect from a young age into some sports and high school and then studied health and nutrition and fitness and exercise physiology and I became an athlete. The reason I'm telling you this is because that was my self-care, that was my outlet, that was my counseling and my therapy.
Speaker 1:During that time, Shelley, did you feel that you were doing a good job of taking care of yourself. Just from that one dimension did you say I'm doing well, I feel good, I'm taking care of myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question, Peggy. Yes, I did. I felt like I didn't have any idea for decades about going internal for that self-care. So externally, I looked for ways to feed myself and be seen and that was through competition. Right With sports, that was through excelling and raising the standards to a higher level and compete and win. That gave myself value.
Speaker 2:What triggered you, then, to shift and take a more holistic approach? That couldn't have just happened overnight, because you know, when we're looking after ourselves physically, we do feel good. We those, you know those chemicals released in our body that help us to feel good, and the endorphins are running through us, so we do get that internal self-care feeling, I think. So what triggered you to do more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that part about physiologically speaking, you know, biologically, because the dopamine, the serotonin, the endorphins was what I lived off of and thank God it was a healthy choice, right. I mean, I had siblings, my family, that took the opposite direction because of their unhappiness and lack of self-love and they went the drug route and the other addiction. But literally I was addicted to exercise and it fed me and gave me what I needed. And what changed all of that truly was my divorce. I'm asking myself, did that happen when I had children? And of course, that time of having children I was still on the bottom of the list, right.
Speaker 3:But the opportunity to care for someone and really have a beautiful expression of love that I had never known and provide that for my children was really beautiful and that kind of started my spiritual walk on a little bit more deeper level. Like, I was raised as a Catholic and raised with religion, but it never resonated with me. I knew the God who was the one pointing the fingers, but so, anyway, I grew up with religion but I didn't know what it was until in my late 20s when I decided to explore my faith again and then found a really deep, profound faith in God. So that's really what started the spiritual journey and change, and then raising my children, but still the self-care issue was not alive or even available. I didn't know what it looked like and I think I felt guilty even asking for it, and so, no, I wasn't taking care of myself.
Speaker 3:Again, though, through exercise, I became a personal trainer. I was a trainer to the stars. I was still an athlete in competing and running and lifting and cycling and doing all those kinds of things, and that was truly the ultimate self-care, because I didn't even know how to tap into a pot psychology, mental, emotional level because it was very painful. I remember trying at one point in my late 20s. It was so painful I closed the book.
Speaker 1:So, Shelly, you talk about you were starting down the path of more internal awareness, spiritual awareness through your children and through a newfound love of God and religion. But what really turned you completely around? Was there an incident? Was there an event, Did something happen that eventually moved you more into? I need to take care of myself. Self-care is the only way I'm going to move forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that piece, actually, peggy was the realization that my marriage wasn't working, that my life was not what I wanted it to be, and I was so incredibly unhappy and suffering inside that that was the turning point.
Speaker 3:And once I decided that I was going to have to end this 20-year marriage with two beautiful children, at a time when, ideally, it's not an optimal time to get a divorce not that there ever is but I was going through menopause and both of my kids in junior high and high school and I just it was so difficult to make that decision, but I'll never forget it and I was on the floor sobbing and nobody was home and it was like spirit just profoundly dropped in and said you have got to do this because I have greater plans for you and they cannot be fulfilled when you stay in this marriage. And, like ladies, I went through seven to 10 years of counseling with my husband and we just never got anywhere, and so that was really the profound connection to spirit. And after that it was like the decision was made and then the obstacles and the challenges to even get through that it was still crashing for about five years to get out of the marriage and the divorce. So that was the point, peggy, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it's interesting to me, shelley, how very often we I mean maybe I shouldn't be using the royal we, but it was that very often we have an idea in our head of what is the perfect life, what makes us happy whether we're into physical fitness, you know whether are we doing all the right things and we really hesitate to go down deep. Now, I think a lot of people are like that, that they really hesitate to look inside, and perhaps some people never do so. For you, it really was, as you say, a soul crushing event that really moved you forward to get to that place, which, at the end, is a good place to be, to look inside, right, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:And Peggy, I think that's a really good point that you know change is inevitable, right? It's happening every moment, every day, right before us, because it's the law. And the thing is is, if we're only living in the past and not changing, we're not growing and we're also not creating a future for ourselves. But change is also really scary and I think at a young age I just began to learn how to roll with change because that's just what life was throwing at me, and you know, I've coached women.
