The Motherhood Mentor

Embracing Authenticity and Trusting Your Inner Voice with Raina Odell

• Rebecca Dollard: Somatic Mind-Body Life Coach, Enneagram Coach, Speaker, Boundaries Coach, Mindset • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Embracing Authenticity and Trusting Your Inner Voice with Raina Odell best selling author of Bare and life coach.

Ever wondered how to truly trust your inner voice amidst the noise of all the roles and relationships you are juggling? This week on the Motherhood Mentor Podcast, we're thrilled to have Raina Odell, best selling author of her new book Bare.  Raina opens up about her transformative journey in writing a deeply personal and therapeutic book, and how she found and eventually let her deep inner knowing guide her into new versions of herself. We discuss how to know when you are ready, and what it feels like to make big moves toward what you know deep down. 

✨ In This Episode:

  1. 00:09:04 – Journey of Writing and Healing: Raina shares her inspiring path to writing Bare and the therapeutic power it has brought into her life, all set against the backdrop of bustling coffee shops and chaotic environments.
  2. 00:12:21 – Embracing Self-Discovery and Integration: Dive into the process of integrating life’s experiences and learning to embrace authenticity beyond social media’s curated images.
  3. 00:20:08 – Trusting Your Inner Knowing: Raina and I discuss the importance of trusting your inner voice and intuition, and how these elements are essential for personal growth and authenticity.
  4. 00:24:56 – Trusting Body Intuition and Inner Guidance: Explore the profound connection between body intuition and inner guidance, and how listening to these signals can lead to transformative changes.How to make decisions even in hard places like motherhood, divorce, and business. 
  5. 00:38:32 – Navigating Relationships, Community, and Self-Discovery: Discover how to balance personal growth with meaningful relationships and the importance of community in your journey of self-discovery.
  6. 00:44:49 – Discovering Safety and Joy: Raina reflects on finding joy and safety through simple pleasures, personal vision, and community, emphasizing the need for flexibility and self-trust.
  7. 00:50:53 – Finding Vision and Trusting the Process: Gain insights into developing a clear vision for your future and how taking small, intentional steps can lead to significant, positive changes.

Join us for a heartfelt conversation that blends creative expression with the courage to be authentic. Whether you're navigating self-help complexities, seeking to balance ambitions with everyday life, or looking to build a supportive community, this episode is packed with wisdom and inspiration. Tune in and take the next step in your journey of self-discovery and empowerment.

About Raina:
Best Selling Author, Life Coach, Writing Coach, and Equine Retreat Host, living in Denver Colorado. Mom of two teens, three dogs, two horses.

Where to find Raina:
Website
Buy the book / Buy Audible Version



Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.

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Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing and growth in every area of our lives. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's support for who we are. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding all of our soft and hard humanity as holy. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no-nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it. Raina, I am so excited to talk to you about your book Bear. I read it and well, actually, that's not true. I didn't read it, I listened to it.

Speaker 2:

I listened to the audio which I always love because you get to hear their voice you get to hear, like their emotion.

Speaker 1:

And the whole time listening to your book, I kept having this thought of like. What did it feel like to write this book of? Like what did it feel like to write this book Like? The process, the emotion, the like, the, the like becoming so much of your story, so much of your book? Is these different lives and kind of the relationship at least the way that I heard it, it was like your relationship to yourself, but also your relationship to all these different facets and moving people and business. And what did it feel like to write, bear and to put it out into the world?

Speaker 2:

Terrifying. If I could sum it up into one word, I think it's such a loaded question. Um, I had, I have I'd known for about a decade that I was going to write a book at some point, but it was something I just kept pushing off and pushing off and thinking like you know, I'm just just me, like who's going to read it? Yet, yes, I have, you know, people will follow along on Instagram. But it's such a different, um, such a different you know thing writing an actual physical book and putting it out into the world. And, and I started it. So I met my publisher in like October of 2023 and we published in April 2024. So it was like a six month process and I hadn't written a word before meeting the publisher. I just kind of pitched my idea and that was it, and so it was actually a really interesting process in terms of just writing it in general. Like I you know, I had to remove myself from my house, so I had to go to a coffee shop because I figured I realized like I did the best writing when I was, when there's like chaos around me and I could kind of like zone out into this. It was a weird you know flow that I kind of got into. But I wrote yeah, I wrote most of the book in a coffee shop, um, and the whole process of it. At first she was like having me kind of journal on different pieces of my life, Cause I'm a big journaler and that was kind of how I got into my flow was by starting to journal. So she had me kind of journal in different pieces of my life and then I had to kind of stop and say, okay, it's hard to share, it's hard to write about this story without first explaining this, and then it's hard to explain that without first going back here. So I had to kind of tell myself to start chronologically. So I, you know, as you know, kind of started from like the very beginning being like these are who my parents were, and I think from there, just kind of like every single chapter just kind of came out. And then I separated the chapters into different lives Because it felt like each chapter, each life, it felt like that was a situation where I was leaving a version of myself behind and kind of entering into this new life, season of Reina, or new mindset, new headspace, new physical like like kind of a whole bunch of different, 40 different lives. Um, yeah, so it was.

