131 ~ Mining for Gold: Learning From Conflict and Mistakes

What if the pattern that keeps draining you is also your best teacher? We go straight into the messy middle from money spirals, to relationship loops, and those same arguments we swear we won’t enter again to show how to mine them for real, usable gold. Instead of blame or self-loathing, we practice a value-neutral “incident report”: what happened, where we went unconscious, and which hook pulled us in. That simple lens reveals consent with conflict, we don’t have to accept every invitation to argue and anchors the “hula hoop” rule of staying in our own circle of control.

We open up about long, difficult chapters, including life changes that outpaced the nervous system: divorce, leaving careers, selling homes, spending windfalls, and the shame that trailed behind. Brick by brick, we rebuilt finances, self-trust, and boundaries, with help from mentors, and friends who could hold a clean mirror. The turning point is declaring a cycle complete, and sealing the lessons. When awareness arrives sooner, loops shorten. When we ask and answer, “Why was this perfect for my learning?” we extract value.

You’ll hear practical tools you can use today. Spotting early tells before a blowup, choosing not to engage, shifting from control to responsibility, and borrowing purpose from what you love when self-compassion feels thin. The result is wisdom woven into who you are, that no one can take from you. If you’re ready to mine for gold and stop Groundhog Day living, begin by claiming your part. Taking responsibility for what's your's molds you into the person that's ready for what’s up next. This conversation will meet you where you are and nudge you forward.

If this resonated, share it with a friend. Then use the following episode highlights to discuss your own points of views and deepen that friendship.

• naming repeating patterns without shame
• incident-report method to map triggers and hooks
• consent with conflict/choosing not to engage
• boundaries and the “stay in your hula hoop” rule
• brick-by-brick repair of finances and self-trust
• closing a nine-year cycle and sealing lessons
• using community, mentors and support to integrate
• borrowing purpose when self-compassion feels thin
• practical questions to extract insight and act

What's a cycle that you've decided I'm done, I've learned my lesson? Where are you ready to take responsibility for your part and own what's yours, stand tall, and move on.

Transcript

Welcome And Core Belief

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood, relationships, and my business. Desire has taken me on quite a ride, and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married, I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of Tired and Wired, and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker, and a forever student.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners, on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

