Slowing Down and Trusting Yourself Again with Brea Segger

In this deeply grounding episode, Jeanne Collins sits down with Brea Segger to explore what it truly means to feel safe within yourself. 

From a fast-paced career and burnout to building a life rooted in presence, Brea shares how reconnecting with the nervous system can transform the way we live, parent, and relate to others. 

Through her journey—from Canada to Costa Rica—she reveals how slowing down, releasing control, and tuning into your inner awareness can unlock a more peaceful, aligned life. This conversation offers a powerful reminder that growth doesn’t come from doing more—but from learning how to simply be.

More about Brea:

Brea Segger guides clients with her own approach to nervous system release and realignment, unlike any other, blending energetic intelligence, emotional integration, and grounded presence to support deep, lasting change. Known for her uncommon ability to perceive emotional and energetic patterns in others, Brea works with clients of all ages, including children with emotional or nervous system challenges, helping them reconnect with inner clarity, resilience, and ease.

Alongside her healing work, Brea mentors leaders and visionaries to integrate embodied awareness with conscious leadership and real-world impact. Her work bridges inner transformation with practical living, supporting people to create from alignment rather than pressure. Rooted in lived experience and decades of study, Brea helps individuals access their own inner intelligence, cultivating regulation, authenticity, and freedom through a direct relationship with themselves.

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Transcript

Introducing Brea Segger

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Building the Best You, a destination for you to reimagine what is possible in your life and then create it. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Sheen Collins, and we are talking about nervous system today coming to us from Costa Rica. I am so jealous. It is there's snow on the ground here in Connecticut. It is maybe 30 degrees. And we have Bree Sager here to talk about nervous system. And she is in Costa Rica. And I am so jealous. I could almost feel the sunshine through the screen. Tells you that I need some vitamin D. So, Bri, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk to you. Oh, it's so nice to meet you. Thanks for having me on. Oh, I can't wait. So I am just going to start by asking you to explain a little bit about your journey. And please, within that, get to how you are living a lot of the year in Costa Rica because that is kind of a dream for a lot of people. And I will add that you do have two school-aged children. So I find that even incredibly fascinating that you are basically living abroad, raising kids, which I think is just so cool and just an incredible way of life that I want to make sure we talk about. So if you wouldn't mind, give us a little background about how you got to be doing what you do with nervous system.

Health Crisis and the Turning Point

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Well, I was really aware of emotions and energy when I was young. Like most kids are. And I think a lot of us learn how to shut that down for obvious reasons. Our parents are like, what is that? You know, and we all know either we were sensitive ourselves, probably a lot of your listeners are sensitive and intuitive and have that understanding. And it was no different for me, other than I really paid attention to it. And I really got to know that very well. However, because of events in my life and the way that I was brought up, I was essentially told, and as society tells people too, let's just put that on the back burner, go make a living, have a job, you know, make money. And I think a lot of us that have a deep sense of being unsafe on the inside of us, look exterior for safety, right? And I know safety is kind of a strange word. It's like, well, what does that even mean? I'm okay, I'm safe. The walls aren't caving in right now. There's no earthquake. Like we seem to be okay in this moment. And yet, pretty much everyone I meet, certainly everyone I work with, has this underlying sense of I'm not okay, I'm not good enough, some tragedy could happen. And we sort of live this way where we don't have an inner trust in ourselves. And that was how I was. I didn't have an inner trust that I'm going to be okay. And so my answer to that was make money. Go to university, make money, do the business thing. So I was doing merger and acquisition. I was going into businesses. I was that person flying around and working all day, drinking all night, and reading like spirituality books and self-help books on the side. That that was my life. And it was pretty much everything I could do, but really listen to that inner peace that was inside of me, that inner knowing that I think so many people understand. We might have the family, we might have the job, we might have all the things, or, or we might not. And yet it doesn't matter. We're still somehow avoiding this inner sense deep within ourselves. Eventually that changed. And through different sorts of, well, one of the big impacts that I had was I suffered a really bad concussion. And that put me in bed for about three months. And I was probably in my early 30s, very early 30s, I would say. I'm 46 now. So, you know, some years ago. Yeah. And I was, I was just like, and my life, I was running this business with my husband, a college. We had all these employees, we had all these students were responsible for. I'd bought a farm, which we still own. And I was like, okay, we're gonna build this permaculture-based farm. And we're gonna, and so again, like project after project, like what else can I add to my like 11 goats, 100 chickens, my two toddler children, my business, all my passions on the side, art, like just everything was still sort of avoidance until there was no avoiding anymore.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah.