Speaker 2:

It was an interesting process to actually writing the book. It was very therapeutic, um, very terrifying at the same time. But I had been so active on social media since you know, 2013, basically. So I feel like I think that was another reason why I waited so long to write it. I feel like I think that was another reason why I waited so long to write it. I was like I feel like everybody knows everything, but then, when I recapped situations and wrote down everything, I was like, oh, I actually didn't share like even a portion of it. You know what I mean? Like there was so much that had been kind of kept to myself, as I think a lot of us do.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, yeah, well, and sharing sharing such like a raw, vulnerable version where, like social media, even when we feel like we're adding so much, we forget that, like it's such like a blip of, like the whole experiential part of it, of like not just what happened but how it felt and you know the whole beginning, middle end of the story. I think what I love about books and what I love about that long context is it actually helps people understand the humanity. It's like you're no longer looking at a persona on social media. You're, you're actually experiencing the person, and I think that we miss out on that on social media. Even when you are someone who's being authentic and raw and vulnerable on social media, there's this more depth, at least for me, that's. That's how I experience it, both ways.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I look back and I think there was a version of me that would have been like no, I am so authentic, I share everything. Like for a season of my life, my camera was like I didn't share you know a drink of coffee without sharing, I have a coffee, you know what I mean. Like I shared every single thing in my life. And to go through there and and write the stories, it is kind of interesting, even me being so open and sharing on social media. Even me being so open and sharing on social media, how much wasn't out there.

Speaker 2:

And I do say like I, you know, had started to make this transition from my fitness and wellness and then it was into life coaching and then it was into now I'm in this like with my, my horses and all that stuff. And I had this, you know fear posting on social media about the horses and it's like well, nobody's going to know what I'm doing. And I went from like fitness to horses. People are going to be like, so I felt like they're also kind of painted a picture, um of the maybe the evolution of me, that I didn't do a very good job sharing on social media. Not that it's anybody's business, but you know what I mean. Like getting me to point it, I think I just kind of went from point A to point B and didn't do a lot of sharing the transition and I felt like the book kind of you know, built that bridge.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it seems like a really obvious, like fitness to horses is a really common you know one minute what is happening. I, I, I love hearing that perspective, though I'm interested as you were writing it and as you were sharing it. Did the story feel different, Like when you were narrating it for yourself, that therapeutic writing process did it? Did it change the way that you saw things or experienced them, Like completely?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, completely. Um, I would get on therapy sessions and be like talking to my therapist and tell her like this situation that we've been working for months to kind of help me heal through, like I feel healed like just from writing the book in it and specifically like there was a situation in 2020 that you probably read about, where I was like kind of I went through a big identity crisis and then it kind of led into a depression that I was in and writing through that. I kind of had this out-of-body like setback and be like holy shit, I let that derail me so much, like almost the hindsight of like holy crap, but it had to happen, right, I'm a big believer that everything happened for a reason and it was like a, you know, a gradual staircase I was kind of on leading me to where I am today. But it's just interesting, reflecting back on a lot of it, where I had those feelings come up, come up of like, oh my God, I love that Debra Yomi so much.

Speaker 2:

Or oh my gosh, I let that get to me so much or that situation. I could have handled that totally different. But if I knew what I know now about just you know, our thoughts and our beliefs and even my ileostomy, like I've said out loud before, that I think what I know now about how powerful our mindset is and our thoughts and and how we kind of manifest what we think, like I feel like there's probably a possibility that I wouldn't have an ileostomy if I know what I knew now. You know what I mean. Like I think I could have done something differently back then, but I just didn't have the tools for it.

Speaker 1:

You know, yeah, Healing is such a wild journey when you're able to look back now with the knowledge and the wisdom and the maturity you have and then to look back and see like, well, you wouldn't have this now if you wouldn't have walked through that. And I think that's such a powerful lesson for where we are currently Cause I think so many women who are growth focused or healing focused, we get into this weird place where we're like hyper fixated on pulling weeds on, like what am I supposed to learn? What am I supposed to make it mean? What's the tool I need? How do I, how do I fix myself? Understanding that, like if you just let yourself live and kind of leave yourself alone a little bit, not being unaware of yourself but not being so hyper aware, where you're constantly self. In this self observation mode, you're going to miss out on the real living, which is where you're constantly self. In this self observation mode, you're going to miss out on the real living, which is where you're going to learn those lessons, whether you want to or not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Well, if you can't see, but I mean, I've got personal development books everywhere and it's been probably a year since I've picked one up because I was like they're all after a while, they're just all the same and you have all the tools. We know all the things it's more about. Okay, I need to pause and slow down and like, maybe implement some of the things, yeah, that I've been reading about, instead of just this. It's almost like a, a desperate energy. I think we get in with this healing and self-help and I'm missing something. And what do I need to be do? What more do I need to be doing? And I think it's okay, we actually need to be doing way. What more do I need?

Speaker 1:

to be doing and I think it's okay.

Speaker 1:

We actually need to be doing way less. Yeah Well, it can start being consumed. It can be like consumeristic of thinking there's something outside of yourself and I think, too, women forget that. Like if we're just constantly having input but we're never integrating it, we're never metabolizing it, we're never digesting it, it's like you want that to start becoming action and you want to kind of hands dirty with it. And if you're constantly just consuming and never slowing down, you're going to all of a sudden look around and be like, well, I had all this information in my head but I never got it into my bones. I never got it Like the messy parts of my relationship.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that yeah.

Speaker 2:

So my bones.

Speaker 1:

I like that. Yeah Well, I mean, that's been a big concept in my life of like I had the head knowledge for a really long time of my worth or how I who I wanted to be. I had that knowledge in my head but it it always felt disconnected from how I felt in my body and my bones and that like I was kind of disassociated from myself. I could tell all these stories about my life but I couldn't feel or experience them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's been a part of my journey. Yeah, when you were writing and sharing I mean privately writing how did it feel to take those sacred parts of you and let them be seen, even as someone who's used to having people see you?

