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Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Differently is for when you need to get out of your head and back into your life.
Created and hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Journal, her work is built on over 20 years of helping people use writing to navigate real life. Not as a habit to keep up with, but as a way to calm your mind, get clear, and move forward.
You are always writing your life, whether it’s in your mind or on paper.
It's time to take the pen back.
Turn overthinking and self doubt into clarity, confidence, creativity and momentum.
Stop surviving your life. Start creating it.
Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Client Spotlight: Access Your Full Potential with Michele Nevarez
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Are you pouring so much energy into driving momentum in your life, but feel like you are losing yourself and your true priorities along the way?
May this conversation be a gift for you today.
The same held true for my client, Michele Nevarez back in 2013.
Michele is a Founder & CEO and Author of Beyond Emotional Intelligence: A Guide to Accessing Your Full Potential. Michele’s mission is to translate EI from theory to a powerful and practical vehicle for meaningful transformation and lasting habit change.
In this conversation, she shares so much wisdom about...
- How to get out of your own way
- Finding the path back to yourself
- Putting our energy and time on the things we can influence
- Igniting your inner coach
- And, so much more!
Be sure to listen until the very end where she shares a simple, profound practice to settle your mind.
Enjoy!
Learn more about Michele:
https://www.beyondei.inc
Purchase her book - Beyond Emotional Intelligence:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/111980020X/?tag=wwwwileycom-20
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-ei
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Website: https://www.differentlyco.com
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Thank you for listening!
Is your nose to the grindstone taking care of all the things? Your family, your marriage, building a business, or moving a project forward, driving momentum in your life and trying to get it all right. But maybe you feel like you've lost parts of yourself along the way, or gotten caught up in the motions, but not sure the motion is headed in the right direction. May this conversation be a gift for you today. The same held true for Michelle Navarez back in 2013 when we first met and worked together. Michelle was one of my clients in my early days of coaching, and I am so excited and honored to share her with you today. Michelle is a founder and CEO. She's the author of Beyond Emotional Intelligence, a guide to accessing your full potential. Michelle's mission is to translate emotional intelligence from theory to a powerful and practical vehicle for changing your life and creating lasting habit change. This special woman has 25 plus years of corporate executive leadership experience and brings a breadth of in-depth study, education, spiritual philosophy, wisdom, and practice to everything she does. She has a heart of gold to benefit other humans, and we share so much in common with what we are here to teach. She works in her own life and equips others to be at their best as often as you can be for yourself and others and to focus on the things that you have control and influence over. May this conversation land for you as it did for me. I felt so calm after talking to Michelle. She has a gift for calming. And stay tuned to the end, where she shares a simple, profound practice to settle your mind. I know you're going to love her as much as I do. I'm Carla Reeves, and this is differently the Life Preneur Podcast. I'm a hyperachiever turned life preneur, and after a decade of coaching ambitious leaders, I'm convinced we are far closer than we realize to what we deeply desire. And it's a willingness to do differently that can change everything. This podcast is for the everyday leader, ambitious for a rich, out-of-the-box life. This is your weekly nudge and reminder to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic, and in alignment with your deepest values. Michelle, it brings me such great joy to welcome you to differently.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me, Carla. It's a real pleasure to be on your podcast. It's very exciting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we go a long ways back. I think we discovered it was like 2013. So give the listeners a snapshot of who you are and where you are in your life today. And um, and then we'll kind of go back to where our journey started.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Thanks, Carla. So um I'm the CEO of a company called Beyond EI, and um we basically provide coaching and training on emotional intelligence and how to be skillful with all of our perceptions. And so um it's been quite a journey to start this business, and we we also train coaches, we certify coaches to become emotional intelligence coaches. And yeah, I mean, I worked in corporate for 25 years across different industries. I'm a mom of four kids, so I have a very rich landscape background, so to say, and uh I also have a big part of who I am that um is about spirituality and in in this case Buddhism. I practice Tibetan Buddhism and have been doing that since I was 20, and now I'm not 20.