Discovering Inner Awareness and Letting Go of Control

SPEAKER_01 4:20

And and I was still so energetically inclined. I think so many people know this. You we have this intuitive, this knowing, this understanding within us, no matter what we're doing. So that was there. I was still paying attention to that. I'm the person that everyone came to for advice. I was aware of what was happening, but I was not applying this to myself. Yeah. You know, in certain ways I was, but not in like really, I was like, let's get bit, like, let's keep busy. Let's just build, build, build, create, create, create. So I so have so much passion, by the way, for anyone listening that is in that phase. Like it's so normal, right? For some people, it's addiction. For some people, it's shopping. For some people, it's sex. For some people, like for some people, it's projects and doing and creating. And that was my that was my go, my go-to. I was diagnosed with Hashiboto. So I had this autoimmune, and that's that sort of took me out. And I would be out on the farm working, tending to the kids, doing emails, and then I'd literally like pass out and fall over. I had zero energy. My life was like, I was done. It was absolutely done. So I stopped. And I, and I didn't mean I stopped fully, like you can't just, I wish I could say that. And I think most people know you can't just fully stop. But I was like, okay, how do I sort of pull myself out of this business? Like, how do I start working from home more? How do I start being more present for my kids? How do I just like slow down? And slowly I started doing that. And within that, I started to realize all these patterns and these programs, some of which I just alluded to, really come from the outside. They in no way reflect that internal knowing that we have inside of us. And I just drop deeper and deeper and deeper into that space until eventually I started working with clients and started just holding the space. And people are like, well, what do you do? What does that mean? Like, what is holding space? And it's like, yeah, what is holding space? And we have all these fancy words now. I hold a container. Like it's so funny. I love to make fun of all these words. They're useful to a certain point because we don't haven't really had this language before. I actually, if I if I really think about it, we're probably going back to how we naturally all lived not even that long ago. And we didn't have to have words for it because it's how we were all living, sort of attuned to a deeper essence within ourselves. Some might call that God, some might call that nature or mother earth, attuned to the subtle energetics of what's going on around us and just showing up at ourselves. Certainly over the last century or two, we've just got pulled away from that, especially in our Western culture. And we are full of doing everything, but listening to ourselves. And in fact, when we start to listen to ourselves, we have this idea that, like, we're just gonna hear words, right? We're waiting. Well, where's the message? Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Building a Life in Costa Rica with Family

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Right. Where, what, what is it? Where why am I not hearing the voice in my head tell me exactly what to do? Or if it does tell me, it changes its mind, right? So we become very reliant on the brain to tell us what to do. And so we identify ourselves as the brain. And what I've really became aware of is like underneath all of that, in the space beyond words where we can't very much articulate it, we are able to move from that place. We're able to live from that place. But if we try to define it or explain that to somebody, we sort of lose that. And we can't, we can't exactly like when we talk about holding space or my work, I guess we could say, or how I hold space for others. It's in a way that's reflective of that within me. And that permission deep within my nervous system, which is just very calm and very centered, gives permission to the person or group or whoever retreats, whatever it is I'm working with, for them to access that within them, which is completely different than mine. So it's very much different than telling somebody what to do, giving them advice, which by the way, I was so full of. I thought, well, this is how we help people. We give advice, we tell them what to do. But it's like, what if we're just present with people and we allow them to come to their own way to get in touch with that place within them? And so that was how I started changing my work. And then suddenly it's not work. Now, now there's no such thing as work for me. This is just like me living. Now I'm talking to you, I'm seeing a client after this. I have a retreat suit. Like it, it's all it's seamless. It's the same thing. I'm gonna hang out with my kids. It's the same thing. It's just us being us, and it's so different. It takes off all that pressure of having to be something we're not when we're really listening to that inner voice. And for me, this was my path, and I'm sure it will evolve and change again over time. So that's sort of there. And then you want me to talk about Costa Rica, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