Speaker 2:

Um, it was emotional. Um, there were many, you know, coffee shop sessions where I'd just be writing and crying and just because I had to relive some things, there were even parts, you know, when I did the audio book that I had to rerecord because I couldn't get through without crying, you know. So it was emotional. It definitely brought up a lot, but it was almost like it was emotional. But it was also, I think it was more a release than any other emotion. It wasn't a sad or oh my gosh, this happened, or oh my gosh, now people know, or any of these things. It was more of this like, like the tears were, like me releasing I do feel like sense bear, it's like it just feels. It just feels like it's like the lives, those are the lives that I'm going this, you know what.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it was almost just really therapeutic to be able to release all of the things. And you know there weren't any. There wasn't anything in there that I feel that I hadn't said out loud before to at least one person, so it didn't feel like there was anything um that I was like worried about people finding out, or do you know what I mean? Like nothing like that. It felt very like I was just ready to share, yeah, and I, and I put it all out there. Yeah, I, you know.

Speaker 1:

I love that because I think there's a theme that I see often with women where we're so afraid to tell our truth, even to ourselves, yet alone that one other person, even to ourselves, yet alone, that one other person. Do you feel like? Being able to tell that one other person is part of how you got to be in this place, where you were able to just fully tell that kind of truth and vulnerability, you know, in a book or on social media.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I I had pushed it off for so long, right the the actual writing and sharing process of it. But I think I think you know, when you hear something over and over and over and it would, you know, every month for a decade I would hear, oh my gosh, you should write a book, or, you know, get get messages in the DMs or um, or even just have it come up in my journaling of, like I had like just the power of my writing and even doing my newsletters, like I think that's when it really started was when I started to do a deeper dive and be more vulnerable in my newsletters. Um, having people email back and say, oh, you know, oh my gosh, it's resonated, or oh, this is how I relate, or just having people really resonate with that um was kind of the fuel to the book fire. But I probably would have put it off even longer had I not like I think the universe like put me in this space, that I went to this like women's event and the leader of the women's event was this was my book publisher and I had no idea and I was like, oh, she stood on stage and was like sharing her story and talking about.

Speaker 2:

You know how important it is to get our messages out there and our stories out there. And I'm like shit, I think I'm here because I'm supposed to write a book with her. So I like introduced myself and then it just happened. So I think it was like I did it when I was supposed to. Um, you know, I look back and I'm like a year ago I wouldn't have been ready to. There's like no other life that I would have had the ability to kind of go into the depth I did in the book and share the way I did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, was there a feeling you mentioned like not feeling ready? Was there a moment like even when you approached her, did you have this readiness or did you have this like kind of pull or nauseating?

Speaker 2:

fear readiness or did you have this like kind of pull or nauseating fear nauseating fear is that and also a knowing. Yes, it was like this. This knowing it's what I'm supposed to do, but it's so scary and so tedious and I don't have time for it and I've got two teenagers, and you know what I mean. There was like a hundred different excuses that came in, but there was this. The deeper part of it was just this knowing if I'm supposed to write a book and I don't know what it's supposed to look like, I don't know if it's even going to do well, hopefully I sell one, but like, do you know what I mean? It was like it doesn't even matter what happens with it. It's supposed to be. I'm supposed to write it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That answer your question? I yes, and I think that's so powerful because I think there's so many women, especially I, you know. I look at these women who have this, this desire to do something. There's this desire to build something that other people will see or that will impact others, or even something as simple as leaving America. Not simple something, something like leaving America, something that people is like. Leaving America, something simple is just like deconstructing your entire life, or leaving a church or getting married, or deciding that the person that you're dating. How do?

Speaker 2:

you decide?

Speaker 1:

how do you know when you're ready? I think women can get in this place, where there's been this common theme that I've been hearing over and over and seeing in women of I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't, and they're allowing their emotions to rule their decision and I love that. I was like what did it feel like when you were ready?

Speaker 2:

And I think I forget your exact wording, but like terrified, like not good, it wasn't this like butterflies and like love at first sight that's been the theme through every pivot right Of life that I've had is like it doesn't feel good, but I know I'm supposed to do this thing and I am a big believer and I like it's been mocked before in relationships being like well, we're going to follow your gut and I'm like no, I'm my gut is not. It knows.

Speaker 1:

Don't question a woman's intuition. Don't question a woman's intuition.

Speaker 2:

Let me tell you I get these, you know it's a feeling, and when I feel that I've got this like radar, that goes up where I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2:

but like my sniffer goes like what's what needs to shift, and I think writing really helped me in kind of working through the feelings that would come up. Um, because it would you know, I'd write saying like I don't my last relationship, for example, like I don't think this is the relationship I'm supposed to be in. Yet my brain was like stay, it's comfortable, it's great on paper and and all of of the and it's safe and it's kind of and we have to separate all these things and do all that. But my gut was like you need to get the cookout. I don't know if I'm supposed to kind of send you a thing?

Speaker 1:

oh you, I love. You're great.

Speaker 2:

You love spice okay, good, but I was like you know what I mean. It was like this deep knowing of like this is not where you're supposed to be, but making, making that decision is the hardest thing. But I'll quote like my ex mother-in-law at one point said Raina, when you know you're done, or when you're done, you'll know you're done, like there won't be any of this, like back and forth, it won't be any of this whatever. And I I mean I wrote about it in the book being like I knew the second I was done and I knew it was like the easiest decision. After that, when I was done, to just go, and it's the same with even, you know, getting my ileostomy, like sitting in that hospital room and him being like, okay, these are, and I'm like like that's the direction I'm going. There's like zero doubt in my mind that that's where I'm going to thrive is going with having an ileostomy.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean and so it's, I think, for me listening to those gut feelings and then writing through what is the gut feeling and then what are the things coming up? And are those facts coming up or are those old stories coming up? And if they're old stories, where are they coming from? And like just getting curious about the emotions and the thoughts that come up around that decision that I need to make.