Safety, Capacity, And Why We’re Here

Noticing Patterns And Incident Reports

Choosing Not To Engage In Fights

SPEAKER_00 1:12

On the Desire is Medicine podcast, we talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked: being responsible for our desire. Welcome back, family, friends, listeners. So excited to be here today. But let's be honest, I'm excited all the time. Especially to record. I love it when Brenda and I record, and she's here, of course, which is I love. We've had some conversations around money and security and like what are all the factors that we look at when we're thinking about our safety and this conversation around what is safe, what is not safe, you know, are you at capacity? Are you at the edge? Are you regulated, not regulated? Are you being reactive? Like there's just so many terms. And today, hopefully, we're gonna bring something to you that is less mental and pretty basic as a human, which is all around why are we here? And how do we do our best to not live out like groundhog day? Groundhog day. I heard someone, this is gonna be so crass, and I heard somebody the other day say same shit, different toilet. I was like, oh my goodness. How do we live a life that's not same shit, different toilet? Or for some of us, same shit, same toilet. And sometimes it can really feel like we're just in the muck of it over and over and over again. And sometimes we have some themes. The other day when I was looking at my goals for 2026, or what do I want to do? What do I want to put my attention on? I was like, oh my God, I want to improve my health, my wealth, my relationships. Like, shoot me. When is this gonna end? Like, when do I get a better report card? What is happening? And we've talked about Brenda and I have discussed with you guys that this is part of being human. We all want more. We want to experience more love, more joy. I want to call it more money, but being better with money, better relationships. We want like bigger, badder, better. And we've also talked about we can't go anywhere without accepting where we are right now and seeing how right now is perfect. But today we're gonna talk about what it looks like when we start looking at what some what has occurred. We start looking for patterns and we really start mining for gold. And what does that look like? And one of the first steps, I like one of the first things I do is what do I keep reliving over and over and over again? And I know that I've talked about this in the past. One of the biggest locations for me was that I was a great person to argue with. And so I get really passionate and sort of lost in my thoughts, and I can just go all in like a dog with its bone, and I don't want to let go. And then I started to notice, oh, I'm always in these arguments. Why am I always in these arguments? And I then I was like, I could blame other people and say, well, these people are stupid, or these people like to argue, or it's just that such and such gets under my skin. Oh, you know, this person is insert said thing, and that's why it's bugging me. Or I can ask myself, what am I doing to contribute to this? I'm like, oh, I'm engaging. How do I not engage? Where am I hooked in? Where am I? Something happens and it requires us going this slow, this meticulous, like a police report. What happened? They said this, I said that, this, that, the other thing. And really seeing the incident report number one, incident report number two, incident report number three, so that you can get to the place where you go, oh, okay, I see. Usually someone is talking about said thing. I get hooked, I go in, and the next thing you know, I'm already knee deep or halfway into the argument, went unconscious somewhere. How do I become more conscious? And then I can start working for how can I do that differently? And then I get to ask myself, why was this perfect? Why did I need to go through this? What do I know now how to do that I did not know before? And for me, one of the things that I didn't know was I don't have to engage. Like if somebody picks a fight with me, whether it's an argument or a physical fight or whatever combination of something like that, I don't have to say yes. I don't have to actually engage or meet them halfway or meet them three quarters or however. I I get to not engage, I get to choose whether or not I want to engage in that sort of confrontation, conflict, etc. But one of the things I learned was that only because I'm a great person to fight with doesn't mean that I have to say yes. I also learned that I was there are some moments in time where I'm the perfect one for the job. Right? I'm great at it. Why not? All of this to say, let's talk about mining for gold. So Brenda has been over here working hard, looking at 2025. She's like, close that one, close that one, close that one, close that one. The other day she said to me, I'm ready to just take it. And I was like, what does that mean? She's like, I'm ready to take the lesson. So maybe you are where she was, and maybe you want to take the lesson. Let's bring that bring Brenda on and let's talk about what that's all about. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

So good, Catherine. My Alexa is beeping in the background. My Alexa likes this as well. Why do I keep reliving this over and over? What a freaking Greek question to ask yourself. It's so easy to blame everybody else because it's everybody else's fault. It definitely takes two to tango, but you are 50% of the equation. Let me reframe that. I am 50% of the equation. And what why was this perfect? We can beat ourselves up till the end of time. And there is a moment to take the lesson, folks. Why was this perfect? And we don't mean that it went the way you wanted, because it very often doesn't. We mean, okay, you messed that up again, you crashed and burned, you spent all your money, you broke up your relate your relationship again, you yelled at your kids again, you quit that job. Okay, you don't have more income. All right. What did you learn? And until you're willing to look at that and take responsibility for your part, it will be groundhog day. And I think it needs to be groundhog day for a while because you can't see the pattern unless you do it a whole bunch of times. That's just the way it works. Right? You you don't see it until it repeats itself so many times, and you're like, oh, this is interesting. This keeps happening. Maybe maybe everyone else is an asshole if that is possible. But maybe you are also a bozo on the bus and you look at yourself. And until you start looking at yourself, you're kind of just in the field, foddering around, creating material for yourself. And once you start taking responsibility and really looking in the mirror and asking yourself, why was this perfect for my soul? What am I here to learn? That's when if you're in a video game, you've just entered a new world. You're in a completely different world.