I do want you to talk about Costa Rica, and then I'm gonna come back because I have a couple questions, but I'm gonna come back. But I want to make sure we get in Costa Rica. Okay, Costa Rica.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Okay, so I'm Canadian, and the catalyst was so my husband and I always wanted to travel with our kids, but there was a specific catalyst, and this was COVID. And this was the Canadian government being like, well, you know, basically you can do nothing. And I'm like, so I looked at my, I remember Liz Day, I looked at my daughter. Um, she was going to a Montessori school, and we were on this meeting with my, with her whole school, and they were telling us, you know, basically all the restrictions, and we have all the restrictions from the government. And, you know, what is right or wrong, we can reflect on that. That doesn't really matter at this point. But deep inside of us, I looked at her and I was like, what if we just trade school on our farm? Like, what if we just do something different? And we just like so that you're not basically not, you're going to school, but you're not getting education. By the time you guys wait in line and have the social distance, like you have like maybe half an hour left in your school day. And this was like how that, you know, as everyone knows, they kind of lost a year or two. Yes, correct. Right? Of for everybody did of all these things. So we started a school on our farm. We we hired a BC certified teacher. I got a group of people together, and we did this all in three weeks and we just put it together. And we were sort of like, this is amazing. So we did a full school year, everything kind of kept continuing. It was looking like the next year was going to be similar. And I was like, I think we just move, like, we're gonna move somewhere. And I didn't know where it was Nicaragua, Panama, or Costa Rica. These were the three countries in my mind. And like, thank you to my family for just like kind of, you know, going along with me. And then a friend of my husband's there on a phone call, and he was like, I know of this place in Costa Rica. We are moving there. It has these great schools and it's like a surf town, and it's rustic and it's cool, and it has cute cafes. And I was like, that's the place. Like, that's the place. You just still sight unseen. We pack our bags and we move to Costa Rica. And that was how we ended up here. And COVID was such a gift for us, and it it just it really was. And my my kids, my daughter now doesn't go to school, but my my son is in like this Montessori nature-based theater school where they have pigs and chickens, and he's barefoot and it's amazing. And he's learning and it's incredible. And I'm really thankful that there are options like this around. So yeah, that is that was like the catalyst for Costa Rica, but that was four and a half years ago.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Wow. And you're still there. So after your kids are done with school, do you think you'll stay there or do you have an itch to try another country or somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, no, I think there's always gonna be like we have a home here. I feel like there's always gonna be time spent here every year. It feels it's a special place, and I have an amazing community of friends and and just people here. It's it's really it's amazing. The surf is amazing, the food is lovely, there's great places, the beaches are stunning, beautiful. So I think it will always have a special place in my heart. And I love our farm on Vancouver Island. I love the mountains, I love the hiking, I love the four seasons.

Energy, Presence, and the Power of Being

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So that's just like the best of both worlds, and you've built a lifestyle that allows and accommodates for that. Yeah, yeah. That is so inspiring. Okay, I love your story. All right, let me take a step back though. It's so interesting because you talked about the container. And what I love about what you said, and I just want to make sure that we say it again for people, is what you were saying reminded me so much of the concept of a mirror. And it's the concept that the energy that you put out is the energy that you're going to get back. And so if you're walking around the world super stressed, super anxious, really unhappy, you will be putting that out. And that will be what comes back to you. Where in what you do in your work is recognizing that you are putting energy out for anyone who interacts with you, whether it be your customers, your clients, the people you see at the grocery store, the restaurant, whatever, your kids, your house, you're putting out energy to those people and the container you're talking about allows them to be in that presence and helps them to be able to try to match that energy as opposed to because your vibration is so much higher. I want to make sure I'm capturing that the right way, but I think it's a really important thing to talk about because it's something that people don't consciously think about, but it sounds like the way that you've learned to be as a human being, that is one of the huge byproducts of the way that you're living life.

