Reinventing Yourself is an Inside Job: Unleash Your Inner Wisdom to Light Your Reinvention Path

Have you ever noticed that you have all the answers you need?

Yes YOU!

It's a fact that they're not always obvious but you are infinitely wise and the answers you seek are within.

You just need to figure out how to tease them out and bring them into existence.

How to lean in and listen to that wisdom that's bubbling up.

Put another way, reinventing ourselves starts within.

When we get more quiet and lean into the wisdom that's waiting to come out, we can manifest our dreams in the coolest (and sometimes surprising of ways)!

I can't wait for you to listen to this solo episode where I share:

✳️ How our materialistic world makes it easy to focus on the external
✳️ Why it's so important to look within for the answers we seek
✳️ How we can learn to get quiet to jump start the reinvention process
✳️ What happened  when I listened to my inner wisdom to guide me
✳️ 3 ingredients to help you ignite your reinvention journey

Are you ready to unleash your inner wisdom and move forward in new ways?

Whether you're new to looking within or a pro, this episode will help you accelerate your reinvention journey. And maybe even carve out a new, yet uncovered path!

Looking from within to reinvent yourself makes all the difference. - it's truly an inside job.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Reinvention After Divorce – How a Marriage Breakdown Led to a Personal Breakthrough with Nina Blaicher
  
  

Reinventing My 50s: Good Girl Gone - How I Ditched Perfectionism and People Pleasing to Find My Authentic Self with Wendy Hutchinson

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Please spread the word! Let's encourage more women to unapologetically embrace their Inner Reinvention Rebel and boldly pursue their wildest dreams.

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Check out other things I'm up to here: http://linktr.ee/reinventionrebels

Kick your midlife fears and uncertainty to the curb and start your Reinvention Rebels journey today. Learn about my audio program, Midlife Reinvention From The Inside Out: 8 Essentials to Greenlight Your Life.

Midlife women ready to reinvent themselves start with being curious about what's possible. Download my free audio, 5 Questions to Spark Your Curiosity & Inspire Your Reinvention Rebel Journey to get started today. 

Transcript

Wendy: Have you ever thought that within you there is an existing wealth of information? That you have a lot of answers already. A reinvention to me, really is an inside job because no one knows the answers, but you. It doesn't matter what else someone thinks or believes about your situation. What matters is what you think, what you believe, what is true for you.

[Reinvention Rebels Theme]

Welcome to Reinvention Rebels, stories of brave and unapologetic women, 50 to 90 years young, who have boldly reimagined life on their own terms to find new purpose and possibilities. I'm your host, Wendy Battles. Ready for a dose of inspiration? Let's get to it.

Hey, hey, hey, reinvention rebels. Welcome to another episode. I am your host, Wendy, and I am so excited that you are here. If you are a first-time listener, welcome aboard. I'm so happy that you've found The Reinvention Rebels Podcast. This is the place to come for information and lots of inspiration about what is possible. When we decide, we want to reinvent ourselves, doesn't matter how old you are, where you are in your life. We can reinvent ourselves at any age or any stage. And I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing the most extraordinary women that are figuring it out.

Everyday people like you and me, who are taking small steps in the direction of their dreams often scared, doing it scared, mustering up the courage and figuring it out. But getting out there and reinventing themselves in bold and unapologetic ways, deciding that now is the time no matter what to start making that happen. I'm all excited because I do these wonderful guest episodes. I also do solo episodes and that is what today is about. We're talking reinvention as an inside job. And I'll tell you more about what I mean in just a couple of moments. But I have to ask you, did you listen to last week's episode, it was so, so good. It was so inspiring. It was so full of wisdom. I was joined by my friend, Nina Blaicher, who had such an interesting, vulnerable, inspiring story about what happened when she went through a very difficult divorce. She was forced into rather reluctantly reinventing herself. That's not what she wanted or chose but it was the circumstance in which she found herself and the way she talked about how this difficult situation that she didn't particularly want was the fodder for her to have a personal breakthrough that has changed her life in so many different and powerful ways. Oh my gosh, it was just so good and I got so much wisdom and so many insights about it that I could apply to my own life. And whether you've been divorced or not, whether you've been married or not, it doesn't matter because the ideas that Nina talked about are really universal. So, you could be single, divorced, widowed, you name it, happily married, it doesn't matter, you can apply these lessons that she talked about, regardless of your situation. So, if you haven't had a chance to listen, I encourage you to do so. You can find out more about it. I have a link to it in the show notes. But I was loving it so much.