Taking The Lesson Without Self-Blame

SPEAKER_00 10:09

I want to jump in and talk about this real quick because I think that when we tell each other, where I definitely have heard this in the past, like, why is this perfect? And then someone says to me, Oh my goodness, you think that what happened to me is perfect? When we're ready to look at the conditions of something and where we are playing our part, when we're ready to take inventory, we're not really looking at it from the I hurt my feelings factual place. Like, or my feelings got hurt, or I can't necessarily be activated emotionally in order to see it. Because if I'm activated emotionally, well, it's clearly everybody else's fault. I would never be able to see what my lesson is. I would never be able to see, oh, part of getting baited by others, part of engaging in argument after argument after argument, had me really clean up my communication. Had me really clean up boundaries. It had me decide when I was no longer available for somebody else's conflict. Like, oh, I don't want to engage, decide, have better boundaries, and decide when I was going to stay in the ring and when I was going to opt out. Not my circus, don't care, don't care about the monkeys. And but that would not have happened if I wasn't like rubbing against the concrete in discomfort of what was happening. So when we're looking and we're mining for gold and we're asking ourselves, what am I here to, like, what are the lessons available here? We get to look at it and we're we're going with a fine-toothed comb or with a flashlight magnifying glass. We're looking for lessons, but not from the place of why was it perfect for me to total my car? That's not the question, right? Because if we're looking at it from the lens of why this is horrendous, why this was horrible to experience. And then I'm trying to look for the gold. Well, I'm not finding it because I'm too sad and too upset and too victimized by what happened. I have to be more value neutral. And I think that's what Brenda says when she says, Oh, it's gonna be groundhog day for a while. And it's because, yes, we have to sort of go through it enough times where we don't feel like, oh, this always happens to me. What, like where we're able to look at something from a more unbiased view. Does that make sense? Totally.

Value-Neutral Reflection And Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I mean, the version of that for me with fighting with people, that that's not mine. Of course, we would have completely different examples. Mine is something that you will probably have not ever done. Of course. My mine is getting too involved in other people's stuff. I would be controlling in my relationships. And historically, I'm just in my partner's business, taking his inventory, finding out what is wrong with him, why is he doing it wrong? Why is everyone else doing it wrong? Because clearly I have all the right answers over here. Clearly, right? And it's such a place of powerlessness and frustration and disconnection. I went through it so many times in my life, perhaps even recently, a cycle, and the cycles get shorter and shorter. I can fold into that very easily. I would just find myself disconnected, frustrated, blaming my partner instead of looking at what is my role here. You need to ask your, you said you need to ask yourself what happened? Like what happened for me? I need to get my ass into my own hula hoop. That's what I need to do. I need to get my ass into my own hula hoop and get out of everybody else's. And that's my place of sobriety. Because I've been involved in other people's hula hoops, deciding what they should do and why my idea is the best. And nobody likes that. It's not connecting. It's actually very disconnecting and it's super unsexy. So anytime I find myself overly blaming someone, that's the alarm for me. And it's I'm talking about really in relationship and partnership. If I'm blaming my partner, finding him wrong, and hating him, I'm I'm not in my hula hoop. As soon as I get into my hula hoop and I ask myself, what do I have control over? What can I do? Where am I not taking responsibility? Where am I not in my pleasure? That's it. I just reoriented to myself. And I had to groundhog that digit so many times, like years, decades, honestly. And it's hard when you're in the groundhog day of it.

The Hula Hoop Rule In Relationships

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Really? I love how you spoke about, you know, the cycles get shorter and shorter. And then you said, Oh, when you catch yourself, you're like, oh, I see what's happening here. I think just want to let the listeners know that's what you mean. Like the cycles get shorter and shorter because you become conscious in the pattern faster. And so you can exit. You say, Oh, I see where I'm at. I'm in this argument. Oh, I see where I'm at. I'm wanting to choose what this person should do because I think I know best for them. Let me see my way out of this and let them figure that part out. I actually did have that. You said you don't think I had that. I did have that really heavily before my 30s. I think early 30s was the place where I got really sober around that one. I'm sure it pops up because I don't think anything is ever 100%. Especially that one. Like that one is one we want to get involved in other people's stuff. We want them to do X because we're uncomfortable in whatever they're living with. And we just want it to go away. Like, if you could just X, Y, or Z, this would all go away. And the truth of the matter is that there will always be a rub. Something will always be happening because we're all learning, not just us, but other people. And so nobody's life is going to be bump free. Everyone is going to have ups, downs. And the only thing that is manageable or in our control is what are we going to be responsible for? What's ours? And are we going to make the best out of this? Because we could be on the floor crying, screaming, and kicking that we don't want it while it's happening, or start to really work with the dough of it, let's call it like the muck of it and really grab the gold that we can. Like this is really like mining for gold, whether it's we failed at something and we get to look back in hindsight and say to ourselves, what did I learn there? I think worst case scenario, I mean, when we can't even see what we're learning, at the very least, we know what not to do. Like, oh, all these things that I've tried, they have not helped this situation. And so I at least know can't do those things. Like those things are, I can scratch those off. I gotta find different ways, new ways. But Brenda, you recently were looking back and closing loops. And how has that experience been for you? Oh my God.