Speaker 1:

It's so interesting how so many of us go to thinking to try to solve the problem. It leads us into this overthinking, which actually can distract us from what we know, and I think that happens in so many areas of our lives. And I'm curious for you and let me know if this sounds like the weirdest woo question what does that knowing feel like in your body? Like where do you feel it and what's the experience of it? Because I think there's so many women who they don't.

Speaker 1:

They don't trust that knowing, they don't trust that intuition, because it doesn't feel like at least for me, there is a sense of power and groundedness, but there's, there's a massive amount of charge and activation and sometimes that's actually how I know is there's a big emotional reaction. I'll have a thought. There's this giant emotional reaction that everything in me is resonating, saying like, yes, that's it. And then I start thinking to try to like, distract myself from what I know and I'm like oh, I don't know, I don't know, but it's like this deep in my belly what is that experience like for you, if you know?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, I do know. So I did EMDR a lot with my therapist, which you know. During EMDR she's like okay, where in your body is that? What does it feel like? So I had I've I've gotten really good at that where years prior it's probably just been like I just feel it and it's. You know what I mean Like this kind of erratic feeling, um, but I have two. I have like a, a no feeling and I have a hell yes feeling. And the no feel, like I, as you were saying, I was like pushing right here, like right under my chest. You know what I mean. Like right in my stomach, like just the it's a, it's a not. That I'll feel when it's a no, like a, a, a not. And then the yes for me is almost like a wave of like okay, I get to drop my shoulders, like it's almost like a head into body rush. I don't even I know, Does that make sense? I don't even know how to explain it.

Speaker 1:

When I, when you were talking about I was like I can feel how it feels and I'm like I don't know how to explain that.

Speaker 2:

But it just feels like this okay, like an, okay exhale, you know, yeah, and it sounds like you trust that feeling in your body. I trust it because I have evidence of it like not letting me down.

Speaker 1:

Wow you know that's really powerful.

Speaker 2:

But I, you know, and I think it's, I think I wrote, I think that's what I wrote about in my last sub stack, but I just following and acting on those urges and downloads and feelings and all those things, I think is like one of the hardest things to do, but I think it gets easier and easier and easier. And I think is like one of the hardest things to do, but I think it gets easier and easier and easier. And I think it's easier for me now because I have listened and acted so many times. But it's still. You know, I'll still get like worked up and a little nervous and a little you know butterflies and like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

And you know the thoughts go of like is this going to work out? Yeah, you know the kind of self doubt that comes in with that stuff, but it's never let me down, not once. And if I've ignored it before and ignored it and ignored it and ignored it, and then you know, a year down the road, when I finally listened to it, I go, oh, that's what that was, that's what you know. I remember 2020 to 2022, every single morning I would wake up with a racing heart racing. I would immediately start sweating and it would be a pit in my gut and I'd be like why am I feeling like this?

Speaker 2:

And so I like scrounged around and I'm like maybe it's work. And so I shifted my whole work that you know like the layout of my business, and started acting, you know, in my business in a different way, that felt more aligned. And I would still wake up with it and I'm like what is this feeling? And why am I waking up feeling like this? And it was relationship, right, it's just like this is not where you're supposed to be, this is not where you're supposed to be in that constant message coming through and when you finally listen, finally listen, and like when that relationship ended, it was like, oh my God, like I wake up feeling like a million bucks, yeah, immediately.

Speaker 1:

There's so much in that, because I really do think there's this pattern that women have learned in our culture and that is to ignore our emotions, that our emotions are illogical have learned in our culture and that is to ignore our emotions, that our emotions are illogical.

Speaker 2:

And don't get me wrong, I'm you know.

Speaker 1:

I have PMDDs. So like there are times where my emotions are real, they are dramatic and they're being like a teenage girl and I need to be like just go take a bath, like go take a nap. Think about this later.

Speaker 2:

But it's good that you know that, but it's good that I know that you need that yourself.

Speaker 1:

And I also know that there is such a deep intelligence and wisdom that happens below our necks, that happened in our emotion and that happens in our body and, like I wish I used video because, like what both of us were doing when we were talking about that yes and that no, I think so many women are struggling, making you've had to make some pretty big life shifts and pivots and, like you said once, you listened to that knowing even if no matter how long it took you listening to that is what evolved you and what gave you the life you have now. And the life that you're creating sounds like a life that you really love, that like feels an integrity, and it aligns with your values and that's what so many women want, and yet they're cutting themselves off from that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Is there a season in your life where that started happening? Has that, do you feel like you've always trusted that, or do you feel like it took a couple different lessons of not trusting it and seeing what happened?

Speaker 2:

It took. You know, I was in a marriage for 12 years that I should, I should have left. I should have never even gone past night two. You know what I mean Like, and I stayed for 12 years.

Speaker 2:

Um, I was in a four-year relationship that I was journaling, you know, a year into that, being like I don't think this is the relationship I'm supposed to be in, but I saved three more years. You know what I mean. So there's, even with my illness, like there were signs that I had and I'm very good at being like no, that's not. No, that's probably not it, that's probably not it, and just carry on and carry on and carry on. Instead of like pausing, to like okay, I don't feel right. Um, so I'm going to like try to find out what's going on.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I was constantly just like almost in survival mode, I think, in a lot of those situations where I was just kind of blocking out thoughts that would come in and body feelings that would come in. Um, you know, specifically like the the 2020, 2022, 2023, ish, I would sit down at that's. When I kind of that was like, when I was really like okay, I don't something, I shouldn't be waking up feeling like this. I don't know if it's anxiety, maybe it's depression. I started reading books on depression and kind of ruled out some stuff. I read about anxiety, kind of ruled out some stuff.