SPEAKER_00So and your kids, your kid, what ages are your kids? Just to give people a sense of that.
SPEAKER_01So now it's a test of my memory. No, I'm kidding. So many my my oldest son, Daniel, um, my two oldest uh sons are my stepchildren, but I raised them from when they were nine and five, and Daniel just turned 28 um two days ago. Wow, and David is 24. My daughter Sonia just turned 21, and my youngest Dylan just turned 17 and is now driving. So those are the ages of my kids, and Dylan's the only one who's still at home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and beyond emotional intelligence, when did you like how long has that been? Um how long have you been doing that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so well, basically the idea for um Beyond DI began back in 2015 when I was still working as um an administrator in a hospital setting in Wyoming. And so I moved to Massachusetts in 2016 to start this business venture. And I originally started it with a friend of mine, Hanuman Goldman, and his dad, Daniel Goleman, who's the father of emotional intelligence. And you know, we had a really good run for the first, you know, five years and the pandemic hit, and so lots of things, you know, we created a lot of things together in those first years, including a coaching program and you know, an online EI training program. And so the way that we, you know, came together really was around the desire to democratize emotional intelligence and specifically to take you know what is known about the field and bring it alive for people in a way that they could actually embody it. And so that's the work I've continued on with, and now we've each kind of figured out in that five years what we what you know what we um thrive at, what we enjoy. And so uh while Beyond EI recently rebranded from Goleman EI, and we've kind of gone off on our own track to to really help people take these intellectual concepts and put them into play in their life with practices. That's sort of the vein that this work has taken for us. So, yeah, that's a bit of the history.
SPEAKER_00So beautiful. So I always want to know people's stories. So, like, what when did the spark start in you? And like, did you know as a young, like, is it surprising to you from like if you look back as a young girl that you're doing what you're doing today, or were there little seeds even back then? That's a great question.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's funny because I think what there were seeds for was my spiritual practice. Like it feels like I was born to be on the path I'm on spiritually. And for me, if I had to sum that up, it's just about benefiting other beings and being at your best as often as you can be for yourself and others, and really acting on what it is we have influence on in our own lives, and like this idea of potential is a huge concept, but what does it really mean in real terms to live up to your potential? Hence the title of the book I wrote, you know, which we'll talk about. So, um, so I see seeds from my childhood that led me to the most important experiences in my life. And the work I do in many ways is the expression of that, of how I move through the world in a way that allows me to support my family and to, you know, meet the sort of basic living standards that we all need to meet, like have a home and food and things like that. But so it seems obvious to me in that way that I would be, you know, living that part of my life out the way that I am. But there's been a lot that's been a surprise too, you know, the things I could have never have guessed, or I mean, really, if somebody had told me, Michelle, you're gonna be doing these things, and these are some of the obstacles obstacles you're gonna face. I'd have been like, oh my God, should I ever even try doing it? A board. Maybe what you don't know. Yeah. Like, oh what's up? Oh, this poor girl doesn't know. What's gonna come her way?
SPEAKER_00For sure. And I love I love that you mentioned the surprises because I think those are some of the best parts of the journey, right? So take us back into your journey when you and I met and share some of the things that were happening at that time in your life. Um, because you and I both met in frame of mind coaching, right? Where I I feel like that was a huge catalyst in both of our lives. And I'm so incredibly grateful for that, and I know you are too.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it it was such a powerful, amazing time that truly has led now to everything I'm doing. Um, yeah, so I guess it was I had been in corporate life a really long time by that point, and I was really tired. I was really burnt out. Um, and I was this is when my kids were littler too, and I I think that adds to that feeling of caring so much, right? Um, and so I knew I needed a shift, and I met Kim at the Sherm conference in Chicago that year in 2013, and I saw her talk, and I'm like, yes, that this is what I need to do. And and I think it was just so much resonated because of my Buddhist philosophy background and meditation, and so much of what she was intuitively saying and designing her program to be spoke to me. And so that's really where we became connected, you and I, right? It's where um you and I were introduced, and I knew I wanted to go through her certification program, and as you know, the first step of that is getting coached, and so I had never been coached, and I do still remember I was on a business trip for the company I was working for at the time, Banner Health, and it took me down to Arizona. Yeah, is that right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's where we met the first time. I forgot not. I think that we met in person before you we did coaching. Yes, I forgot about that.
