Episode 150: Balance, Bliss, and Guilty Pleasures

There's so much brewing this year. Brace yourself for a candid conversation about all the things: how it feels to quit my job, the head first dive into creating the life I desire, how I feel about Vanderpump rules and the co-creation of an epic in person event.

Links to share:

Bloom Event on IG
Andrea on IG

To learn more about The Bliss Retreat, visit thebalancebliss.ca/retreat 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Balance and Bliss Podcast
• 4:54 Reality TV Obsession
• 12:21 Transitioning to Entrepreneurship
• 26:00 Creating Transformative Events and Workshops

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This show is brought to you by Female Alliance Media, by women for women. Welcome to the Balance and Bliss podcast. I'm your host, andrea Mondu, a three-time published author, speaker and a lifestyle transformation coach who believes everyone should be given the gift of knowing how to live their lives feeling healthy and empowered. Things like moving your body regularly and feeling it well, taking care of your mind, setting boundaries, practicing self and body acceptance, personal growth, manifestation and everything in between. Wellness is not linear and it's not just one thing. It expands into so many areas and on this show we're going to talk about just that. We're all striving to live a little more healthy and a little more well, but what does that even mean? My goal is to help you see that you can move from the mundane to the magic when it comes to living aligned and fulfilled, and by tuning in each week you can be assured you'll leave with nuggets of wisdom that you can implement into your day to day, like right now, to help you maximize your health, wellness and your life. Now let's dive in. Good girl. No noise. Honestly, without fail, every single time I come down to my studio to record, the dog comes because, like the studio, also known as the basement. The dog likes to come and hang out with me, but I think I say this all the time because she literally does it all the time. She gets her bone, she lays down, she's whining, all the things. Anyway, welcome back to a new episode on the Balance in Bliss podcast. It is we're officially into the fall.

Speaker 1: 1:48

I'm going to call this like officially season four, because all summer long we had those re-releases with a few new episodes, but now we are like full into new episodes, fresh, look, fresh vibe. There's a whole new energy happening around here and I'm going to tell you a little bit about what that energy is. So I'm down here recording in the basement. Before I came down here, I literally said to Mike all right, well, I'm going to go down to the basement and talk to myself for a little bit now. And he's like, yeah, that sounds super weird, have fun with that and bantering, obviously, because he knows I'm coming down to record the podcast episode. But I was like I'm not talking to myself, I'm talking to everybody who's listening. And then he's like, yeah, yeah, ok. So then I'm down here by myself like setting up all the equipment.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Sometimes I record on my desk because I just do, but sometimes I like to record. You know, chilling out, sitting on the couch, I like set up my podcast arm and microphone so that I don't have to hold it, and then I'm just literally sitting on the couch in like a laid back chill position, I can talk with my hands I don't hit the microphone, hopefully and it's like I'm literally sitting on the couch talking with a friend, right, because I'm here, I'm talking to you, so I'm setting up all my stuff. I'm thinking about like this interaction that we just had and I'm like, oh my gosh, us as podcasters I mean, unless you're in like a studio where you have like a production team and you're just like sitting in a room talking in there in the other room, you know, doing all the things that you want, or maybe you have a co-host or you have a guest, but like if you're doing a solo podcast or a solo podcast episode, you are indeed in your space talking to yourself for an extended length of time, like I'm about to talk to myself for 30 minutes, but I know you're on the other end listening, so that's the ultimate right that I know this is going to be in your ears at some point in time. So, anyway, I'm here talking to you in my basement, like you're sitting on the couch across from me. I'm really excited to get into today's episode because I honestly like we have a lot to talk about, we have a lot to catch up on.

Speaker 1: 4:09

I feel like it's been a really long time and so much has happened. So much has happened that I just can't wait to tell you all of the things, and there's so many things coming up in this world of balance and bliss that I'm so excited to share with you. But I have to tell you what has been consuming me for the last. Like I was trying to think back of, like how long I have been watching this for, and I guess it's been like the last couple of months. So I have been deep into Vanderpump rules. Okay, it is not like riveting educational television, but instead it is like mind numbing entertainment.