[music]

All right. So, let's talk about this idea of reinventing ourselves as an inside job, aka from the inside out. Have you ever noticed that a lot of life is focused on the external. 

Of course, you have, we all live in this very materialistic world and it seems to me like people want more stuff. And they want to have things and they're very focused sometimes on achieving things. And it's often about what I can get right now, how I can have this instant satisfaction. That's so much a part of certainly American culture, all about the external. I think about this because I look back and I see how I was so steeped into this consumer culture growing up. As a young adult, what do we see but ads about things that we should want, how the media really plays that up, how it's all about accumulating this stuff? And it's interesting because a while back, I was going through some stuff, trying to declutter, I have spent a lot of time in the past writing in journals, I came across one of my journals and I was reading through, because it's always interesting to see what we said way back when. And back then I was somewhere in my 20s. In this journal, I was writing down how what I really wanted to get, which seems ridiculous now, was a Toyota Land Cruiser, one of those huge SUVs that back in the day were so popular. I don't know why but I just thought that if I got that thing, I could be happy. That equated my happiness with this stuff and acquiring this stuff.

It's interesting because it's not like I've ever lived extravagantly but I simply thought that having something like that would make me happy. Fast forward to being almost 58 and I know for sure and have known for a while that just getting more stuff doesn't make me happy. What I'm much more interested in now are having experiences and spending time with people that are most important to me. And it's not at all about accumulating that stuff and in fact, I'm trying to figure out how can I get rid of some of the stuff that I have. Because I just have too much, so it points to the idea that things change over time, at least for me. And those things that seems so impactful before are less impactful now and clearly don't necessarily make me happy. So, I'm really trying to lean into this idea of looking more inside, of thinking more about noodling on what that brings up. And you might say, "Well, what does that have to do with reinvention? 

What does all that stuff have to do with reinvention?" And I believe that reinventing ourselves is really a process that's the opposite of all that external stuff, those external factors, the have more of this and this and this, and it's really about looking inside.

It's a chance to ask yourself how can I reimagine my life by looking inward? What kind of questions would I need to ask myself? Have you ever thought that within you there is an existing wealth of information that you have a lot of answers already. 

Reinvention to me really is an inside job because no one knows the answers, but you. 

It doesn't matter what else someone thinks or believes about your situation. What matters is what you think, what you believe, what is true for you. And the only way to figure that out is to be open to uncovering what are some of the clues I'm getting. 

What are some of the thoughts that bubble up? How can I lean into myself more to help guide me? So, this idea of the questions that we can ask ourselves can really help us with clues about reinventing ourselves. So, what's important to me, what do I want to be or do or create? How do I want to feel? Those are some initial questions that you could ask yourself. And when I say ask yourself, I don't mean you're going to ask yourself these questions and immediately have all the answers. What I mean is that you're going to spend some time, maybe it's a few days, maybe it's a week, maybe it's over a couple of weeks, getting more quiet, tuning into that inner voice, trusting that when I ask myself these questions, the answer may not be readily apparent to me.