Understanding Nervous System Awareness

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah. And I think there's even more subtle layers to that. So if we try to be happy, that can get us to a certain place, right? Like let's say we're like, I'm gonna not be negative, I'm gonna speak positive words, I'm gonna go out into the world, I'm gonna be happy and kind and lovely to people. The problem is that it takes a lot of effort and it it basically creates this exhaustive state within us. We come back, we all know this, the lovely, nice person we're friends with who is so kind and loving to everybody, and they come back at the end of the day. And I've certainly done this myself, and you're exhausted. You just gave. So this is energy going out, which is exhausting. The other, the other flip side of this is the person that we can imagine that is like looking for energy, right? They come up to some people call them energy vampires. I don't at all love that word, but because it's so subconscious, right? No one's doing this on purpose. This is just subconscious patterning that we know. And so they're like sort of looking. And I think a lot of like in the healing world, we've we've learned this too, and we've we've developed this way of doing it where we're giving energy. And I think there's another way to do this that doesn't involve us having to be in sort of a contrived high energetic state or giving that energy. For one thing, if we do this to somebody that we're trying to help, their system, their nervous system, their energetic system might not be ready for it. So one, it might give them like a quick, like heightened response, like, oh, I feel good now, but they're likely going to get a crash because their system hasn't been ready to receive that. The other thing is we're depleting ourselves. So this thing where we're sort of working to be in a certain frequency all the time. I'd like us to kind of move beyond that. If I had my perfect world, if I could just say, like, this is, you know, we would all be in a higher frequency state for sure, but we wouldn't have to try. It would be so effortless. And we would keep our energy inside into ourselves. And of course, yeah, like you said, like as we come across other people, there's that mere reflection. And that is true, but it's showing us more so like where we're giving ourselves away and where we're trying to pull things in, versus like just staying in ourselves and actually having that energy and getting to know that really well. And then we can see where the depletion is for ourselves and we don't try to take it from other people or fill ourselves up by giving all the time. Like that's another one. Can I help? Can I give? Let me do all that. It's like we're trying to fill up, but all we're actually doing is depleting ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Right. Sure. Yeah. Well, and it also sounds like a lot of the work that you do is about an awareness. And I would think that a lot of people who come to you don't have any idea what nervous system regulation is. They might find it interesting because they've gotten to you, so they're open to the concept. But yeah, I find a lot of people find the words of nervous system regulation, which are said all the time, very nebulous because it's like, what is that? People know, like, okay, if I'm supposed to do ab work, this is what I do, you know. If I want to sit back, I need to follow this, or if I want to lose weight, I do this. But I think nervous system work is a little bit overwhelming for people because they just don't, they can't see it, feel it, touch it. Yeah. Do you find that's a challenge with getting people to understand how how helpful it can be?

How Inner Work Transforms Relationships

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, I think what you said about awareness is exactly it. It's we want people to know that the brain is just interpreting what it can out of the nervous system. And it's quite frankly not that great at doing that. I mean, we we know the looping in our head, we know it makes up stories, we know we're so clear on a path today. And then an hour later we're like, oh, but no, it's this way. We can't make up our mind. So we have this thing right here that is great because we can do what we do. Yeah. But coming to get to know that there is something internal, we can call it the nervous system, we can call it our inner sense, whatever we want to call it, that seems to be more, have much more acute awareness if we're willing to listen to it. And then our brain becomes like the support. It's like, okay, now I can help you complete the task and do the thing and move our hands and that sort of thing, rather than it being the leader. And I think that's really what's happened is we just have become so reliant on the brain. How much information, what do you know? What has your past been like? And so, yeah, absolutely getting having people understand that it that's a process and not a process that's like step one, two, three. It's a whole, it's a process for them. And if they're willing to go there to get to know that, because you have to figure it out yourself. So understanding that when it's not tangible, it takes some time. And so someone has to be willing to want to do that. And we don't have to call it nervous system at all. Like there doesn't have to be with me, it doesn't have to be with anyone particular. It's like as soon as we have that desire that, hey, how I'm living, I think there's a different way. Like, I don't think I have to be high anxiety. I don't think I have to be in fear. I don't think I have to hold all this anger. I don't think I have to hold all this grief. There could be something there. And we're also at the same time giving permission for those emotions without making them bad too.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Because that, as you know, just keeps them all tight.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Oh, you don't like me fear, you know? Okay, let me show you more fear.