Speaker 2:

So I got in that season. I wasn't really listening, but I knew something was wrong and so that was when I really started journaling to figure out, like just to get curious right and to help start ruling things out. And that's when, you know, I can look at my very first journal entry and then look at, you know, a year or two ago and just see like, oh, I knew then, I knew then. But I had to like go through this space, this season of questioning that and testing that and getting curious about these things, where I now know I'm like, oh no, that's a yes, that's a no, that's like it's more automatic. Now, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. But I had to go through this couple of years of just insane curiosity and digging and testing and challenging myself to say, okay, is that that real or is that?

Speaker 1:

in my head. Well, it's an embodied skill. It's like when women are first coming to coaching or working with me, it's like this is so hard. Will it always feel this hard?

Speaker 1:

And I was like for a while, yes, when I was first learning boundaries or how to do conflict, it felt so hard because I was swimming up water to what I knew. What I knew was being disassociated, what I knew was massive fawning and over-functioning and what I knew was ignoring everything. I felt because I was so good at ignoring my needs and ignoring my wisdom and just over-associating with what I had to do and be for everyone else. And so it's hard for a while until it just becomes embodied. And like I was at an event a while ago and so I just set some pretty awkward boundaries, like five times in a row with someone, and it was one of those like well-intentioned, it was fine. But like the person walks away and my friend, like looks at me and she was like what was that? And I was like I don't even know. That wasn't even hard, I didn't have to think about it, it just kind of happened. Because that skill has become embodied, I integrate it. Right, like we were talking about earlier you, you integrated that skill for yourself. You built it into your bones of following and trusting yourself to make these decisions based off of your wisdom that you innately have.

Speaker 1:

Everyone has it. It can't be given to you. It can't be taken away. You can't find it in a book. That's the thing you can be inspired to. Find it in a book, like you can get permission. That's what I do love about books, what I love about memoirs or self-help or self-development. I think it gives people permission. Yeah, like, especially a book like yours. I think there's. I hope that so many women read it and they get this permission almost just like through symbiote. That's not the right word. I don't think that's the right word. I went to see somebody. I don't even think I know what that word I don't even know what that word really used that.

Speaker 1:

My brain offered that word because it's coming out of my mouth.

Speaker 2:

I was getting ready to act like oh yeah, oh yeah, symbiosis.

Speaker 1:

I'm just going to start throwing that into conversation and I don't know what it means. Thank you, adhd, no, but like, just through relating, that's okay. That's what I was trying to say, just by relating to your story and reading it. They might not necessarily make have the same scenarios or needing to make the same decisions, but what I love of the relationship of writing, of reading, of even like journaling or reading, you give yourself this permission through relationship, which is almost always, I think, more powerful when you're relating to a person and not just a persona. And that's not to say that, like social media isn't powerful, but it's different because there's not the depth and the nuance that our human animal bodies can read Like, I think, our human animal bodies. When there's relationship, we can learn things in our bones that we'll never be able to. We might know it in our minds, but it won't change the way that we're acting Like it won't change our behavior or our actions. That's what I was trying to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I have to Google that when we get off the call, um, yeah, no, and I it's, it's interesting and I've I've had to really practice like receiving since writing the book, because I look at it and I go, well, this is just my life, this is just my story, and you know, hearing people, oh my gosh, it resonated, oh my gosh this and oh my gosh this, and it's like my hope is that you know, a little bit of the message of the book is like where you are now is where you always have to be, like you have the ability to change your circumstances. It is a choice with actions and vision and all of these things. And that's really what I hope people take away, really Like if you know you, they might resonate to pieces of the story. They might resonate to, you know, divorce or parenthood or whatever it is. But I want the reader to really just recognize like, okay, this, I am in a shitty situation.

Speaker 2:

Whatever shitty situation it looks like this is I get, I can change that. I don't have to stay here, I don't have to be here forever, and we do have the tools for that. We have the tools to get out of that. We have the body feelings we have, um you know, out of that, we have the body feelings we have, um you know, community, like I there, I got out of. Every situation I shifted out of was because of vision and community. Wow, yeah, you know what I?

Speaker 1:

mean, what did that community look like for you, or has it been different?

Speaker 2:

season, season. It shifted in so many seasons and I think before 2013,. Um, I don't think I really had it. I think it was in family a lot, which is where I kind of look back and I go, okay, I could have like I felt kind of brainwashed to an extent, if that makes sense, cause it wasn't my family, it was X family. So there was a little bit where I feel like, oh, I just didn't, I didn't know any better in that prior to 2020 and or 2013.

Speaker 2:

And then that's when I kind of started the wellness business and with that wellness business came a community. It wasn't like I had to try to develop that, it was like an automatic community and that community I kind of, you know, absorbed and then started to branch off and build my own, and that was like that community became my anchor for a decade. That was like I had, you know, the friendships that I developed in that community, like they would after I divorced would fly out and stay with me for a few days or, when I was in the hospital, fly out and stay with the girls for a couple of days. They're like send me care packages in the hospital, like traveled with them, like it was just that was really a big anchor and having when I wasn't in a space to listen to myself, it was nice to have people to like, share what was going on and receive advice or guidance, or you should do this or don't think about that, or you know what I mean. It was just nice to have that, that pack, um.