Control Versus Response In Daily Life

Closing A Nine-Year Life Cycle

SPEAKER_01 18:04

It's been amazing. And I love how you said the loop, the the cycles get shorter and shorter because we have more awareness. I had a huge cycle. We just closed this collective nine-year cycle from 2016 to 2025. And that's what Catherine was talking about. And I had so much transformation, basically from 2011, a lot of changes in that time. And then 2016 set me off on a brand new trajectory. And I had a lot of huge life changes. And in retrospect, they were probably too much for my nervous system, too much and too fast, right? And I didn't know how to do it any other way. So it ended me up in this really difficult position in a variety of ways. It just totally bottomed me out. I got a divorce, I left my job, I sold my house, I got all the money, I spent the money, I was in self-disgust because of all of that. I can't even tell you how much I beat myself up in those years. Like 2018, even probably 2023 is when I started to really learn to have better compassion with myself. And our self-love series really helped me a lot with that going through that. And wow, all of that to learn to love and accept myself. Because I couldn't take a subtle hint. I needed to lose everything, pretty much everything. Because when I took an inventory, I realized, oh, I actually have the most important things. I have my children, I have my mother, I have really dear friends, I even have my grandmother's diamond rings, which is a freaking blessing. I have so much in my life. So this idea that I lost everything isn't even true. And that was such a gift to see in my in itself. I had to be homeless, broke, and embarrassed in order to wake up. It just had to be that loud for me, folks. It's that humble. By the time this drops, this will all be on my Instagram. So you can go and read all the dirty details. It's really quite good because it was a huge cycle of making a mess and cleaning it up. Like Catherine said, mining for the gold. Well, before it's gold, it's what is it before it's gold? Some kind of unprecious metal. Yeah, some material. Right. It's like raw material. And like Rumpel Stillskin, you can spin the straw into gold. You can mine it into gold. And at the end of 2025, when I heard that it was the collective nine-year cycle closing, I hadn't heard of it until that moment. It was a giant truth bomb that landed in my body. And it was like I could see a door open in that moment, the door to my own freedom by choosing to close the cycle well. And I had been working on these things for many years. And it was time. It was time to close it. There was a time to seal it when you've worked on things a lot. And I've worked on these pieces. I've worked on my finances, brick by brick. I'm still working on. On that. I've worked on loving myself brick by brick. I've worked on my lineage pattern of survival and homelessness and desperation, brick by brick. And then there came a time at the end of 2025 where it was time to close it up, seal it up, and claim the lessons. I've been feverishly behind the scenes closing those cycles, writing about them. I went to a full-day retreat with Olivia Lara Owen. We've had her on twice on the podcast. Check her out. She was wonderful. She's wonderful with endings. And she held beautiful space to help me close up because, and I want to say, even as coaches and teachers, Catherine and I, we have people who hold us because we need that. So closing those cycles was tremendous. And I did not want to be in the in the constant recycling of these lessons because we can get stuck there. We can get stuck in the beating yourself up, talking about it, retelling the stories. And while I think these things will continue to unfold and I'll grow in all of these areas, it was time to draw a line in the sand and say, this is complete. These lessons are complete. I'm taking the lessons, I'm taking the gold. I've learned so much along the way. I could write a book about it. And we're moving on. Do you know how much freedom there is in that? And it's the awareness. You have to see it. And so when my friend Ali Hoffman told me about it, it just landed in my body.