SPEAKER_01We didn't know that. Yeah, so I know. So, and I always remember feeling so grateful that we were able to meet and you know, and do this work together because it changed my life, truly. Um I still get really for clumped about it because it just was such important work for me. And I'm grateful to you, truly.
SPEAKER_00I got that. Thank you. So help us understand like why that was so transformative for you. Like, how do one I think it's hard for people to know, like, when do you know you want to reach out and ask like for this kind of support in your life? You know, how do you how did you know that?
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, I knew because I felt like I'd lost myself. You know, I felt like I lost the threads of who Michelle was. And I think that happens to us as humans at different parts in our lives. And I think about all the parents and moms and dads out there where you know you have your nose to the grindstone trying to support your families, trying to improve your um life, yourself, uh, advance, you know, in whatever forms you've been taught that that should look like. And most of us, you know, often have these very unconscious influences that drive the momentum of our lives. But then you wake up one day, and this is really what happened for me, and I just said, enough, like this is not working anymore. I'm not happy, and I don't have I think it was sort of reached this point of almost hopelessness of like what's next, because I don't find meaning in what I'm doing, you know. And I think I think people often feel this way and they don't know what their resources are or um don't have a sense intuitively what to do with that, and I feel very sad if somebody gets stuck there a long time. But the truth is for me, coaching is what allowed me to dip into the pieces and ask the question, what do I really want? And because I couldn't answer that, I thought, oh my gosh, this is a perfect opportunity to figure it out. And that's what we did, right? And I just I wish everybody would have that opportunity at the right time when they are their own answer, but they really need someone to help them see that and to help give birth to that.
SPEAKER_00That's so beautiful. I I really believe that. Like I've always felt like you're the expert on your life, and I get to be the guide that helps you clear all the crap that's in the way of you following that, right? Like there's an internal compass that is intentionally designed to guide your life, and but we often there's just so much stuff in the way of that, and when you pull all of that away, um the answers and the purpose and all of that starts to reveal itself. So yeah, so were there any, yeah, go ahead. Okay, so were there any moments in coaching? Like that was a long time ago, Michelle, but were there any things that you specifically remember that would just help people to see like what that actually looks and feels like, right? We all talk about coaching, but I think for people who've never done it, it's hard to like, it's it doesn't feel tangible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, you know, the short answer to that, and then I'll dive into some specific examples, is the book I just wrote. And you know, the 12 self-discoveries, um, Carla, by and large came out of, you know, if not the exact coaching experience that we had together in terms of the insights and crystallizing that along with myself having coached many, many really hundreds of leaders over the course of 20 years, I started to see like where people get stuck naturally. And I think initially I was able to see that most clearly through my own lens of doing the coaching work with you, and um, and in the frame of mind coaching model, both, you know, and so what became the 12 self-discoveries, the topic of my book and the work that we do with clients, and even how we teach coaches how to be coaches. Um each one has many stories, and even just going back to what we were just talking about of this idea that you have the wherewithal, you have the answers within you, but so often we just don't see what we don't see, and it's it's as if we need to have that reflected back and we need sort of a like a path back to ourselves. Um, this idea of uh igniting your inner coach is really about finding that spark, what I call la chispa. And so, you know, for us, I remember when we were working together when I couldn't answer the basic question of what I really want. I'm like, oh my god, at first I was horrified, like, what do you mean I don't know what I want? And then I was so excited because I was like, oh, this is exciting, because now I get to figure out what I really want now, and to realize that could be different than what I wanted five years ago, ten years ago, and I think we're all like that as humans. We we need these little tune-ups and we need these opportunities to iterate and to grow into who we're becoming little by little. So, but the I think for me, and I write about this right in the book, that um you know, one of the most pivotal moments was um realizing that you know, not seeing who I had become or how I was being experienced by other people, particularly my family, uh, that they were getting the brunt of the me at not my best, and realizing that I needed to start prioritizing what was actually important to me, like the relationships with my children. Um, and not necessarily focusing only on the things that weren't going well, right? But on the things that were going right and loving them for all of the beauty that they are in their unique ways, and so that was a huge aha moment for me when you and I were coaching together, is it helped me see the delta between how my kids experience me and who I wanted to be as their mom. That was huge.
