Are we there yet?

 Are We There Yet? 

In this episode of The Empress & The Rock, we take a step back and look at something lots of people overlook when they’re trying to grow, change or build something new - the foundations.
Before the expansion. Before the results. Before the “are we there yet?” moment.
We chat about what it really looks like when things aren’t flowing yet, from Chris navigating the frustrations of learning Kundalini Yoga to me unpicking my crochet. Those moments where progress feels slow, messy or even like you’re going backwards.
But this is the work.
This episode is about recognising that grounding isn’t just something you ‘do’, it’s something you build. It’s the steady base that allows everything else to grow from a place of strength, rather than pressure or urgency.
Through the energy of spring, we reflect on patience, timing and learning to stay with the process, even when the results aren’t visible yet.
Because real growth doesn’t come from rushing ahead. It comes from being steady enough to hold what’s on its way.

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The Empress & The Rock is hosted by Vikki & Chris Gadd — partners in love, crystals, and a conscious business. New episodes weekly.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Empress and the Rock, our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everyone, hope you're all okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Between a husband and a glorious wife.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Sharing our glorious husband and a wife.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

A glorious wife and her husband. Sharing our life husband. Sharing our life together, our world, our love. Our love of crystals.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Sounds like a John Lennon song without the crystals.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And our chat of just generally what we do. And it just seems to work, doesn't it? You seem to love it. So we want to carry on. I wanted to touch base really because I am jetting off on Friday. So two days' time to Portugal to do a wonderful yoga retreat. Not to facilitate it, to actually be to partake and enjoy. To partake and enjoy. Enjoy, is that the right word for yoga retreat? You do enjoy it, but it's also hard work. But I am looking forward to it. So I wanted to just connect with you all and just chat about general life, really. And also, I know I talk about this a lot, and I am a little bit like a stuck record, but it works, and I want to reiterate the fact how very important it is to be grounded and to stay present. So I've just been working with a client and we've been chatting exactly like that. And my next podcast I'm going to do is all about how do you actually ground what is it and how I can help you with it. And I'll be sending over some kundalini tips and all kinds of stuff. But for the meantime, this one you know, it's still about spring, it's still about what how people are feeling. I know that it doesn't feel like spring, it's rainy and grey and dull here right now today. But did yesterday? Yeah, spring-like, and you can feel it in the air and the birds and everything. But with that, like I mentioned in last the last podcast, it's something where your nervous system starts to quicken, your energy starts to quicken because it resonates with the quickening of the earth, the quickening of all the growth around you. But with that comes a little anxiety because you want to spring into action like you've been a coiled spring over winter, and you just want to launch into all of these things you've been procrastinating. Yeah, but like mulling over, getting ready. So you do want to launch, but it's also still gentle, isn't it? Is go gentle with yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Well, it's still the spring of deception, let's not forget, which is what we talked about last time. So you can't dive headlong into these things because you'll be deceived.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

And what I will, you know, what I want to call this podcast is are we there yet? You know, like your kids will always say when you're going on a long journey in the car. If you don't or a short journey, or or if you've not had kids, you know that dogs do the same. They look at you going, surely, what's happening? So, this is what this is about as well. It's like, yes, keep your eyeball on the prize, but not just on the prize, you've got to do the groundwork to get there.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

So, you mean it's not just about the destination as the cliche goes, it's about the journey.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Because energetically, what I see with my clients and with myself is we get what's called um make out energy when we are trying to manifest something or trying to see where we're going, and as you can understand or appreciate what makeout energy is, and you'll see them up on their back feet, front paws in the air, neck elongated, and really straining to see over that wall to see where they're going, where's that destination? But what that does, make at energy, it pulls you out of your grounding position, it pulls you out of your body, it disconnects you from your soul. So then it's really not impossible, but really hard work to then manifest. It's like having this fantastic tree with the most amazing root system, and it's you can see it's getting these buds and then the flowers, and it's gonna fruit, but all of a sudden you decide to repot it and you pull it right out of its root system. And if you just left it there dongling and not putting those roots in any new soil, well, that fruit's not gonna survive, is it?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Like the plants outside a certain supermarket always happen to it. Yes, it makes me really happy. They're still in the pots, but they're dead as dodos, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Oh, it's so sad to walk past these poor little sausages. I feel like rescuing them slightly, just running past and putting water onto them. But yes, so if you pull that root system up and you don't replant it or put the work in, so to speak, how can you get frustrated with saying my goals aren't working? I never feel getting there, I'm going around in circles. What is the universe trying to tell me? I feel like I'm just putting my head against a wall, nothing's working. When actually the universe isn't saying you're doing something wrong, as in your dream, it's like get yourself back in your body, get grounded, and then you can carry on with your journey.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