unknown 20:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

And so we, you know, coming to that compassion point too.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah, learning to have a relationship with those emotions because we're very good at wanting to celebrate the joy and the happy, but kind of wanting to stomp down anxiety, fear, and all of those as if they're bad. But you do need all the spectrum and learning how to recognize and acknowledge those. So as you're talking, I'm so curious for the people who come to you, your clients, do they find that after they've done this work, and you can maybe even just speak for yourself personally, after you've done more of this work and you've learned how to live a different life that's more authentically aligned, does that impact everyone in their family, in their immediate circle? Good question.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

So, yeah, I mean, the short answer is yes, generally speaking. Everyone has free will, right? But it is always shocking to people that as our nervous system, our system has more space in it, that allows us to see things in a different way, which allows us to have more compassion and understanding for, let's say, those relationships that are or more difficult, right? Or that, or where they're talking with our children or with our parents or our friends or our husband or wife, whatever it might be. And so when we create more space, there's more understanding, and there's also not such a push and pull effect. So if we look at couples, for example, that is one of the things where we often want our other half to change, right? We can't help it, even if it's so subtle. Like we wish they'd clean up, we wish they'd show up differently, like we wish they weren't angry. We wish like we have all these ways, and we're slowly. This is like, and this doesn't matter. The sex is here, like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. We have these subtle ways of kind of trying to change each other, right? When we have more space in ourselves, a lot of that like subconscious trying to change or often conscious trying to change starts to wean and it starts to fade away. And that allows these relationships to actually change because we stop trying in those little ways. And then the other person's system, again, often subconscious, is like, wait, I'm not feeling the push, I'm not feeling the pull. That allows their system to not push and pull so much. It's often this push and pull thing, and that's the easiest way I can describe it energetically, right? That causes the friction and we start to have more space, and then we can come and meet in a different place. And sometimes that meeting is like not the result we want exactly. Maybe it's like, yeah, we're gonna. Actually, give each other more space. Yeah. You know? Right. Yes. It's not always like we're gonna happily come together forever, or you know, and input friends, family, whatever. Sometimes more space is needed. But that's but again, when that's coming from an aligned place within us, we're not questioning it so much from our mind, right? We're not reading a book of how to and be like, this book tells me we need to take three months' break and it needs to look like this, and we need to let, you know, we throw out all the rules.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

I like to throw out all the rules. Sure. It feels much more aligned. And then it's it's like if you can really learn to tap into your intuition and tap into what your body is telling you and turn the mind part off, it makes making decisions very easy because you you don't second guess it as much. You're you're going with what you feel versus what you think. And so I can see how that that growth and that evolution just changes your whole perspective on everything, the people that you decide you want to interact with, how you want to spend your time, uh, where does wellness fit, how you take care of yourself. I would think it probably changes everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so different. It's how I ended up in Costa Rica. And it's how I'm not tied to being in Costa Rica either, right? Like, yeah, and then this isn't like to be wishy-washy and say, like, I just go where the wind flies and you know, don't show up for response. It has nothing to do with that. You know, in fact, I think being responsible and and on time and all of these sort of things, the human part is really important for many reasons. But it does give us flexibility of change because we're not attached to the outcome. We're not like Costa Rica has to look like this. My life in Canada has to look like this, my business has to look like this, my friendships have to look like this, my partnership has to look like this. That all goes.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

And that's the space and that's the freedom. And I think, you know, if we were to define like to me, like love when we really love something, it's sovereignty, it's freedom. It's really just uh giving that permission to ourselves and to the people around us, and to our creations for that matter.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Sure. Yeah. It sounds super peaceful as you describe trying to tap into that. It sounds very peaceful. Because it doesn't sound forced.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which gives us more energy, right? And we're not so exhausted all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Totally. Yeah. So how do you, I'm curious, just on a practical sense, how do you transfer some of your skills down to your children?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

So one of the things was is that being ness in my system has just been there for them. And that's since they were little. And, you know, and I'm fortunate that I sort of wrapped my head around this. This can be done at any point, by the way, or our kids are adults, but being. And cause and I have a lot of clients, by the way, that have kids that are well into their 20s and 30s, and it it actually changes and works. I don't mean like a protocol that works, I mean actually just being with our kids, seeing them, and not trying to change them or force our desires or wants onto them.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah.