SPEAKER_00That you know, so often it's like with the best of intentions, we as humans we think we're doing all the right things, right? And I think that's where coaching for me in my life too has been so big is that sometimes you just can't see. You can't, there are blind spots and you just can't see. You think you are doing all the right things, but when you kind of really look more deeply, the the wires are all crossed of like what we want and who we're being and how we're behaving. And I think that's one of the greatest gifts of having a coach in your life is to be able to see that and to pull away some of those lenses, right? That shade and cloud our ability to show up really the way that we intend to and want to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely, no doubt. And I think it's um, you know, always a gift to be able to see yourself through somebody else's eyes. And I remember also a huge part of my experience being that you were solidly in my court, like the things I couldn't see about myself, you could see them and reflect them back until I could see them. Do you know what I mean? And totally that's such a gift because we become blind in many ways to the beauty of who we are and our own strengths, and um, you know, this idea that I talk about with the 12 self-discoveries around head trash, I think we let our head trash start to become our only vision of ourselves sometimes. It's the only window through which we experience ourselves, and it's not a very um conducive window, and therefore, you know, because we see ourselves uh perhaps in a way that isn't very charitable, then it's really hard, isn't it, to live up to your potential and to see your own worth and to see what you have to offer the world, you know.
SPEAKER_00So it's so true. So in your work, like in in what you're doing today, I'm curious about because I see people, and you know, I walked through this myself, is like we can get so consumed by these other parts of our lives and our work, right? That derail us from honoring these deep, heartfelt commitments, like you said, to the relationships with your children or your spouse, and in your work, like what why do you think we do that? And how do you help people through that part?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's um for me, you know, both experientially and I think for a lot of the people that we coach, it just crops up through habit. It crops up in a way that it's just upon us and we don't see it. And because from you know, because a lot of the work I do is looking at these um topics through the lens of neuroscience and how the brain actually works, and uh, because it isn't necessarily intuitive, we're not we're not taught that, it's also evolved a lot, and so um so a lot of what I try to help my clients with and also remind myself of because I fall in all these same traps, is remembering that unless I show up with intentionality and some real Specific objectives that I want to keep my eye on the ball of. It's easy to actually lose sight of them in the busy busy lives we lead. Like there are just so many distractions coming in that it's all too easy to forget what's actually important. And so, you know, for example, I talk about this thing called the awareness matrix, and it helps people understand what they actually have the capacity to be consciously aware of versus the things that are pre-conscious or autonomic. And so it attacks it from a very kind of practical standpoint of hey, in the whole broad scheme of your life and who you are, here are the areas that you have the ability to influence. And so it's even just learning that that then enables somebody to develop specific strategies andor reminders to do that.