So it's a bit like um trying to build a house and wanting this amazing structure without any foundation.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

That's exactly the metaphor that I said to my client today. I've not used that metaphor today. No, you weren't, and that's really weird because I always use the tree with the fruit metaphor, and I said that metaphor as well. Because, well, maybe it's because we're about to have building work done in our house, but yeah, that's true as well, isn't it? If you did have really, or no foundations, your house will go up. It would be a bit tricky, but you know it's gonna fall down at some point.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Well, yeah, quite fast as well, Rodney, because it if it doesn't have the foundations, it's not gonna survive, is it? It's built on sand effectively or quicksand, so the slightest bit of weather or something else is gonna um collapse it.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, definitely. So this is about it's it's just about reinforcing that. You know, I I do get a little bit not preachy, maybe bossy with my clients because I want them to take on this discipline. It's definitely something I have learned hugely in all of my years of practicing my crystal therapy, my meditation, my grounding every day, because it works.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

I know, but it's a bright pain to do, though, isn't it? If I if I just play devil's advocate and I know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

I know, I do it because you're coming from that place. I know you've got to do it, but it's and I I am now gonna play devil's advocate and say, so how's that working out for you? How do you like them apples?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I'm moving on.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So exactly that I would say 99% of my clients are like, Yeah, I tried and then it didn't really work, and now I stopped. And then and then everything just seems to be, and then the next breath would be stuff's just not happening. I feel like groundhog day, I feel so heavy and tired, and then I'll say, Are you doing any grounding work? And it doesn't have to be sitting cross-legged, meditating, be any form of groundwork.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Problem is we live in an we live in an age of instant fix me, fix me, fix me, yeah. So, in the um in the words of, and I don't know if any anybody that listens to our podcast used to watch shameless. There is that character on shameless, new me, who is married to Paddy, who was complaining about being fat, but said she doesn't want to do any exercise, doesn't want to stop eating, doesn't want to stop smoking, doesn't even want to move, but I don't want to be fat. I want to lose four stones. Yeah, yeah. It's the same principle, isn't it? Where we all want miracles to happen, but we don't necessarily not that we don't want to put the work in, a lot of people haven't got the time or the perception that they haven't got the time to do it. I'm one of them people, but I can sit and scroll on my phone for three hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Exactly, because that's doing the absolute opposite of grounding. If you think about why is scrolling so addictive, it's taking you completely away from everything, so it's the ultimate procrastination, it's feeding you instantly of what you want to see because of the algorithms. So you're looking at a book as for all intents and purposes, you are opening these pages of a book which is on your phone, that's got the perfect thing that only you need to be seeing. Like mine is loads and loads of videos on sourdough and dogs. Mine is uh either politics or people falling over, but it's worked it out to the perfection, so it feeds the addiction. Going, gosh, this is just for me. It's like wow, and you can't help but do it. So that is giving you some form of feeding, but what it's also doing, it's giving you comfort when you want to come away from your own thoughts. But what it absolutely is not doing is helping you on your journey. Is are we there yet? Yeah, it's not it's doing nothing, it's not even making you put one step forward unless you see one thing that you think that was really informative. I'm now gonna go away and work on that. But usually we go, well, that was good, what's next? Distraction. That was good, what's next?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

It's pure distraction. That was good, what's next? Stop you, yeah, yeah, say it one more time.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Help myself a bit stuck. That was good, what's next? So you know, I it's really enjoying that journey, but sometimes there isn't enjoyment in it, it's just having faith that keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will absolutely get to your destination. And the other thing that comes into play here is I'm not good enough to do that, I can't really do it. So, for a fine example, I'm I'm teaching in the process of, as you all know, learning kundalini yoga, learning to be a teacher of it, and to help my learning process, you've got to learn how to teach classes, obviously. And that is really quite hard. You know, you look at a yoga teacher and think, Wow, they're so amazing, but you just take it for granted when you go to a class until you start learning, going, gosh, that's coming from so many amazing levels.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