Speaker 2:

And then I would say, like you know, after my last relationship, that community kind of faded away and I had to then, you know, in the book, find that in myself. It was a piece of like, okay, what am I not getting in my relationship? What am I not getting in my life? What am I lacking that I really need to start learning how to give myself. And, um, you know, a big piece of that was like listening to myself instead of looking for someone on the outside to kind of give advice or fix the situation or help me through different things I needed to have. I needed to figure out how to work through those things on my own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like there's such a. I'm hearing you say that there's such a value in having community and that your relationships have the power to to completely shift your reality without you even necessarily trying, like it's happening on an unconscious level, that, like our animal bodies are relating to what's going on around us and that's becoming our reality, and so it's like it's so powerful and important to have that community but not to fully outsource yourself to that.

Speaker 2:

Not to be dependent on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so still having that resource in yourself so that you are connected and can receive from others, but so that you're not outsourcing all of like your sovereignty and your knowing and even your action on people and getting lost in that. It's like this, it's this healthy balance between I think validation is like actually really healthy for us there. I would not be where I am today if I didn't have mentors and friends and people, masterminds with me, telling me things about myself that I absolutely did not know about me, that I couldn't see or couldn't believe, because I had framed my whole self concept from a community that I don't actually fully resonate with all of their values or with how they show up or how they talk or how they live. And then I left that and I was missing these pieces of identity almost, and so it was so to have people speak that into me, but then also to own that and integrate it as my own, not just their opinion of me, right Like this is not their opinion.

Speaker 1:

They're just reflecting back what they see, and sometimes that can be a really great thing. But you also have to have that discernment of when it's becoming a crutch that's not supporting you and helping you, because you have a broken foot but you're leaning on it instead of your own integral strength.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's. Yeah, I, the space I was in recognition and validation was like like vomited on you, like constantly, and so I think when that went away, that's why I had to have such a deep and I still struggle with it to this day. I have a mentor now that hopped on the call the other day and she was like Raina, you are like a lion that looks in the mirror and see the mouse, and I, and it's crazy, cause I hear that and I'm like, I am like it's, you know, people could tell me all day all of these things and I think that's why I've had to work so much on like receiving like words from the book and being like, oh my gosh, this book is amazing, and I'm like, really, it's my story, you know what I mean. So I still it's still something I struggle with to this day. So it's just, it's just constantly a work in progress, I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm really curious and this might feel too personal, but when people tell you negative things, do you believe them? Versus positive things?

Speaker 2:

You know, prior to 2020, I would have been like in one ear and out the other, yeah, but the situation that happened that I wrote about in the book in 2020, that felt so much of like an attack on character that I started to question everything. I was like, oh my God, am I that person? Oh my God, do people really think that? Like and I've had a hard time rebuilding that what if they're right? And I'm just blinders on, and there's parts of you that probably believe it and agree, parts of you that probably believe it and agree, yes, yeah, 100%. And I look back now and I go, okay, yes, like, yes, there were, there were definitely pieces of of what happened that were true and that, had the crash of 2020 not happened, like, I probably never would have shifted those things and I can't imagine who I'd be today if I hadn't shifted those things. And so there is. I am grateful for a lot of that.

Speaker 2:

But there is, um, you know, there is still a lingering like when you hear negative things being like oh my gosh, is that? Is that true? Um, and I'm better now, like I would say, over these last, this last year or so, like I'm better now at kind of reminding, especially social media. It's can be such a beautiful place but also such a nasty place, and so I I've had to. It's a place I've had to have boundaries around, strong boundaries on social media, being like, okay, this is like, does it? What are my gut feelings? Right? If anything challenges that negative gut feeling, it's like out of my nope, not absorbing that, not absorbing that and trying to kind of protect that space you know, yeah, not taking it in all the time.

Speaker 1:

I think for so many women we are just these sponges of like, wanting validation, that when people give us anything, we just like take it and knowing that like that's not mine, that's that sounds like your thing especially people on the internet of just knowing when it's like are they even close enough to make? Are they even close enough to be able to make that sort of a judgment or that feedback?

Speaker 2:

or that, and see what's crazy is like logical mind. I know that I go, they don't, they don't know me, but my body is like what? If it's true, you know what I mean. So it's, it's the. That's why EMDR was so powerful, because it was like helping to kind of rewire the bodily to catch up with your brain. Almost you know what I mean. It's just yeah, it takes it takes time, yeah and even you know.

Speaker 2:

I think it's a lifelong thing, like I can write and release and be like, yep, I feel good about all the things from there. But it doesn't stop something from happening that you feel in your physical body and being like why am I? I am so over that thing, but it still can kind of show up in our body, you know.

Speaker 1:

Well, so much of our memory, so much of our knowing isn't even in our head, and I think our culture has done such a disservice of prioritizing mindset, which, like I'm all for mindset, mindset's great, but like anxiety and all of these things don't just happen in our brains, like it's not just mental health, like it's actually like your entire body, not to mention like your soul, your spirit, whatever that people call it, different things, but like that knowing, that part of you that is connected to. I think each person has this part of them that holds their worth and dignity, that holds their sovereign choosing and their self-responsibility, and I think we haven't taught people to value that, to feel it, to let it guide them. I'm so curious what is the current life you're in right now? Like if you were to go write a book or a chapter. Like the number Right, like cause. You're, like the lives you're living, like what's the current life you're living now? Like what's the story that you're currently writing with your life right now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I, I've kind of referred to this season. I'm in now as like life number, like 42. Um, the book ends at like 40. And so I feel like I'm in like 42, maybe about to be in like 43 ish. Yeah, um, and I'm only. I'm 37, by the way, I hate that Like it ended. I wish it would have like matched the years, cause I'm like I'm not 40.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but some of us live more lives. That's true. That's true, that's a real reality.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true. Um, that's true. Um gosh, I don't even know. I am currently just deep in my joy. Um, I am.