SPEAKER_00So can you tell us a little bit more about the awareness matrix? Like what maybe one of a couple of those things that people can maybe take into their day today and just begin to be more aware. Because I think that is the first step, is just being aware of one, what we actually have control over. Because I think you're right. So often we're trying to control all these other things in order to feel better inside or feel more peaceful, or and it often just creates more aggravation and frustration, not only for ourselves, but for the people around us when we're trying to control them. Um, and when you can come back to what are the things you actually have control over and start to control, you know, put your attention on those things. It's a game changer. I mean, it is. So tell us a couple things in that. Sure.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So there are four quadrants in the awareness matrix, and we can kind of think about it as what's happening beneath the surface of our awareness and what's happening at least sort of above ground, so to say, where we have the capacity to be conscious and perceive these things. And so below the surface are things like our autonomic capacities, right? Thankfully, we don't have to remember when we breathe or blink. If so, you know, I mean our heart would have stopped beating a long time ago because we would have long forgotten about, oh yeah, I gotta do this thing called beating my heart. And so thankfully, a lot of the functions are autonomic and built in. And then the other quadrant that's below the surface would be what we would think of as the unconscious or subconscious. And I like to distinguish in my book, I talk about how subconscious really is um, you know, kind of the deeper we go versus you know, what what do we just not have the capacity to be aware of versus what can we actually dip into? Like um, for example, our memories. Um, we can call forth a memory, although for me it takes a little longer these days. I have to send for things. I'm like, hey, I'd like to remember this thing. And I send the elevator down, and I'm like, it'll come up eventually, and it does ding, and it's there. So, but anyway, so we have we have this whole class of things that we can't tap into as easily. And then above, you know, kind of the surface of the things we have the capacity to be aware of, a big chunk of those falls into what we call what I call the habitual zone or the passively perceptive. And this is, you know, if you think about it, uh, the what I like to say the metabolically efficient way that our brains function. We chunk things out as habits so that we don't have to think about each of the things, it just takes more energy. But that's good and bad. It's good from a body, you know, standpoint, from an energy standpoint, but it's kind of bad if your habits aren't the ones you want to have. And so that's where I think being able to discern what's serving me and what isn't, and what habits have crept up in my life that that I need to revisit and kind of unwind and take back. Um, and then finally, there's the conscious uh quadrant of the things that we are intentional about when we're fully present in the moment and in our lives. And so the idea is kind of shining the spotlight of our attention or our conscious awareness on the areas that we have the capacity to influence, right? The things above the surface. Um, and even things like that start to dip into uh that bi-directional relationship between our brain and our body, what we think of as our you know, capacity to feel bodily sensations and signals, we can build that, and that's helpful because that's an early warning signal for us that hey, you know, something's not right here. And if we're aware of what our bodies are telling us and really what our emotions, like these precursors to emotions, are like the flashing signs, the billboards, you know, when you're driving on a highway and it's like they want you to see something. This is our body's equivalent of saying, hey, hey, wake up, pay attention. You know, maybe it's that feeling. Exactly. There you go. That's right, that's right. I love that metaphor. So so that's you know, just sort of a lay of the land of the awareness matrix and how it's just meant to be informative and instructive around look, here's what you can influence. So focus your time here. Don't worry so much about the things that you can't influence, and that's not even attacking the whole class of things that don't have to do with us, right? Like other people, their emotions, their behaviors. Like, good luck. That's just gonna be a really big waste of your time trying to control those things.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I spent half my life focused on the outer world, right? And and it's so true when you come back to like what you're saying is we have we have all these faculties that are within our reach and within our control that can allow us to have really amazing influence over the quality and experience of our lives. And often we were not taught about it, we don't know about it, or we're just really disconnected from it, and just starting ever so small can make such a difference. Um tell us a little bit about your book, and I want to I want to read a little tiny piece from it, but tell tell everybody about your book and where they can find it.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. It's called Beyond Emotional Intelligence: a guide to accessing your full potential. And it was published last November by Wiley Publications, and it's available everywhere online. Um, interestingly enough, most books are not sold anymore in hard copy. It's definitely the um it's not the norm. And so you can order it anywhere though, in hard copy, but online at all the major outlets. So the the book came about, Carla, because Wiley reached out to me and asked if I'd write a book about the 12 self-discoveries and the work that I do. And um me being who I am said, yes, of course, this is great, I'd love to. And and and and of course, I had to make it more difficult. Um, instead of just writing about the 12 self-discoveries as they are, I decided to tackle the science behind them because I've been asked so many times by the people going through our coaching program, well, how does this tie to science and how does this? And I'm like, guys, I don't know. This is not how they came up, they came up through real life experience, you know. So, but I felt they were good questions, and I am quite uh, you know, interested in how the brain works and the body and the mind, and so I chose to go deep with this and to really investigate the underpinnings of each and every one of them with how they tie to perception and emotion and how those work at a bodily and psychological level.