That's the same as anything, though, isn't it? So if you watch Snooker on TV, and um when I was growing up, I used to watch like Alex Higgins and Steve Davis playing snooker on TV, and it looks dead easy because they're amazing at it, aren't they? And you think, Well, you know, I'm gonna go to a snooker club or pay pool or whatever, and I'll be able to do that, and of course, you pick up a queue, yeah. It's just a disaster, yeah. Because they make it look easy, but they've put in the hours and months years of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Also, that's also where um Instagram comes in, which is you you very often you very rarely see the failures on Instagram, do you? So you see this perfection in everyone's life of whatever you say, like I was looking for the sourdough, I'd see these perfect sourdoughs, and that's what I'm like, I need to do it, I need to do that. With the oldini, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

When you go to kundalini, the teachers do a great job, and you think, Well, yeah, and then you realise how hard it is when you try to do it, and it's then putting that work in.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

But what tends to happen, and you really relate to this, don't you? When I find something a challenge, I I don't know what it is my personality trait or it's how I like to learn, but I dig deep and I like to then work it out and be able to do it. When you find something a challenge, you very often run away from it, don't you? Because you can't do it immediately perfect, so then you don't want to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

It's a passive thing in me. If it, if if I'm not very good at it, I don't want to do it. I don't, and I don't want to spend the time to get good at it necessarily because I don't enjoy the learning process.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

And this is where I think grounding comes in because I do learn, I really enjoy the learning process because I don't have I see in you when I'm teaching you, kundalini, you have this, it's not that you don't enjoy the learning, it's almost as if you it's frustration of not being able to do it. Yes, you get angry with yourself. There's not a there's not a kindness or a compassion to yourself at all. You get as if you are scolding a child, and so you're not learning through that at all. So then you'll come away from it because a child who's scolded won't really learn, they'll just stop doing it. And you I've seen that in you when I'm teaching you do the kundalini, you just go, I can't do that, I'm not perfect. Like, well, no, you're not, you've just started.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

But it's a strange one, isn't it? Because I'm not doing it because I necessarily want to do it. I started doing it to help you practice your lessons. I drop quite interested in it, actually, in fairness, but it's not a it's not like a passion, like it is for you, but for me, it's a just a just something I'm doing to help you that I've now got a vague interest in, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

And it's helping you slightly, isn't it? It's helping you because the first time we did it was to help you get rid of anger, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

It just made me even more angry.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

It did, it was a it was a series of exercises to release the anger, but it did release now. You felt a lot better as soon as we'd done it.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Uh no, I mean, while I was doing it, it was making it's bringing it up, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Glorious.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

I was probably like the world's worst student.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

No, exactly, exactly that. You were not, but it was amazing to see the before and after because the resistance, you were like this solid brick wall going, right? I'm just doing this for you. And you were so tight, and then as we went through this quite strong, strenuous movements and breath work, it brought all of the anger up and out, and then you felt so much better.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, I did feel better.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Anger's oh, it's terrible in the body, it stores in the liver, actually. Anger, and it it's really toxic, it creates so many problems. But going back to why we sometimes give up on things, it is that it's it's it's a combination of everything, not feeling good enough to do it, not feeling worthy, either I'm not spiritual enough, or I don't deserve this, I can't do it. Or motivation can't be asked, but when you're grounded, you do get motivated, so it's this vicious cycle. So if you're not grounded, you're not motivated because you're so distracted, so nothing's gonna help you.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

That takes you back to what you said before, though, doesn't it, about the foundation. So if you're not this is the way my simple brain looks at it, if you're not grounded, therefore you've not got the even the slightest bit of foundation in place, so you're coming at it from coming at it, you're coming at it from a different level, a height when you're missing out all those, it's like going to a building and getting straight to the 21st floor rather than having to get on coming at the ground and working your way up.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Absolutely, and that then works so massively with the mind because you're coming in at a very what the mind will think an unsafe place. If you are coming in halfway with no foundations, ready to add this massive extension on that's gonna create a little bit of wibbly wobbly and put potentially fall over, then of course the mind's definitely potentially catastrophic failure. Of course, the mind's gonna kick off, going no. So then all of this shouting, which I see in you, and you very often do shout at me when we're doing kundalini, I don't like it, look at it. Oh, how many more minutes? Oh, for God's think! So Kevin Petito, yeah, so that's that's just your mind, it's just fear, it's not meaning that you're terrified, but your mind senses fear because it thinks, what is going on here? I don't feel that in control at the moment. So when you actually then do create this foundation which gives your mind thinking, actually, I think you've got you. You look like you're doing quite well, you look like you're holding yourself quite up quite well. I'm gonna pull back a little bit and be your servant rather than your master, and that's when the mind helps us rather than hinders. It's so powerful. Sorry, it is all about just getting that foundation, and I know I repeat myself permanently, but it oh my god, it works.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Well, I suppose the other analogy, because I'm king of analogies today, by the sound of it, is I'm just about to start doing some decorating.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