Parenting with Presence and Emotional Safety

SPEAKER_01 25:59

And that's really it. And yeah, and like that, I've been doing since they were little. And so, of course, they've just grown up with this innate sense of okayness within themselves. And I think, you know, I can certainly reflect back onto my childhood. I never felt like I was okay. So, despite some tangible things I could say, that okayness also came in the subtleties of having parents that want you to be a certain way or act a certain way or show up, right? And often for their friends or or whatever, like you need to be like this, or what will people think about us? Like a lot of us know that, that feeling. And you, and you just feel like you're always doing something wrong or that it's not right and you're not okay. And so I had that, you know, and that's the thing about our kids. It's and it doesn't mean like we don't teach them responsibility and respect and those like things that are part of make us cohesive in a society. I think very important. But also there's the subtleties of when they're upset that we're not trying to fix it. Can we stay there and let them be upset? Let's say we have a kid, like a six-year-old that's screaming and crying and having a tantrum. I can remember this in my kids. And I would just sit there with them. And sometimes they would like push me away. No, mom. I'm like, okay, I'll sit at the end of your bed.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

You know? Yeah. And they shift, right? Because there's nothing in me that's trying to make them change. And then, okay, come back. I get the hug, right? This process that might take two minutes, that might take 30 minutes. Right. And this is the thing about us as parents is we're like looking at the clock and we're like, oh my God, like I don't have 30 minutes. This is over. Right. I gotta go. But that 30 minutes might save you$40,000 in psychologist appointments down the road. I mean, that's what it is, right? Like that inner knowing and confidence that they're okay and that they can trust themselves and that and that they're held by somebody that truly is okay with them, that sets them up to feel that. And and then they feel safe inside, which kind of goes back to how we how we started, having that inner sense of safety that we actually that's what we all want.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah. It's a super powerful lesson. And I'm so glad you said that. I had lunch the other day with a friend who has a 10-year-old who was definitely her 10-year-old is suffer, has anxiety and is like really high strung and really stressed out and goes from like zero to 10 with her emotions. And she used to match her daughter's 10 and has learned through skills and learning to tap into her nervous system, learning to regulate herself and not let herself get to 10. She's learned how to get herself to like a three or a four or a five. And then the way she parents now is completely different. Yeah. And the response that her daughter has is also completely different. Her daughter is learning through example how to control her emotions and that it's okay to have those emotions, but learning to not get to attend, or if she gets to attend, she very quickly can learn to soothe and get herself down. It's it was fascinating to hear her talking about it. I was like, this is a whole different way of parenting than how even, I mean, my daughter's 19, than how we even raised our kids then. Yeah. It's cool.