SPEAKER_00How long did it take you to write this book? How long did it take? Carly. How long did it take you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so six months. Um I was given a very tight timeline, and um it about killed me, actually. I I had this whole sort of I felt like every day was a bit of an out-of-body experience because I had to write so I was writing about really difficult topics. I had to do a lot of research, a lot of neuroscience research and cognitive behavioral research, and I read, you know, really literally just hundreds and hundreds of pages of research articles, and that was just a tip of the iceberg, right? So it was a very tall order, six months.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's amazing. I just want to read. So it's um chapter four. You are the common denominator, and you say, Where is the one place from which we cannot escape? Where do we spend the entirety of our lives in this body and in this mind? Many of us go through our entire lives trapped in the confines of our own habitual ways of processing and making sense of what we perceive, not even realizing the role our interpretation of reality plays. Once we realize our own awareness is the exit strategy from an escape room of our own making, we start to catch glimpses of the invisible mental attitudes and constructs holding us hostage hostage to those aspects of ourself we're not yet consciously aware of. I just like that just strikes me always because in all the years of my work, like I just see that we have we have trapped ourselves in this prison that we forgot we had the key to. So speak to that a little bit. You bet.
SPEAKER_01Well, honestly, my first set my first thought was that's a long sentence. No, my editing head comes in like judging Michelle. It's like, couldn't we have shortened that one up a bit? Oh, it's beautiful. Um so so yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. And there, I'll use a metaphor because I like metaphors, I think they convey a lot of deep information quickly and accessibly. And so I remember one time I was sitting in the uh house I lived in, I was renting when I first moved out here. I had to rent the first few years, and it was a beautiful place with an amazing view, and it had all these like um you know, kind of vaulted ceilings, high, high windows, and I remember one day with the both the doors open, looking out over the kind of the mountain scenery here in the Berkshires where I live, and there was a fly stuck on the inside of you know the window, looking out, trying to get out through this window. And I thought, wow, what a profound you know metaphor for our condition as beings, maybe not even just human beings, maybe all beings have this, where the doors open, it's right there, and I remember like, hey buddy, I was trying to talk them down, doors down a little. Like, I know you keep at this window, you keep beating yourself against this window, but the door's just a little bit down and it's wide open, and you can fly through it anytime. And so that's the metaphor of how our own awareness is our superpower, and if we can learn how to maneuver it, then all of these corners we think ourselves into or feel ourselves into don't have to be corners.
SPEAKER_00That reminds me years and years and years ago, like one of my first coaching clients. I remember he had kind of this visual, I had this visual of him like literally inside of this like shack, like just pushing up the boards and like trying to nail up the boards and fix the house he's in. And then like there was this moment of like realizing that he could just walk out the door and like build something new and completely different, right? And it was it just totally brought that back. I haven't thought about that in so long, but it's so true, it's so true, and I I that's what excites me so much about this work is that we do have so much creative agency in our lives that we often don't realize. And so, okay, so is there anything else from the book that like a takeaway that you want to give to the listeners or one of your um principles, like anything you want to leave them with?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think I think you actually hit the essence of it in the quote. I really do. I think it's you know, we we often just don't know how to get out of our own way, but with a little bit of concerted effort on our part to one, want to delve into what's keeping us stuck, you know, whether that's through coaching or learning some practices that allow us to connect with, you know, our own awareness and what gives us agency, or even you know, the element of how we make sense of reality, because that's another big area where we have agency. In other words, the you know, the brain curates uh the initial meaning and impression that it that it wants us to act on, right? It predicts based on prior experiences and our expectations, that's what it uses to make its calculated predictions of where we're gonna need to step next or what we're gonna need to say next, given the context. So even though our brain does all of that, and then it's almost as if we arrive on the scene, that's the feeling, and like, what have we here? Oh, look, Michelle's angry again, or you know, here are these circumstances that I get a choice about. You know, will I take the bait? You know, it's like you know, you see this kind of like in the novelas, um, the Spanish soap operas uh or Mexican, depending on which novelas you watch, you might say, Will Michelle take the bait here? You know, if there were commentary. Um, but but so much of that comes down to it turns out, the sense we make of our own perceptions and emotions and then what we do with that. So, for example, if I if I am in an everyday situation and I perceive and translate malintent or negative intent on the part of another towards me or my loved one or this, that, the other, that's gonna lead to a different outcome than if I say, Oh, I bet it's not personal at all. I bet they're having a bad day, I bet they may not know their impact, they may not know how they're coming off, they may be going through a whole bunch of stuff that I'm not aware of. And that changes not just how I react to them and their reality, it changes my reality, it changes how I feel in that moment and what I choose to focus on. And so that's a very practical example of how what we place and hold our attention on, and then the sense we choose to make of it, if we have the awareness to do so, that's the key, if we have the awareness to do so versus falling into habits, that's our power, that's our agency in a nutshell. So that's big news. That's good. That's like a good news thing.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is good news. So, in the spirit of differently, like how, because that's like a moment of choice, right, where you can do differently and uh you could change an entire your world and somebody else's world. Um how what is your um most important practice in your life or tool in your life that helps you stay connected to the moment and that you know that awareness to be able to make that choice?