Speaker 3:I'm going to talk about this particular Facebook group that I had, where I had 1,700 women in there, and I coached in that group for about I don't know 18 months and I realized that the majority of the women were so afraid to make a change. They were so afraid to make a change because they didn't want to be alone, they didn't know how they were going to take care of themselves, they were going through an identity crisis. I mean, there were all these different reasons to not change and to hold on really tightly to try to control what they could, and then essentially just working on controlling everything around them, and that doesn't work. My point is is that change is critical in order for us to live. You know, a beautiful full life. You've got to change so our future can be. You know, a beautiful expression of our lives and it begins with changing our attitude and it does take strength and it does take courage.
Speaker 2:You know, shelley, that's so well said, and so you chose this change to end the marriage, and I understand that well. No surprise, where children were in high school, so they would be leaving the home within a few short years.
Speaker 2:So again, not a change necessarily would have I mean, that just happens right, but it's something to get used to. And I also understand that you lost some close family members and experienced really a significant health challenge and so shortly relatively shortly after making a change that you pursued, you had three big things thrown at you. Tell us a little bit about how you managed to keep yourself care and looking after Shelley through all of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's a good question, thank you for that. And once I got through my divorce and that mess, that second shift was empty nesty and it's tagged as empty nest syndrome and I don't like syndromes nor I believe in labels, but empty nest really is a real thing and that, to me, is an opportunity for change. Yeah, that's an opportunity for an awakening to who we are and, at the same time, many of us go through an identity crisis. And I'll never forget you guys, when I dropped my son off at college, tear streaming down my face and knowing that he was never going to come home again, that was huge and that's just a that really opened up my heart to learn to like.
Speaker 3:I was on my knees at an early age with my children, giving them back to God, because some why so? At one point had said these are not your children, these are gifts to you, but they don't belong to you and it's a good idea to start releasing them from the moment. They're born right. And so I had that heart set to release my children. But and then, when my daughter went off to college my son's still gone and I was vacuuming in my living room and I had, we had. I had the family dog Lacey, and she was like 14. And I looked at her and she was sleeping in her bed and I said don't you even think about it. You guys are what I'm talking about. Yes, it's like don't leave me, don't leave me, you're all I've got right now.
Speaker 3:And I just I was going through these thoughts in my head as I was vacuuming and releasing my daughter, releasing the attachment, releasing the ties, and there's a grieving process. So, to ask your question, I think a grieving process has to happen when we're going through change. It depends on the kind of change, but I'm talking about deep change here, right? So there's a grieving process and that's how I coped with it. I learned how to grieve, I learned how to let go and in those spaces there was small windows and doors opening for, like, what could my life look like? So I was looking at possibilities and not I really wasn't. What's the right word be I can't think of the right word be laboring, anyway, the fact that they were gone, because, guess what, they were gone.
Speaker 2:I think that's so important because through the grieving process, it's letting go. But I think sometimes, when we grieve, all we think about is how do we get it back, whatever it is the situation a family member and it sounds like you were really, as you say, looking for those possibilities. Your heart and your mind was open to what's next as you release the way your life was before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I truly believe in humanity and have, I think, my whole life, and even when I was in sports, I remember writing this prose about the potential that humanity has, and if we all really owned our potential and knew what our possibilities were, that they were limitless, that we could do anything.
Speaker 3:So I've always believed that life is for living. Though. I've always believed that life is for living and I think it's part of my DNA, it's part of my astrological sign, Emilio, it's part of my mindset as an archetype, as someone who likes adventure and novelty, and so I'm not one to belabor something that has happened and wanting to stay in that and change it and go back to it, because I think staying the same is more painful. It's like there's a quote, like when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change, then we will change right. And so I'm not saying to bypass, that it's really important, but to really acknowledge our loss, what we're losing, feel it and let that energy move through us because, again, change is inevitable and John Maxwell said it really eloquently growth is optional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it almost seems to me, though, that, as we try to hold on or we try to keep things the way they are or were which we never can it's almost like a really intentional awareness that one has to pull up to start thinking about the change that's coming at them and how to open up to listen to things that are going on around you, because I think my first reaction always is, oh, I don't want things to change, let's hold on to the way it is, and I think we really have to be intentional. There has to be an intentional awareness of what's happening and what's required, and it seems to me that those are some of the tools that you used as you moved through change. It was very intentional awareness. Now, maybe I'm making that up, shelley, that's what I'm hearing from you, peggy, thank you.