Daily Rhythms and Creating a Balanced Lifestyle

SPEAKER_01 29:11

It really is. And it takes more time, right? It means we're not letting them just be on the screen and then dealing with like when we take it away with what comes after. It's it's really being present and not in an overbearing way, just in like, I'm here and I'm okay within me. And that permission makes it okay within them. And there's such simplicity in it, but it's so simple that it's hard to do because we don't, we don't really know like what, you know, like we're so used to give the rules, they're supposed to do what they're supposed to do, supposed to check off the list and away we go. And we all got this big schedule and this thing they're supposed to do all the time. Yeah. I mean, again, and this is why like it's not just Costa Rica, but but we do have places we can live that gravitate to this style more, but we can also do this in our homes in the cities, right? It's just a matter of like probably saying no to some of the busy schedule stuff. It's about being more present, and and these choices can be hard to make. And some of us, you know, we have to work all the time. And there's there's a lot of constraints. And, you know, a part of this, I always say to parents, is really know that this isn't how we were supposed to raise our kids. Like it comes back to being, we don't really have community, right? To support we, as sometimes single parents, or even if there's two of us, the amount that we are supposed to do, you know, is insane. That is insane. That is not normal, that is not okay. Right. And so, first just giving ourselves that grace for that, like whatever we have done to society, this is clearly not how our ancestors raised their children. Like no one in their right mind would do this. I mean, and this goes for us too. Like the amount of work we do in a given day is also insane with the, you know, media and all the different roads. It's insane. So it is. So we have to give ourselves a lot of a lot of grace, but also where can we make space and just be there and be present for for our children?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah. So I'm so curious because that segues to something that I was so curious about, which is we all do so much. It's so easy to say yes, it's so hard to say no. It's very easy to get caught up that there shoulds, the shoulds, the shoulds. I have to do all these things. I have to do all the things, right? So for you personally, what does a day look like for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

A typical day in Costa Rica, actually, in a similar day. What's a typical day in Costa Rica look like? Well, I wake up early around 5:15 when the sun comes up. And so we have howler monkeys here and they're loud. So, you know, you have a natural inbuilt alarm system, which is perfect, which and they sound like monsters if anyone has ever heard a howler monkey. It's the most loudest obnoxious noise. It makes you smile because it's like there's monkeys and like and they're loud and they're howling. Yeah. That's cool though. It's great. And and so then I do a little bit of body movement, um, and generally speaking, or I'll just like rest and lay in bed for 20 minutes and just feel I twice a day. I generally pause for about 15 to 20 minutes. This is not a meditation. I'm not trying to get anywhere. I'm just listening. I'm just being with what is, and I'm just letting myself relax and giving that that nourishment time. Yeah. I make coffee. I, you know, I don't drink alcohol. I have a very diet. It's really good. Guess what? Still keeping this. There you go. Still keeping my coffee. And I sit outside and I just enjoy and I might read. Um, a lot of my clients, I support them with voice messages. So this is another way that my business actually changed when I moved to Costa Rica. And some people might be interested in this, but I'd never use WhatsApp. So now suddenly you're in Costa Rica, all of Central America, or really anywhere outside of Canada and the US, they use WhatsApp as though that's how you communicate.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Communicate a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

And so people run their businesses off of WhatsApp, which was also a wild change to me. But what I realized was in between client sessions, we could be doing voice messages. And so I will often drink my coffee. And if I'm not reading a book or I'll do a bit of both, I will listen to my clients' voice messages. I usually check them twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, sometimes again during the day. And then I reply back to them. And that's based on, you know, again, not this like giving advice. It's seeing them. It's it's maybe reflecting what they're saying to me, but in a different way. Sure. It's that. And so that's so much fun. Like that's it's so, and it's not, I shouldn't say fun as though, like I'm just I feel fortunate that that's how I get to start my day, even though people can be going through very, very hard things and we're reflecting on that. So that was one of the neat things is that, you know, in my in my longer containers, there's that word, I usually meet with people twice a month. But in between the sessions, we we check in and there's a lot of check-ins in between that, which is is really powerful in such a great way. So then peep big emotions come up for people. They're seen. There's a place for that to be with no judgment, no attachment to outcome, right? All of that sort of thing. Because we don't want to get into a place where we're expecting our clients to perform for us, like, you know, and I and I do see that a lot too. They want to show you that they're doing well or doing better. And it's like, you gotta strip all that down. Like, let's just be with what's there. Yep. Learning. They have to learn to learn to be able to. And then some sort of physical activity after that. So that could be surfing, could be a workout, could be there's lots of great classes here, whatever that is, lifting. I like to do weights. So yeah, things like that, a walk, a beach walk, um, hang out with my dogs. And then I and then I work with clients in whatever form that is. Like it could be more messaging. Some are on on Zoom. I have a lot of clients, of course, that I don't work with that aren't here in person. Right. And then some that are in person. And so it's sort of a mix of that. That's nice. Yeah, it's great. It's really great. And I love that. And then my son, he gets home from school around, he's done around 2:30. Sometimes he has a sport, and then maybe we go to the beach, he does some surfing, walk the dogs again. It's very, it's very casual, check in with my clients. Yeah. So that's like sort of the typical day. Make dinner, bed is 8, 8:30. I mean, you know, read for a bit, asleep by nine.