Speaker 1: 4:54

I Full disclosure, I'm a sucker for reality TV shows and I know there's some people that just they can't handle it, they can't watch it. But I have been like a reality TV junkie since, like Jersey Shore, like I used to Jersey Day Does anybody remember Jersey Day? Because I remember how much I loved Jersey Shore. Every Thursday night. I would sometimes on the premieres or like the finales. I would have parties and we would dress up. People were here for it. They would come to my cousin and I. We would talk about Jersey Shore Every week when it was on, and this was like back when Mike and I lived in the condo. So this was before we got married. Like a before my gosh, I want to say probably 2010, 2011 is when, like, my reality TV obsession began. That was a long time ago and so since then, I have been eating up all of the reality TV that gets put out onto Netflix, like love is blind and too hot to handle and the bachelor I used to love the bachelor, like all of these things. So I love reality TV and Vanderpump rules delivers hard on the reality TV.

Speaker 1: 6:09

If I think about you know, if I said to you like oh, what do you think of reality TV? As People making really poor decisions, people doing things that they should not be doing, having conversations, calling people names, like Just carrying on in such a way that is so extravagant, and you know, I I guess there's some degree of truth that, like it's probably embellished on or they're exaggerating or they're being extra for TV. But I also think that these people, just these people I don't mean it like that, but people who are on reality TV shows, they that is maybe their personality, they're more extroverted or they're outgoing, or I don't know. Anyway, if you're not familiar with Vanderpump rules I was not for a really long time. There's like 10 seasons of it, and the episodes that I'm watching right now they're talking about it being like 2017, so I'm late to the Vanderpump train. I 100% realized that.

Speaker 1: 7:11

But the reason that I started watching it was because a couple months ago on Instagram, I saw a ton of people talking about the end of season 10 and they were like, oh my gosh, like there was a hashtag Scandival for like one of the characters on the show. His name is Tom Sandoval, and there was like a big scandal that happened with him. And people were like on Business trips. Like I remember the birds papaya was on a business trip with her friends and they're watching the reunion like at the table at the restaurant. And a bunch of other people that I follow were like Talking about the reunion in their stories and this huge scandal that's happening and there was like. It piqued my interest, let me tell you and I hadn't heard of it before then the whole premise of this restaurant that they are all working at is In West Hollywood. So, like I was in LA in April and I keep saying to Mike, I wish I knew Vanderpump existed when I went to West Hollywood, because I 100% Would have at least tried to walk by it. I went and walked by Oppenheim group when I was there, obviously because I love selling sunsets reality TV but I anyway. This is getting really long.

Speaker 1: 8:26

But I decided to start watching it because I was like I need to know what this scandal was and I wanted to, like start from the beginning because if I wanted to, I could very easily go into Google and say what happened on season 10? And I would likely find out. Or I could probably just ask somebody that I know that watched it. But I don't want that. So there's a whole point to this story. So I've been watching Vanderpump rules like crazy. You know, every free moment that I have, I either have it on in the background, I'm watching it, like it's always on, and so I was sick recently and I was watching a lot more of it. I was in about season six at this time and Vanderpump is.

Speaker 1: 9:10

So Lisa Vanderpump, from what I understand, used to be on the housewives, like the real housewives of something maybe Orange County, anyway, it doesn't matter. She was a housewife and so that's, I think, where she kind of got some of her fame. But she's really philanthropic, she's a very smart business woman and she's like a serial entrepreneur In the sense that she keeps opening up all these restaurants, but anyway it's. It's all based at this restaurant called sir, which stands for sexy, unique restaurant, which is hilarious, but in the show she's got sir. She also owns a housewife it's hilarious, but in the show she's got sir. She also opened up a restaurant called pump, and then there was another restaurant that she was wanting to open With two of the characters, tom and Tom, and she wants to call the restaurant Tom Tom.