Speaker 3:That's a beautiful segue into the tools of self-love and self-care Excellent, excellent and self-worth. Because if we don't have those, that's what keeps us stuck, because we don't have enough belief in ourselves. And growing up and then through all of the decades, I had a certain level of what I would say confidence and a positive self-image, but deep inside there was a part of me that was totally crashed and I didn't let that be seen. But what you just said is so critical, peggy, because that is the turning point that allows us to shift to the greater opportunities and possibilities.
Speaker 3:And what's coming back to me is all those voices of the women that were in my group that I had called at the time women wanting more. It was like they just didn't. They were too scared, they didn't have enough self-worth, self-image, belief in themselves, they doubted themselves, they couldn't trust their decisions. And it all really boils down to and because of my experiential changes drew the deep awakening and search for my own self-love that started after my divorce. That was definitely my soul's calling. I know that to learn what self-love is, get connected to it and then teach it. And without that foundation we can't live a fully alive, fully fulfilled life because at some point along the line we're going to go sideways, because we're missing that self-worth, that self-value, that trust, the faith we have in ourselves, the belief in order to move on. Those are the tools that we need. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. It really does, shelley. So if you were to give some advice to our listeners about, you know somebody's listening thinking I just how do I start with this journey? How do I get unstuck so that I start with the self-love? What does that look like? How do I do that? Where do I even start?
Speaker 3:Well, I know I love that question and for me that was a deep well, catherine, really a really deep well. But so the surface answer is to begin to journal. That was life changing for me, and I started journaling I think shortly after my divorce, because journaling gives us an opportunity to have a conversation with ourself, but it's not a conversation that we may not have with anybody, but we can have it with ourself and then we get to understand who we are a little bit by writing words down and actually by journaling we're also moving energy through us because of our thoughts and then we can come up with questions for ourself like and start this self-exploration that eventually gets to excavation, that eventually gets to self-discovery and then self-awakening. There's a lot of steps on this ladder.
Speaker 2:Now.
Speaker 3:I have a free download on my website called Three Habits that Keep you Stuck. I would recommend that everyone goes there and gets that and it's free, and I'm in the process of creating a new free download every month and it's all about personal growth, development and self-love. But I talk about the Three Habits that Keep you Stuck. So in order for us, catherine, to move forward, we need to know what's keeping us stuck first and that creates that. That requires awareness. That requires conscious awareness, instead of bypassing everything and living unconsciously and, I might add, pointing the finger outwards, like this is happening because of that.
Speaker 3:This is happening because of my boss, this is happening because my husband's an XYZ, and it's the external trap that we get trapped in, as well as the comparison trap that says, oh yeah, they can do it, but that's not meant for me. I can't do that. It's this negative self-talk. So that's the other thing, too, is start listening to how we're speaking to ourselves. You want to speak to yourself as if you're your best friend and notice how you speak to yourself and ask yourself would I speak to anybody that I loved that way? Would I judge anybody that I love that way, the way that we judge ourselves?
Speaker 1:I think that is a very deep well. It is a deep well and so how do you measure progress when you're doing that? Or do you measure progress Like his measurement not even, shouldn't even be part of the conversation? I mean it's because the well is deep. There's so many layers, there are so many complexities around who we are, who you know that's self and why we're not loving ourselves Like there. There are lots of barriers to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are, and so what was the question again?
Speaker 1:How do you know you're making progress?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, one of the I think the number one thing would be to ask yourself how happy are you? Happiness and peace are at the top of my list. Well, peace is number one, and happiness comes when you have peace. So many other things come when we have peace, right.
Speaker 3:And so, yes, I do think that tracking is really important, like anything else, but more intentional, about what we're setting out to do, and my self love journey was kind of it's like once you take the first step, the other steps just continue to come and open up, and I unraveled and unfolded different aspects of who I was that needed revisiting, for example, like I needed to reclaim my voice, I needed to take my power back, I needed to acknowledge the beautiful parts of me and what was great about Shelley.
Speaker 3:And we all can do these things, and they're very simplistic things, you know, going back to self evaluation, asking ourselves questions, and you will notice progress because you will feel better, you'll have more peace, you'll be happier, you'll have more energy, and it's not just on one level, catherine and Peggy, it's on all levels, like we've heard. You know the term mind, body, spirit for quite some time now, right, and so now it may just sound like it's just this colloquial phrase, but the truth is it's not just about the physical right Like I was living in the physical and operating in that for like five decades but there comes a time when we have to realize that our mind is connected to our spirit, spirits connected to our body. You know, these are all different levels of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual, and we're all connected. It's the separation that keeps us set apart from ourselves and the rest of the world and that causes grave unhappiness.