Brick-By-Brick Repair And Support

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It's it's time to close this out. Well, you've done so well. I love so far reading the things on Instagram. And I'm sure our listeners are gonna love it. You're doing such a great job at just like sharing your lessons along the way and bringing people on for the ride, which is really, really generous. I think it's hard to share about our lessons as we go, as we're in them. I mean, I know you're talking about a closing right now, but it's still hard. It's raw, it's personal, it's like you're opening yourself up and just bringing people, hey, come, come look at where the wound was. Come check it out. This is where the gunk used to live. And now we've cleaned it out, but come take it a look anyway. Like a like you're putting your whole life on museum display. And and it's difficult, right? We're in the coaching space and it's the way that we learn from one another. Hey, look at my experience and your experience may be somewhat like it, maybe different, maybe you're having your own, but it's all around like, can we just have more permission around the things that are just so human? Like we're not robots at the end of the day. Like when you said we can learn to mine for gold, learn to alchemize and look at our life lessons and see what is this here to teach me? What am I here to learn and gain from this? Or we can just get stuck in the muck. And for me, stuck in the muck is like it's somebody else's fault. There's nothing for me to change. I just keep having this horrendous experience. Like I keep getting a bad job, or I have a bad boss, or uh I don't like my coworkers, or all the different complaints that I hear, you know, my neighbor sucks, uh, whatever the thing is, that's completely outside of our control. Like, I have no way of controlling whether or not my neighbor is in a good mood. Like who, who has that level of control? But I can control how I respond to a neighbor who's not in a good mood. I can control how I respond to maybe a job that I don't really like that much or coworkers that I don't really appreciate. We have to sort of pause and look at what is under my control. Why are these things occurring? What are what is the gold here for me? How can I reap it and benefit from these things that I've experienced? But it does require to pause time to pause. It does require us to bring in some conscious awareness, some consciousness around it, and be with the raw material. Or ignore it, keep going, and you'll have another opportunity. I promise.

Declaring Completion And Moving On

SPEAKER_01 26:53

There's always another opportunity. And honestly, I think that rolling around in the muck and not seeing it is part of the process, especially for some of these really huge things, the ones that I was just talking about. These are some of the biggest pillars of my life and are the foundations for all of my one-on-one work. I had to roll around in the dirty, smelly muck for a long time, over and over and over again. It's just the way it is. Sometimes that's the way it is, because our resistance, for me, it was the resistance to look at the truth and face it, was so hard and so difficult that it was actually easier to be stuck in a cycle of blame and self-loathing and regret and fantasy of wishing it was something different, as torturous as that was, that was easier than looking at the truth because the truth was so painful, because I had to ask myself then, who am I? Because this idea of who I was was shaken, my entire identity was shaken. And that is so human, and I had to learn to say I am a human. I did the best that I could, I made mistakes, I am lovable. Do I want this to define me for my entire life? Am I just shit now forever? Am I dead? Or am I going to mine for the gold and pull myself up by the bootstraps and hold myself, take the lessons and move on? And it requires a backbone. It requires a backbone to stand up straight with your shoulders back and say, I did this. I did this. And while you're saying I did this, you're like, wow, I didn't really want it to turn out that way, but it did. And I'm still a confident, lovable, loving woman, even though I did this. It's so humble and so beautiful. And I want to add this piece that there were many times that I couldn't do that. There were many times where I could not find the gumption to do it for myself. The only thing that carried me through was my children. My my calling to be there for them in their life was sometimes the only thing that carried me through. They were my muses. And I was like, all right, I can't find the place that I'm going to do this for myself. I couldn't find the love for myself. But I did it for them, and that's what carried me through. And it got me here. So it's been quite a journey, and it was hard. But here I am now in this grounded, confident place. And I have so much, I have so much gold in my pockets. And that is when we have that, it's ours forever. It's like, it's like part of who you are. It's like in in your fabric. It cannot be taken away.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

It's a gift. Yes, thank you so much for sharing so generously around that. I still wonder, you know, what happens to somebody that has done a lot of personal work and then they get dementia. I don't know why I'm so curious about that one. Like, I'm like, do we revert back to being an asshole? Or like, what happens to us? I don't know. Jury's still out. I don't know anybody that did a lot of personal work and then got some dementia. I'm super curious about that, but I digressed. I think that you have just done such a gorgeous job. Thank you so much for sharing your wins and your process, your journey. And you've done it, you've laid it out so beautifully in Instagram. I definitely invite listeners to go check it out and tell us like, what is something that you're ready to own and claim? What's a cycle that you've decided? I've had enough of this one. I'm good. I've learned my lesson. I'm ready to take responsibility for my part and own what's mine, stand tall, and move on. We want this for you. We love you. Until next time.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Desire invites us to be honest, loving, and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.