Speaker 1: 9:58

So I'm watching this while I'm sick and I'm curious. I'm like, oh, I wonder if, because again, this is like 2017, this season that I'm watching right now, and I'm like, oh, I wonder if, if pump has, or if Tom Tom has opened yet. So I get on my Google and I'm like has, has Tom Tom opened yet in West Hollywood, or whatever? And so Google, of course, gives you the answer and then below that it gives you, like other potential Google searches that you may want as a result of that. So you know, our top is his. Schwartz and Sandoval still equal partners in the in the restaurant. It's all these like different prompts.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Well, I'm not going to ruin it for you, just in case you want to watch Vanderpump, because I have been doing a really good job up until this point of avoiding finding out what the scandal is. And there in the Google search Suggestions for me was a question that relates to what I can only assume is the scandal that happened in season 10, because it asks a question about a storyline or a plot line that I have not heard of yet and that I was blown away reading, and I was. So I Was so mad at Google, like Google played me really hard in that Moment and I was not happy. So, anyway, I'm still gonna watch it all the way through. Maybe that's the scandal, maybe it's not, but like I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna Try and Google to find out or not, because I don't want to find out anything else that I don't want to know. So anyway, that's what's happening with me in terms of Vanderpump. You know the update that you definitely didn't ask for, but I've been watching a lot of Vanderpump because I've been home more and things have really shifted for me in my life. So if you don't follow me on Instagram which, hello, I would imagine that you probably do If you don't, though I'm the dot balance, dot bliss you can always find my Instagram and the show notes. But if you follow me on Instagram or you're on my email list, you'll know that I made a really fucking big decision in the summer to quit my part time job.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Now you might be saying what? You had a part time job, but you're a podcast host and an author and a coach and all these things, and truly I am all of those things. But I had a part time job as well just to help to supplement some of that income coming in as I have grown this balance and bliss business. So balance and bliss has kind of been like a dream of mine since 2018. That's really when, like, the seed was planted of the balance and bliss dream, and I have been hustling hard since 2018 to make that happen. So, in addition to you know, making that happen, obviously there's the stability of income that we needed in our household with one now two children, and so I've always had some sort of job corporate job on the side. So right up until the summer, the last three years, I three years, yeah, four years actually I had been teaching part time at a private college here locally. So my background is in social services and I've always kind of had my hand in the helping field. So I taught social services to students who were wanting to get a second career and I loved like I love teaching. It was a really great gig.

Speaker 1: 13:47

But one of the things that we were really finding in our life that we needed more of was flexibility and freedom, and that's really what I have been working towards since 2018. You know, I have this goal in sight of wanting to create change in the world with people, but also being in business for myself meant that I had flexibility and time freedom to create my schedule and to also create my reality, which, of course, isn't something that our society tells us that we can do or that's possible for us. So I remember when I was talking about wanting to have my own coaching business and not have, you know, an employee or an employer who is paying me. You know, some people in my life are like, why are you doing that? Like that's so, it's, it's a scary move, right? Because we're not conditioned to believe that like, yeah, you can just go out and make it on your own, but you have a family and you need to be more responsible and all those sorts of things. So I really bought into that like need to be responsible for a long time and I'm not saying that you don't have to be responsible, but it just it kept me feeling scared, and I think that that's a large part of the reason of why I've held on to a consistent employer employee type of dynamic for so long is because it's scary, right, when there's a lot of unknown, when you decide to leave a stable position and move into something that likely is the thing that brings you more joy or that you feel more passionate about, or that you that you really feel drawn to and pulled to. There's a lot of scariness around that. So it was a really, really big deal for me to make that shift.

Speaker 1: 15:42

One of the things that it really meant for me was that I was fucking leaning into trust. Let me tell you that because there is no better way to tell the universe that you are ready for what it is giving you by quitting the last. I honestly call it, like you know, slowly I've been cutting all the. It's like the parachute, right. So the parachute I'm going to make an analogy here with you so I'm free falling, right, we're all free falling through life and we have this parachute attached to us and the parachutes are keeping us safe.

Speaker 1: 16:23

And so for me, I've kind of been slowly cutting all of those cords that were no longer serving me to create the life and the reality that I was looking for. And I think that for me, the last cord was getting rid of that type of means of gaining income. And so now that I've cut that cord and said, okay, universe, I am going into the free fall. I'm here, I'm here to trust you. I am now in the free fall, and so what I've done is I've really just hoped that, that the universe was going to provide, or that you know that I'm going to be taken care of. All that to say, I've obviously put some things into place that are going to help with that stability and help with that like time freedom. So I'm going to back up a little bit.