Speaker 2:You know, what I love about what you're saying, shelley, is that it's not complicated to do the work, but we have to do the work. We start by journaling and having the conversation, and really we all know how to do that, but we have to do the work in order to see the results. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Peggy, yeah, were you. Did you do all this work by yourself, or did you have a community of people that you worked with, or did you seek professional assistance as you work through this? Or was this a solo endeavor?
Speaker 3:Great question. So I'm going to answer it by breaking down the different shifts and sharing with you what was most helpful for me, and what I want to preface that with, is the fact that we are not designed to do life alone. We think we are sometimes and I am so guilty of that Like how many times have we I'm going to say, as women but I know it's prevalent in men too that we've needed help, but we've been unable to ask for help, or we just don't ask for help, and that was me like for so many decades. But so it's really important to know that we're not supposed to do life alone. And then, in order to find out what you need to get through the next step or season of your life, you already know. So I invite our listeners to take a moment after this conversation, perhaps, and just sit with yourself and ask yourself what do I need? What is my first step, and show me what I need to be able to get there. And you know the answers I truly believe are within us.
Speaker 3:And so for me, when I was going through my divorce, I totally had a therapist. I had a therapist. I mean, I was raising a female teenager and my son felt abandoned and I was questioning like if I was doing anything in life right, and so we need someone who has our back. So, whether it's someone from the church, whether it's a therapist, a counselor, whether it's a life coach, and again, I think you guys, it's very specific to what you're going through, yeah, yeah. And so if you're going through some deep spiritual things, I would recommend finding a spiritual mentor If you're working through childhood trauma, relationship trauma, relationship issues, a therapist, a psychologist, so it just depends. And again, ask your body, ask your body and ask your spirit to tell you.
Speaker 3:So I went with a therapist for like 10 years going through my divorce and that really helped me because I felt like I was being supported. I had someone who had my back and actually my divorce attorney was amazing. He became my best friend and he had my back and because he was a man, because he was of the masculine, it was really helpful for me because I felt support from the masculine. And then my therapist was a female and I felt support from her as a woman.
Speaker 3:And then when I went into empty nesting, I was still working with a different counselor because I was moving around a lot, but then I got into coaching. I hired a personal development coach and then I ended up getting a team of coaches because the program that I went with that was life changing. That was life changing on the beginning of this incredible journey that I was about to embark on after my divorce, experiencing empty nesting and wondering what's next and how do I find what's next and how do I love myself? How the heck do I love myself so that I can believe in myself, so I can move forward. Because I had this part of me that totally believed in Shelley and the other part was guess what? The self-limiting beliefs that kept making me small. So I had to bridge the margin.
Speaker 2:Well, what I love about your journey, shelley, is you didn't just wait for things to happen to you. You set about and you were very deliberate about I need a coach. I need a team of coaches. I am going to make this happen. It sounded like you had your mind set. Maybe you didn't know where you were going to end up, but you were going to be in a better place than you were when you started.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So the third shift was when I lost all my family members my sister, who was my best friend, and then my mom, who was my other best friend in life and in the world, and then another sister who I was somewhat close to, and that was like the second dark night of the soul that I experienced. Going through that was a solo journey. It was a solo journey because what I learned is that no one mourns like we do. It's a very personal, sacred experience If we choose to go there and embrace it. It's a very sacred, personal experience and for me I just knew, even though I kept calling on God like, just bring me someone. I don't want to go through this alone. This is really hard, this is really hard. And I lost my two best friends in there and, having this Like whoa, I wanted someone physical to hold me and no one was there.
Speaker 3:And I remember calling my girlfriend who had lost her daughter Our lives have paralleled a lot and I said sometimes I get envious because you had your husband to go through your grief and I feel like I really want someone to help me go through my grief. And she said, well, and then she gave me a piece of what her experience was and it's like it didn't mean that her grief was any easier. And as a matter of fact, it goes back to what I said initially everyone grieves differently, so actually she didn't oftentimes feel held in her space. And so there's times in our life where we're going through changes, where we're called to come home to ourselves, we're called to go within, because we're whole and we're complete. You guys, we have everything we need and sometimes in those times we have to go to those places so that we can find our anchor, because we come into the world alone and we leave the world alone, and sometimes we have to anchor into who we are, to get through this world alone. And the foreshift was also a deep journey within and alone.