And that's not analogy, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

But no, no, no. What I mean is it's the decorating analogy, isn't it? Because we once had a decorator come in to do some work for us, and it was quite a big job. He was doing the stairs and the landing and doors and oh lord it skirts board and everything in our old house, and I thought it would take him two days to do the preparation before he started decorating. And I came home from work and he goes, and he was really pleased with himself, he goes, Yeah, more finished. I was like, Jesus Christ, that's like a miracle worker. How did you get how did you do that so fast? And then you look at the work and it looked good, but of course, yeah, you just scrape it a little bit and all the paint came off. I was so stressed. He's not done any preparation, there's no sandwich.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Then there was even more work to do, wasn't there? Because we then had to sand what he'd put on and all the other stuff underneath it.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

So created so much. But he'd done exactly going back to that analogy, he'd done exactly what I do normally in this kundalini thing or walk in the door, go, right? Come on, let's get cracking. No preparation, no grounding, no foundation work whatsoever. And he did that in our decorating, and it was a complete disaster. Yeah, and it did take us so much longer because we had to strip it all back and start from scratch. But it just shows you the what how it fails if there is none of that structure.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

And you know, the planning the argument you said as well about time. Yes, this takes time, and even if this took half an hour and you're thinking, I can't fit half an hour into my day. Can you imagine? I'm not even talking about scrolling here. When things go wrong, then you've got huge amounts of time trying to rectify that, or just trying to get your life back on track, that's not a half an hour jobby.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And then when it goes really far down the line, you are so disconnected from your body for I'm talking years, like years and years and years. It starts in your energetic field, and if you're not clearing some heavy mass, talking of anger, that's stuck in your well, anything that's stuck in your auric field in your energetic system, that will eventually over the years get denser and denser in vibration and fall further and further and deeper into your then physical body, then you get poorly. That's why they call it a dis-ease. You've then got a disease. Now, how much time is that gonna take of your life? One off your life, and two hospital appointments, doctor appointments, money.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Oh my god, you know, so perfect case of false economy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Half an hour saving time, half an hour, and half an hour's a lot. You can you can do this in ten minutes, and when you actually get the bug for it, then you see what it does, you see what is happening in your life, you see how easy your life becomes.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Why does it have to make it so hard though? It's like we we've got this routine in the morning, haven't we? And you do your exercise. Who makes it hard? No, but no, but what I'm gonna say was so we do these like wordled and these quizzy things, don't we? In the morning, it's become like fresh coffee, yeah. Do these, and it's like brilliant, it's a great start to the day. But not to be a lot of things. So we enjoy it. We enjoy doing that.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Not until we've done our work.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

No, but what I mean is we love doing that because it's a really nice thing to do. Yeah, whereas together, you know, the exercising and you doing your other all your leaning. That's like hard. Why does it have to be hard work? Why can't it be enjoyable, like the quizzing and the fresh coffee?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Because we asked we spoke about this question the other day, and I was literally talking to my kundalini teacher about this as well today because I'm missing my class tomorrow because I'm getting ready to go on holiday, and um I said, Oh, could you share it with me which one you do? And she's like, Of course I can, should it's a hard one, and I was like, Aren't they all? She's like, Yeah, but then we realised that the hard there are there are easier ones to do, but you don't grow through joy you do grow through joy, but you actually learn and grow so much more through difficulty, yeah. That that another saying, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Luckily, that was just a pen lid at one end.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So it's true though, isn't it? We don't learn if it's all if if if you think ease and joy, it's quite one straight line, isn't it? Not so much joy, joy is a little bit, but joy doesn't come, it's not a permanent thing, is it? Joy, so joy is a peak on that line, and uncomfortableness is another peak, but that's how we learn through those. But if it's just mundane, same, doing the same thing, we have no stimulus, so we do not grow, we stay, we actually get smaller. Our energetic fields shrink and we get smaller.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