It's often not like it just pops out and there's your answer. But as you're going about your life and when you can create the space to be more quiet, less TV, maybe less music, less news, less whatever those things are that may be are external stimuli, that when you focus on you, and trust that you have the answers, and allow them to bubble up that's where we can get insights and information that can help us as we navigate our reinvention paths. So that's the idea of it's an inside job people, you've got the answers inside. And the reality is only you know the answers, only you know what is right for you, only you can figure it out. Now, I'm going to tell you, it's not always easy, because when I look back on my life, and I look back at certain situations, when I've taken a much closer look at things, it's sometimes difficult. Some of the things that pop up are things that I don't like to focus on or remember. sometimes it's about things that didn't go as well as I would have liked them to. Sometimes it's kind of painful to go back. In order to move forward. It's sort of like what Nina talked about on last week's episode that her divorce forced her to take a deep look at herself and it wasn't always easy. She uncovered things about herself that she didn't always love as well as the good stuff she uncovered, there were difficult things too and I think that is part and parcel of reinventing ourselves is this willingness to pull back the veil, to look to see what's behind that curtain, and to be open to exploring that to get to the other side.

Sometimes we're going through that hard stuff to get to the other side but when we do that, when we start hearing those things, when we start getting that feedback, those insights that can personally help us. I feel like to me that's getting into a state of flow, a reinvention state of flow. I'm talking about that because I do my best work when I get into a state of flow. But whatever it is, whether it's about reinvention, or my day job or something else, and I mentioned that because recently I came across something that has helped me get into the flow. It's called Magic Mind. It's this fabulous little green elixir, it's a little supplement I take every day with my morning coffee and it is full of good-for-you ingredients that help me get more into the flow state where I can concentrate and focus. I easily get distracted. I don't know about you, but I can easily get distracted by all the bright shiny things, and the things that are popping up. But Magic Mind helps me be more focused, it helps me reduce my anxiety and stress. And it's full of things like adaptogens like ashwagandha that is good for reducing our anxiety and matcha which is a big stress reliever. But this idea of being more focused and present is such a good feeling. I'm telling you that because I want to encourage you to check it out, too. If you would like to be more in that flow state for whatever it is you want to do and create. I encourage you to check it out. You can go to magicmind.co/rebels and you can get 40% off your subscription for the next 10 days. If you're ready to try it out. You also can use my special code REBELS20 and get 20% off your first one-time order. So, I encourage you to check it out to increase your flow state especially as we think about reinvention.

[music]

Let me share a couple of examples of me getting into that flow state, me thinking of reinvention as an inside job, and a couple of different occasions. So, the first one was in 1996, which of course feels like forever ago, I was having some surgery, it was in the summer. I was in one of those moments of deep reflection about my life. And usually it's precipitated by, I'm really not happy with what's going on right now. I had this job that I didn't love. I didn't like the person I worked for, I was feeling very unhappy, and because I was off, because I had some time, I started mapping things out. I remember, I had this tiny apartment in the kitchen, I was sitting there, and I was writing out all these different ideas. I was putting them up on the wall. And I was thinking about what are the things I'm really good at? What are the things I love to do? And I got really on to this idea of my voice and I also remember I came up with my personal mission statement. I want to use my skills to teach, speak, motivate, and inspire people about what's possible. And that was just this littlest of idea and for me it really manifested as doing voiceovers. That's was the sort of the beginning of my voice acting career. And it was taking that mirror though and getting more quiet and looking within that I was able to even hear that little mission statement and hear that bubble up and write that down and lean into that and use that as fuel for my reinvention at the time.

That was a while ago, it was back when I was in my 30s, so a lot has changed since then. But I remember how palpable that feeling was when I thought, "Yeah, this is something I want to do. This is how I want to reinvent myself." And it was that deep listening and uncovering that helped lead me there. Another time when this happened was in 2019. That's what I was really searching. I was in my 50s thinking what am I meant to do? I've had this ongoing question in my whole life, what am I really meant to do and it was another moment of going inside. This idea of reinvention is an inside job. 