Speaker 3:And that's when all my healers came in, going through the debilitating disease with the medical mystery and yeah, so that nine months was excruciating physically as my body was falling apart. But I called in all the healers and we all worked together and I say all, but like some of them were spiritual, like in the other realms, you know, for example, I had a, I had an energy healer who was a psychic medium, medical medium. I had a doctor of chiropractic medicine who really didn't touch me the way other chiropractors do with adjustment. He touched me emotionally and energetically. There's a it's called NSA nervous system analysis I think is the right word completely different type of training for chiropractic healing and he helped me heal my emotional body and my physical body. And then I had an acupuncturist who also helped me on the level of my nervous system. And then I studied Anthony Williams, who's a medicine medical mystery guy, and I started doing all these things and I'll give you a few bullets to be helpful for people to heal my own body.
Speaker 3:I tried Western medicine. Nothing worked and although I wanted answers, I didn't get them and I just felt really strongly that God didn't want me to put a label on anything I was experiencing and that I had a choice to come out of it or not. But so I used acupuncture, emotional healing. I had a trauma therapist I'd been working through and with I had powerful supplementation. I incorporated my mind, body, spirit with meditation. I did mind and brain work with Joe Dispenza. I did my own healing work with God and having faith, hope and trust and loving myself with all the self-care that I needed and reading books that were really powerful to help me heal myself and integrate everything that I was learning, to really truly believe that the power that made me had the power to heal me and eventually heal myself with these powerful support systems.
Speaker 1:So we talked earlier and I think you used the word purpose. I'm not sure that your purpose is to teach people about self-love. Yeah, did I hear that? Okay, you did. I say that you have learned everything. It's all experiential. You've learned everything that you can teach to others through your own experience and it is a deep well Like. It's pretty expansive. So I think that when you have a purpose like that, shelley, I mean, where are you at now? Are you feeling that you have everything you need to move forward to help other people learn about self-love and how important that is?
Speaker 3:Yes, I do, because I'm connected to spirit and I'm no longer separate. I'm no longer separate from God. So when I do my work I love that question, peggy I believe that the work that we're called to do, that God will equip us. There's some quote that is coming to mind, but I can't think of it right now. But basically, when we're called, he will equip us. And I know I'm not doing this work alone, I'm doing it with spirit and, yes, I do have all that I need to coach and mentor others into their own personal transformation, to learn how to love themselves and truly, I believe, to live out our fullest potential, connecting to spirit, connecting to our source, our life force, whatever you wanna call it is crucial to be able to truly live the life we're being called to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really, really like that Connecting to the source. I think that's very compelling and right on the money. Right on the money, connecting to the source, and I think your story is very inspirational and I think our listeners are really going to learn a lot from what you've gone through in your experiences and what your learnings are about self-love.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and I do wanna mention Peggy, if people want to dive in on their own Louise Hayes Love, she helped me heal. She's got a book that says you can heal yourself. And again, I'm Catherine, as you had mentioned before, if you're willing to do the work. I mean there are tools out there. And at the same time I wanna say we can read all of these books, but I really think having a soul to soul, a heart to heart mentor, will make all the difference in the world, because there's something about sharing, there's something about speaking the truth, moving the energy through as getting it out there that helps us transcend and transform. And so Louise Hayes' book Learning to you know you can heal your body there.
Speaker 3:This book by Donald Epstein it's called Healing Myths, healing Magic, and this is so important. This is the chiropractor that helped me heal my emotional body. Epstein was one of his. You know teachers, and so that's really important. And then I've read so many other books too. The one that I read that gave me courage and strength to actually ask for my divorce was called Broken Open. It's just a huge, powerful book called Broken Open, which I did. And so, anyway, there is a list of books and if anybody wants them, I actually created a Google document for my clients and I categorized them into different things. If anybody would want that, they could reach out to me. But again, books are very helpful and it's the ones that offer teaching tools, but also having real, present, alive human who can love you so much or any.
Speaker 2:Well, shelley, thank you so much. This has, as Peggy said, has been so inspirational and you've thank you for sharing your story and your things. That have worked for you, and it's just been an absolute pleasure to meet you, so thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Hmm, thank you, catherine, thank you Peggy. It's been a pleasure to meet both of you and I look forward to staying connected with you. I love what you're doing, the service and gifts that you're giving to the world to give other people hope out there and, yeah, I hope that we can connect again. I'd love to come back on your show and we can continue to grow together.
Speaker 1:Thank you, shelley. Thank you, Shelley. If you've learned just one thing about change while listening to this podcast, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify and share with a friend this episode recorded via Zoom Audio. Producers Peggy Kinnick and Catherine Greiber. Executive producer, kinnick Leadership Advisory. Theme music La Pompée, written by Chris Harrington, music publisher in Vato Market. For information on this podcast and to purchase some fabulous goat merchandise, please visit wwwgetyourgoatca.