We're not our brains from evolution uh have not evolved to allow us to survive and thrive in equilibrium. That sounds very big, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I need to feel what that meant.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

What I mean is so we have these peaks and troughs, and the the peaks of unpleasantness are awful, and the peaks of joy are amazing, but you can't have those all the time. Peaks of awfulness forever, you'd just never survive, would you? And peaks of joy forever, you can't live with that either. But our brains, if we had it in the middle, all this perfectly flat monotony, as you mentioned before, we're not meant to survive in that either. Because we've our brains have evolved, human brains have evolved so much that that's not our world. We even if we were in that world, our brains would make something would attract trauma, yeah, drama, would bring in some chaos to allow us because we're just we're we're on this earth, aren't we? To to experience things, air and flow. Yeah, and if we're not having that up and down, we're not experiencing things, and we get restless for that, so we go out. Make it ourselves. I've lost my train of thought a little bit there, but are you yet the gist?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, absolutely. So it is it is about that just just do it, as Nike says.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Well, uh you need to give some like even me, you need to give people a how do you just do it?

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So well, the next podcast is going to be how do you actually ground. So I really because I could talk first.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

So this is the foundation to that.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

This is the foundation. Oh I did that. I saw what you did there. This is the foundation to where we're going next, which we didn't even plan actually, but it is it's for those that you already understand about grounding and you use the grounding crystals, it's a wonderful reminder. For those of you who've never done it before, it'll be great for you to then learn and understand it. It's good for me to always just recap because it reminds me. And the tools of the tray, because you know, why not use something that's going to help us? Which will be the crystals, outdoors, breath work, movement. It's not just one thing, that's why it's so difficult if someone says, right, well, how do I ground? It's a combination because it's like a game making sourdough. How do you make sourdough? There's so many combinations, it's not just you just put those ingredients and you make it, it's all these things that create the magic, but it's practice, it's exactly that is what I was about to say. It's practice, and the one thing that I've really taught myself just um just before we finish, is that I've learned that if my mind starts kicking off when I'm doing something and I'm struggling to perfect it, like one with my crocheting. I'm crocheting, I've made myself a cardigan and I really enjoyed it. But when I first started doing the same stitch over and over, I could see it wasn't really very neat, and it wasn't as what it was going to look like, how perfect I wanted it to be. But I didn't unravel it, I just thought, well, this is my learning progress, this is what I can look at and think how far I've come every time I wear my my cardigan, and with pride as well, actually not berating myself. And then I thought, I'm not, and I thought I could look at loads more YouTubes and get loads more information, but then I thought, and I started doing that actually, and I got a little bit defuzzled with it, going, Oh, there's too much information here. So then I read more information, I reread the um instructions, and then I thought, right, no, all I'm gonna do is carry on stitching, and I can I I I hate to imagine how many stitches are in this cardigan because it was the same stitch over and over, so probably thousands. So I thought, you know what? By the time I get to this end of this cardigan, I would have actually perfected this stitch by making the cardigan. So stop being hard on yourself, just enjoy the process. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. Enjoy the ride, and I now look at my cardigan and think, wow, look at my stitches from what I started at and the end.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

You've got a record of that journey, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

And that was just by repetition with nothing getting involved, no looking at further instruction, no asking for further advice. I just thought I will get better in time because that's what naturally happens. You you learn and you get better in time, so it's having faith in yourself, even if you have days where you think that was absolutely shit. I did all of the grounding things I needed to do, and I feel the same. You did it, and then you'll do it again tomorrow, and it might be better, or it might not be, but it will get better in time, I promise you.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Okay, so I will not that you were telling me directly about that, so it wasn't like a counselling session for me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah, just to reiterate that he said that then because I was staring at his eyes when I was telling him that deep into his soul. So, thank you as ever, and I will look forward to recording one. Well, we both will about grounding for well, that won't be for a couple of weeks, will it? Because you're away from away for 10 days, Portugal, but I will be back shortly, and then I will do it. And thank you as always for listening.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Thank you, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

See you soon, and we'll see you soon. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Bye.