Speaker 2:

I did a podcast yesterday and she was talking. She like referred to me as like the consistency and routine and I go no, no, no, no, no, I'm, I go, that's, I'm not that anymore. The book ended and it may have been like she's still consistent, but it's not me, and I explained it in this sense of like I think for so many years I had and I don't know how long you followed on Instagram, but like you could not interrupt my daily routine for anything for so long, like you could have any curve ball. I'd be like like bouncing off, like I was so consistent and so routine. But I, in this season I'm in right now, I look at that and I go that's because I felt so unsafe. I didn't feel safe by myself, I didn't feel safe in my relationship, I didn't feel safe in the business I was in. I didn't. There was no sense of safety. And so what? What did I have control of? I had control of my daily routine and the thing and how I showed up for myself.

Speaker 2:

Um, and so in this current season, I feel safe, so safe in with myself in the season that I'm in, in my relationship, in my business and what that's developing into with my kid. Like there's just such a sense of safety where, yes, I have like to do's and a flow, but that routine is just shot you know what I mean. Like I don't even do the same things that I used to do and in the flow that I did them, it's like more of like, okay, how, like? What do I like? Waking up? What do I need today? Today, I need to just have a lazy day today. We're just going to have a lazy day today. I need to work today. I'm going to work today. I want to go adventure today. I'm going to go adventure. Like there's such a sense of safety in this current chapter that I honestly can't wait to write about and can't wait to share about, but I don't know when that's going to happen. So I.

Speaker 1:

I'm like smiling ear to ear right now because I think you know, I work with so many women who are at that. I think they come to work with me and they're like we're going to create so much like consistency and routine, and it's going to be this, like I'm going to create all of this self responsibility.

Speaker 2:

And, and I'm like, yes, joy is joy.

Speaker 1:

Like there is a reality that, like joy, is an interruption to what you think is supposed to happen. Like you have. All of you are so many of us. We try to create safety and joy through like eliminating our humanity and eliminating our messiness. And I'm just like hearing, I like see it in you even of like this woman at ease, of like you trust yourself to navigate to I often say it like you trust yourself to hit the gas but you also trust yourself to hit the brakes. Like there is this self and it's so cool you cause. You end the book talking about the relationship to yourself. You didn't want this to be a relationship book and then you say, like it ended up being a book to yourself. So how beautiful that now, after writing it, you're really truly getting to experience safety and relationship to yourself and to your life and in your business. What are the things, what are like the specific little things right now that bring you joy.

Speaker 2:

Well, my animals, for sure, the horses, right, the horses. Yeah, I've got three dogs. Now the book ended and I had two dogs and I'm like now I've got a third. Yeah, um, my animals, honestly, like, they're a big way that I can like kind of ground myself and like pause and disconnect, like the dogs. Especially, I always thought about Archie, like he. He can bring me into the moment like no other, like you know whether he's sitting and barking at me and needs to like be fed, like it's like mom, be like mom, I'm hungry, mom, I need this time I snuggle with me, whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

Um, and the horses, like, and a huge reason why I started doing the retreats is they are just the way that they ground you and bring you into the moment. Also, there's just there's nothing like it and I, you know, I go to the ranch and leave with dirt under my fingernails and I stink and I've got hay in my hair and I'm just like this is my happy place. I'm like this is it, and it has become a big piece of my vision, where I was like this needs, I need this to be it every single day. I need this to be in my backyard. I need to be able to go, like, have my coffee with my horse, like it's just such a big vision driving me now is to just just be unavailable. I want to be unavailable. That's the season I meant. I want to be unavailable. I'm busy. Sorry, I'm busy and no one knows what I'm doing. To be busy, right, it's nobody's business.

Speaker 1:

When you just said that, my whole body was like, oh my gosh, I feel like I accidentally might have moaned the idea, but like and even the way you say busy, it has just such a different connotation and a different feel to it. Right, because I think so many women are busy doing things that like they don't care about, they are busy trying to be something that doesn't actually reflect who they are. They're right there. They're reflecting this core, their core relationships from their younger year of who they're supposed to be, their core relationships from their younger year of who they're supposed to be. And in your book you talk about kind of this evolution and you you said like community and vision are the things that shifted you. Do you feel like community and vision are the same things that took you from being in this consistency, in this routine and almost kind of like trying to find safety in something that wasn't fully joyful? Do you feel like it's still community and vision that brought you to the joy place?

Speaker 2:

Um, I would say yes, but not to the same depth that it once was. Like community, yes. Like there was a big piece and I share it in the book of like. When I kind of did that journaling exercise of like what am I lacking? And I was like I, I, I want to laugh again. It felt like it had been so long since I laughed. I'm like, well, what makes me laugh? My friends make me laugh. I need a community. My friends live in Vancouver, canada, and I'm in Denver. You know what I mean. So I was like I need a local community. And so that's when, like, I started going to the yoga class and then I met the woman who I then started to do retreats with, and then I was at the ranch more, and then I kind of met this woman at my new branch who now does these retreats with horse. So it was like community, me with that little craving of community expanded in ways where I was like I met this person and this person with, like those were the two people I was supposed to meet, to like get into the next season of my life. You know what I mean. So it wasn't like a community of people, but it was me stepping out of my bubble to meet the two, three people that I was supposed to meet to help take me to the next level Um and vision, 100% vision.