SPEAKER_01Great question, Carla. So this is gonna sound well, however it's gonna sound, but it's such a simple yet deeply profound practice. And and again, I it's what I use personally the most often, it's called the gentle sigh. And the gentle sigh is anytime you remember, because you're always breathing, presumably, while you're alive, so that's helpful. Breath in and of itself is a reminder, and so when I remember, uh whether it's because I get wound up or I see a train wreck coming proverbially speaking in my own head, or like my son, he's very funny. Dylan, he tells really funny stories, and he has uh a teacher of his who shall go unnamed, who he's he adores, okay. But sometimes this teacher gets really worked up, and so Dylan comes home with stories sometimes about this teacher, and he came home one day, he's like, Yeah, and there was like it was like there was a dumpster fire in his head, and we could all see it, and then he realized it, and then he calmed down. And I'm like, Oh my god, that's so funny! Wow, so so funny, and you know, like to hear but not to experience, right? So let's say you're having a dumpster fire moment in your own head, so then you're just breathing normally, and then in the outbreath, when you let that out breath out, just let it hang there before taking the next breath. Not abnormally, like don't turn blue in the face and fall over, but it's it's just a little longer, fully exhale and drop everything. And when I say drop everything, I mean drop concepts, drop what you're feeling, just let the mind settle itself. The mind has the capacity to settle itself, to be calm, to be spacious, to be clear if we let it. And something about that gentle sigh allows us the space and the presence of mind when we drop everything to for that moment be in those qualities of who you really are.
SPEAKER_00Hmm, I'm just gonna like soak in that all day. I love that. I love that, and I think that's the perfect place for us to kind of wrap. Um, so tell people where they can learn more about your coaching and what you're doing. And I know you've shared your book, but any places that people can follow what you're doing, you are such a gem, Michelle. I could hang out with you all day, and I feel calmer just being in your presence, and I'm sure everybody else does too. Um, but yes, where can they learn more about you and follow what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Carla. So we're doing a lot of exciting stuff right now at Beyond EI. And so the website is a great place to go to learn about the programs, and so it's beyondei.ink, I n c. Um, and so you know that's a great place to go. And um also uh my email address is very similar to that. It's Michelle with onel at beyond eI.inc. If you're interested in learning more about what we do, we work with companies and individuals and coaches and um have a really global audience too, which is really fun. So thank you so much, Carla, for having me and being in my life. I think you know how important you are to me.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Michelle. I this was such a great conversation. I know it's gonna touch people listening. It's touched me, and I just um I thank you for your time and your generous and kind heart. Likewise, my dear. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Differently. I hope it stirred your thinking, and I invite you to take one inspired action from something that stood out to you. If you want to hear more conversations like this, hit follow on your favorite podcast app. And if this episode can impact someone you know, please share it and pass it along. Remember, new episodes drop weekly. See you next week.