I had started listening to this podcast Package Your Genius that I still love. And in that podcast, the host talks about tuning into those things where you shine to help be a guide, to help define your purpose. I was listening to the podcast and it was really resonating with me. I then bought her book and started going through the book and started asking myself all these questions. Again, this idea of self-inquiry to help us on our path. And from that experience again, being really, really quiet, things bubbled up. 

That's when I heard as I was meditating one day, Reinvention Rebels. The tiniest little whisper, even of course, at the time I had no idea what that was. But later I discovered, "Oh, it's podcast." And as you know one thing has led to the next and 60 plus episodes later, here we are, and I have leaned into something that lights me up like nothing else ever has. It's this feeling that is so extraordinary and the thing is, if I can do that, if the women I interview can do that, if we can all get more quiet and tune in and figure out and lean into that wisdom. Of course, that means that you all can do that too, that idea that reinvention is an inside job. All that inner work can lead us to that thing, whatever that thing is for you.

Now, a few episodes ago when my friend Wendy Hutchinson joined me. She talked about this too. She talked about reinvention as an inside job, and how she looked inside to uncover her much bigger, greater, juicer purpose. Another example of that and you can listen to that episode for some of the clues that she tuned into, as another example of how we reinvent ourselves from the inside out. I'll link to it in the show notes as well. Because how else could she go from being a people pleaser and a good girl to standing in her own power? It was through that internal reinvention process that she figured it out. So, here's what I'd like you to think about. There are many different ingredients that go into uncovering your reinvention path. It's different for each of us, but there are three key things that come to mind. One, having an open mind, being curious about your reinvention path, what does it look like for you? What could be possible? Two, you have to believe something new or different is possible, so you might call it faith or trust, but this self-belief that you can create something different, you can reimagine your life. And number three, being willing to do the work just as we're talking about. This work can take time, it doesn't happen overnight, but how do you make space to do this reinvention work. That is so key, because it was just another thing to check off your list, to rush to get through, it's definitely not the same thing as leaning into this with intention of opening your heart and mind, of thinking about and trusting that those answers are inside, and you're creating the space to make them happen.

So, how are you reinventing yourself? How are you doing this from the inside out? What does that look like for you? 

I know that it looks different for everybody. So, how you do it may be very different than how I do it or anybody else. But I want you to really think about if you're trying this on size, what does reinventing yourself from the inside out look like for you? Because it looked like what's inspiring you, what questions are you asking yourself, how will you know that you've gotten there? Those are a few questions to get you thinking about this. Because I can't wait to hear more about what that process looks like to you. And in fact, if you are thinking about it this way, if you're thinking about reinvention as an inside job. If you have a particular process that you used, I love to know, I'd love to invite you on for a mini episode to talk through a little bit about what that process looks like for you. And how you've done it because that's what's really helpful for others. We each have our own way of doing it, but by hearing other stories of how they approached it, the how? It can help us down our path as well. So, if you have specific thoughts about that, please reach out to me reinvention rebels@gmail.com. Let's have a conversation about it and let's think about getting you into the Reinvention Rebels guest chair to talk more about reinventing from the inside out.

[music]

Thank you so much for joining me today and leaning into this idea of reinventing from the inside out. If you love this episode, I encourage you to leave a review on your favorite platform and share it with somebody, don't be shy. I know you have friends, colleagues, family members, people that are in the process of reinventing themselves and probably need a little inspiration. Please share this with them to help light their path as well. I'll see you back here next week for another fantastic Reinvention Rebels episode. Until then, keep shining your light. The world needs you and all that you have to offer.

Hey rebel, if this episode inspired you to think about what's possible in your life, I'll share a little secret. Any of us can reinvent ourselves, no matter where we are in our lives, any age, any stage. We just have to decide to get started. Here's a super simple way for you to get going with your reinvention dreams. Download my audio, "Five Questions to Spark Your Curiosity and Inspire your Reinvention Journey. " I share five key questions that will spur your thinking, help you uncover your dreams, and motivate you to take action. Because if not now, when? Details in the show notes. 

Let's get inspired together.

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