Speaker 2:

Um and vision, 100 vision. I am I, if you, if I just gave my journals away and let people read them, like I think people would be shocked at how much writing out my visions, not even just for like big picture, but like for my day, has helped me kind of manifest or create the life that I have, or the mindset that I have, or the flow that I have, or that you know what I mean. It's like I think vision is so powerful and it's not, I've said before, it's not like okay, I want this house and I want this car and I want these things, but it was. It's more. When I say vision, it's like embodying. And a year from now, how do I wake up and how do I feel and what is my mindset like and what is my morning routine? Look like a year from now. It's almost like stepping into this next version of me shoes to kind of reflect on how she shows up.

Speaker 1:

It's like you're relating. You're relating to yourself as you are and also as you could be like, in the way that writing your book was you getting curious about the past and how you tell those stories and how you're integrating them. Now I almost hear this like you're journaling as a way to like, relate to and get curious about where you want to go next, which is such like a powerful piece of relationship, and I even think of healing, development, of like it doesn't just have to be pulling the weeds of what's wrong. It can be planting and watering the seeds of what you want to grow in the future. And I think what's so so many women is we, we want there. We're in a culture that has these like before and afters, where it's like 12 weeks, six weeks, yeah, yeah, yes, hopefully you start seeing there's quick seeds, but there's also like if you have this deeply rooted joy and tree and peace and like self-trust, like that takes time, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well and I talk about that a lot in my coaching and I mentioned it in the book Like I, I think in like one or two years and I go, okay, one or two years, if, if, right now is it where I always have to be, where do I want to be? And that's kind of the headspace I go into of like, what does it look like? What am I doing for work? How do I feel in my work day? How am I shutting off work? What am I doing for joy? Yada, yada, yada, yada. And then I kind of say, okay, we're going to put that up on this, the shelf over here, cause that's one or two years away. And if that's one or two years away, what can I start doing now to work towards that? Or start embodying that or start getting little pieces of that vision, like, and that's where I go, okay, I, I.

Speaker 2:

You know it was the California vision that I originally did and it was like, okay, I need to take, I want to take. I was in my vision I'm taking walks with Archie along the beach and I go okay, I can't walk along the beach in Denver, colorado, but I can still do a big walk and look at the mountains. So that's good enough for now. And I in my vision was doing yoga. And I didn't do yoga now, so I'm like, okay, I guess I'll go take a yoga class and see how that feels. And it was me taking these little steps of like deciding to be that future version of myself that then created a whole vision. Do you know what I mean? Like it's, it's just exploded, the vision.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, and you, you use that word manifestation. I feel like I always giggle when people talk about manifestation, because I wish.

Speaker 2:

There was a different word for it.

Speaker 1:

I wish there was too, but I think what you just described is what people are trying to get, which is that your hope and your vision isn't just for the future. It's literally how you're viewing your life right now. Like it changes the way that you are relating to yourself. It changes the way that you're seeing your everyday reality. It doesn't it doesn't take you away from the reality of your humanity. It brings you into it and gives you a different way to see it and to experience it. Right Like that, I think, is such a powerful thing, and I think that is what so many women are after. So are you going to write a new book Like what's coming, what's where? I love that? You're like what was the word? Not I'm bothered, but I love that word for you.

Speaker 2:

Unavailable and unbothered. Yeah, I like that too. Um, I feel like I get life 42 or 43, whatever I'm in is just like there's also so much unknown. I literally shared this in therapy like three days ago, being like I have no. For the first time in a really long time, I have no idea what the next year is going to look like and you're saying it with a smile on your face.

Speaker 1:

I just belong to the ride.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, blow me wherever you need to blow me with, like it's just interesting, and so I got my publisher. I've been working pretty closely with my publisher since I published the book and she asked if I would be interested in being like a writing coach for her publishing team. And so it was like a yes, like a you know washed away, full on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to do that and um, so I've started kind of working with her and, where I have an author that I'm working with, now I have another call in a little bit to do like a consultation with an author.

Speaker 2:

So that feels so good. And I'm in this space now where I I think about what I want work to look like and I'm like I just want to write and I want to play with my horses and how can I combine those and make enough money doing it? You know what I mean. So I'm doing my retreats and I've kind of shifted my retreats to be like a writing and writing, so like writing and writing retreats, and I'm going to be working with the publisher and I'm going to be starting some workshops on my own to help authors kind of get started towards like turning their idea for their book into an outline and have a in with the publishing company that I'm going to send people to. And so it just feels I have no idea what the next year is going to look like, but that's where I'm at currently. I would love to write another book also, like you asked me that, and then it's a big yes.

Speaker 1:

Um, I just don't know who, what, when, where but I think that's the thing when you trust yourself is you don't have to have this fully orchestrated plan yet to just trust yourself to like take the next right step and see where it leads you. You don't have to be constantly self-observing making sure you're taking the exact right next step. You're just like, for now I'm going left. I might just like turn around and run the other way tomorrow, but, like for now, this is the direction I'm going and it feels good and I know myself and also I just have to giggle that when you said your retreat, I like pictured you riding a horse while writing, which I also think might have hilarious video of like trying to write while on a horse.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's just I would make for some good marketing.

Speaker 1:

That would be hilarious. Where, where can people find you? You have your book, I do there is B-A-R-E.

Speaker 2:

It's available on Amazon and Audible. Wwwreinaodellcom. Reinaodell on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, I got a sub stack now, which is kind of exciting, to share more writing and things like that. So, yeah, I'm kind of all over the place Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much for being here on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. Yes, thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small, tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life. To get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review, send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women, and that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day, take really good care of yourself and I'll see you next time.

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Raina Odell

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