Speaker 1: 17:18

I said that you know that we were really finding that having time, freedom and flexibility was something that that I was needing. It's also, honestly, something that's a lot easier for our family to have Now with having Eloise two kids, you know going back to school, and what if a kid is sick from school, and what if this needs to be done, or what if X, y and Z like there's all of these, what ifs? That it's really helpful if there's a primary parent that's there to pick up that slack. Right? We're just coming out of the summer and those who have full time jobs where you have to be there in an office setting maybe, or even at home, from like that nine to five structure, it's really hard to figure out what the hell you're going to do with your kids during that time, because if you can't put them in a camp and you don't have a babysitter, then they're at home. And I remember talking to Clara's hygienist like earlier at the beginning of the summer, we were talking about this whole like need for help and stuff and like what do you do with the kids? And blah, blah, blah, and she was saying like it's such a gift because she is working in this, like she's be there at seven, like having to be in her building at seven am and she's there till five. So her kid, her daughter, during the summer is like can't be home alone for that amount of time, Like that's a long time for kids to be home alone. And so she's like it's, it's a gift to be able to, to have that flexibility and that freedom. So that was really what we were needing right now, and what that has afforded me is this ability to one be creative with the ways that I am bringing in income into our family. And it's also here's the here's.

Speaker 1: 19:15

The thing with cutting that last parachute cord is that we try so hard to control the outcome of every single experience that we have. I'm very guilty of this. Okay, I try so hard to like, okay, if I do this, then this is going to happen, and if I do this, then I know that this is going to happen. And if I don't know, right, if we don't know what the outcome is going to be of a decision, and if we're just being asked, or if we're asking ourselves or if we're asking other people you know this happens a lot in client conversations that I have when people are interested in working with me for the holistic body connection, or even in themselves. They're like okay, I'm feeling at a place where I want something to change. You know, I've been. I've been doing the same thing for a long time and I want things to be different and I think I need a coach, or I'd like to work with you, but I don't know what that's going to look like and I don't know what the the end result is going to look like. And when you can't see what that, what's on the other side of the decision that you're going to make? It's, it's too fuzzy. You don't know what that thing is.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Oftentimes we shy away from that or we decide not to do the thing, not to hire the coach, not to quit the job, because we don't know what's on the other side and the protective part of our brain automatically assumes that it's shit's not going to go well, it's going to be a fucking disaster if we do that. Or we're scared, right, we're scared of what that could look like. But but I am once again learning another lesson. The day before I handed in my resignation actually even like a week before I handed in my resignation I was fucking freaking out. I kind of told Mike a little bit like oh, I'm starting to like panic about money a little bit, and I was telling a friend of mine, um, the same thing, and you know, it was like I was feeling two things at the same time. I knew that this was a step that I needed to take, but I was really terrified about what that was actually going to look like. Right, because there are bills to be paid. There's no if ands or buts about it. There's bills to be paid. There is some uncertainty that's happening in the world right now that we're kind of feeling like with the inflation and all that kind of stuff. So all of these things are also happening.

Speaker 1: 23:58

But I'm just feeling this call in this poll of like now is the time. Now is the time to make this change that I have been working for since 2018. And I'm telling you this story because I want you to believe that it's possible for you. I really strongly believe that it is possible for anybody to create any sort of change that they want to. I think that what happens for a lot of us is that it just doesn't happen at the speed or the pace that we want it to. It didn't happen at the speed or the pace that I wanted it to, because I moved into this part-time position that I just recently released, in 2019, because I was moving away from full-time but my coaching business expanding wasn't happening fast enough for me. You know, I wasn't getting the amount of clients quickly enough to be able to let go of that corporate structure and that stability and that security completely.

Speaker 1: 25:01

And so I took this step into part-time, which every single step that you make is a step in the right direction, because my gosh, being an instructor for four years, the skills that I have been able to learn that I can now use in all of the work that I'm doing, like all of the speaking. I mean, fuck, I wouldn't have had the confidence, I think, to start a podcast if I didn't have to lead a classroom every single day for four hours. People sat in that class and just listened to me talk. Can you imagine you get me for like 30 minutes in your ear for fucking hours of time that I had to fill with my students, and I did that for four years, right? And so the skills that I learned in terms of people management and even, like the technology skills, the practical skills that I can apply going forward to speaking and presentations and workshops that I'm now doing.

Speaker 1: 26:01

You know, I think that every step that we take on our journey is there for a reason it teaches us something, it allows for us to shed an old story that we've had about ourselves, about what we're capable of doing and being. So all of these, you know, I'm now realizing all of these stepping stones, or all of these things have been kind of the stepping stones continuing to get me to where I want to be, and so now, in this moment, I'm in a place where I have the ability to be present for my family when they need it, to be available at the drop of a hat, right, I'm not tied to a classroom. I'm also really able to pour into and focus on the things in balance and bliss that really really light me up. So things like this event that, uh, that I'm planning for 2024. So me and three other women um are planning this like never been done before in the, in the region that I live in, um, we're looking at creating this like 150 person event for women who are feeling stuck. Women who are feeling stuck in their lives, who are searching for something more, who are looking for more fulfillment, who are wanting to continue to be in the spaces and places where people are striving to elevate themselves, where people who are saying this life is no longer serving me and I want to break free from that and I want to continue to grow. We're creating this transformative experience, full day kind of live event here in Waterloo region that is just going to, quite frankly, blow your socks off today. I had an excellent meeting today, being the today that I'm recording this episode, not the today that it comes out. Um, by the time this episode comes out, the venue is going to be secured and it is going to be the one that I spoke to today, but I had this incredible conversation with the space that we're wanting to host it in and you know, she said to me when I heard about the event that you're having, I got goosebumps. I feel like this is so needed in our community. People are realizing that they want to prioritize themselves, that they want to bring more happiness into their lives, that they want to bring more joy into their lives, that maybe the things that they've been telling themselves for years are not working and they're ready to really dive into that and let go of that and instead create this new reality, this new elevated, like blooming, type of existence. We need that Like people need more of that, and so me and these three other women are just planning this kick-ass experience March 2024. I'll make sure to include in the show notes where you can follow us on Instagram. It's called Bloom is the name of the event, and the Instagram is let's bloom kw. And, yeah, tickets are going to be on sale for that really soon, and so that is. That is a really big kind of exciting thing that I am working on with them right now.

Speaker 1: 29:23

And the other thing, too, that I've been doing a lot more of is workshops and seminars and you know, half day experiences and symposiums where people come together to learn to do. I'm thinking of bringing vision boarding workshops back. Those were like such a such an experience and such a hit around around like New Year's when people are looking to create some new intentions. So vision boarding workshops, like other type of workshops, I'm doing retreats with certain businesses. So when I was pregnant with Eloise, I went to Niagara on the lake with a team from an Ontario college and we had they were having a three day experience. I was just a part of one of the mornings with them, but in 2024, I am doing a whole day with them and it's going to be so much fun.

Speaker 1: 30:18

It's actually one thing that I can help. That I can help with, or that I've been doing, is helping businesses who have health and well being strategies, who are wanting to support their employees in their wellness and in their work life balance. I have been working with them to craft hours or half days or many days of workshops and and retreats, and so that's something that I get to lean into and ultimately like what that. What that allows for me is to just really live out this passion and purpose that I have for being the change that I want to see in the world Right now. It's also it's also allowing me time to work on my next book. So I my first book came out in 2020. Then, of course, I have these body bliss projects, but this next book that I'm working on is a is a solo project, and in that book, I was talking about this whole be.

Speaker 1: 31:23

The change kind of came from this quote that I saw from Gandhi when I was in college. I literally saw that quote when I was in college and it has been my driving force for everything that I have done ever since then, both in the social services field, helping people through mental health crisis and helping them to, you know, change their reality and their circumstances and grow and evolve as humans. And then, of course, now that has just morphed into kind of helping people in general, you know, helping them to. I mean having conversations like this where I say to you hey, if there's something that you want in this world to accomplish, to do, to achieve, to be, to get rid of, to not be a part of anymore, you have the ability to do that Right. We have that power and that ability to create the reality that we want. So I got a lot of really cool stuff coming for you in the rest of this year, in 2024, in the podcast.

Speaker 1: 32:28

We have a packed podcast roster for the next couple of months and I said to Mike earlier today, this is going to be the season of men joining us for conversations on the podcast. I have a couple really kick-ass dudes lined up to have some conversations with, and lots of really cool stuff happening around here. So thank you so much for continuing to be along for the ride, for sitting on the couch with me today in my basement and I will catch you next week on the Balance and Bliss podcast. Until then, have a great day and stay well. Thanks so much for being here. I hope you're leaving with a full heart, some inspiration or you're feeling the kick in the butt you felt like you needed. If you really enjoyed this episode, be sure to share it with a friend or let me know Rates, reviews, subscribing and sharing are all great ways to support the show and if you want to stay in touch, follow me over on Instagram at thebalancebless. Thanks for listening today and stay well.