unknown 35:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Right. So well, because sleep becomes more and more important. And once you learn to have an awareness of your body and what your body needs, especially as you get older, and especially for women as we get older, sleep is really important. And acknowledging that and leaving space for sleep and not feeling guilty and not saying, you know, the worst thing ever, which is like, I'll just sleep when I die. Well, no, no, no, no, no. No, it's so important for really trying to tap inward and really trying to live a very balanced life, is to make sure that you get sleep because that's the first thing that'll take your body and to put it in a tizzy for you long before you know it.

Favorite Books and Inspirations

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Yeah. I think a lot of us are sleep deprived. And I think, you know, quote unquote healing or being into some sort of like reflection. A lot of it, we can just once we start having this awareness of what there is, it's like, well, just then just get a good night's sleep. Like let your body do the processing for you while you're sleeping. Let it do the regenerating, let your nervous system slough off what it doesn't need and build the new neural pathways that are more um, you know, helpful for you. And that a lot of that can be done in sleep or just by like these pauses I talk about during the day, like just the resting, the stopping. Um, rather than us having, we don't need to sit on a yoga pillow and meditate for two hours a day. We really don't, I promise. Yeah. And for people that are so called to that, absolutely continue. It's not to make that wrong. But it's like a lot of people come being like, well, I was told I had to do whatever those steps are, right? Like light a candle, sit on a yoga pillow, I or I have to go and be with my emotions for an hour every day, or I have to go and read. And again, we come back to all these rules. Well, sure, but also what's happening inside of you? Can we just be okay with like with that? What is that saying? Because maybe that's not really for you. And maybe it is, but right, but like before we go ahead and do all the structured stuff, yeah. What else? What's there? What do you really love? Because a lot of people hate a lot of this stuff and they're just doing it because they think that's the only way to think that's feel okay, or this strange goal of becoming enlightened or whatever that might be.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

They think they're supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. So to piggyback on that before we run out of time, I would love to know. I have a thought about what your answer is going to be, but I'm so curious what your answer actually is. If people who are listening are so enamored by what you're doing and just sort of the lifestyle that you've managed to create and the balance that you have, and they say, But you know, my life looks nothing like that. My life looks like what you described before of I go, I go, I go, the the past you, right? I go, I go, I go, I do, I do, I do. My kids are so rescheduled. Everything, everything is crazy. And they say, like, what's one thing that someone could try tomorrow, today, to try to make an improvement, a baby step forward? What would that one thing be?

Closing Thoughts and Letting Go of “Shoulds”

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Yeah. I mean, it is, it's the pausing, right? It's like, can you take 20 minutes? Like, can you gift yourself 20 minutes? Don't worry, you don't have to meditate, you don't have to do anything. See your mind, it's gonna drive you crazy. You're gonna lay there for 20 minutes and your mind is gonna tell you all the things. But guess what? You're seeing what your mind does. And then maybe you'll feel what your body's doing, right? And you're just getting to know the different aspects of yourself without trying to create something because you don't have to get into a certain specific state with that. And then as you're feeling into that, if you have children or your relationships, all these sorts of things, that same space that you're getting to know within yourself without any rules attached to it or outcome, you can maybe bring that forward into those relationships too. Just a little bit more space, you know, day by day or week by week. Again, throwing out this idea of timelines or we have to change ourselves by a certain date or, you know, like that stuff all just causes this fear and it just causes a lot of stress in our system. Like you're not broken. You're you're okay. You you are okay. It's a lot of we have a lot of patterning, there's a lot of stuff, but but we're okay inside, and we just want to get to know that place where we're okay inside. Right. That that's it. And it's not a race.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah. And then once you can tap into that, then you can revisit it again in the future.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Yeah. And it just becomes, it becomes a part of your your knowing. So you don't have to go looking for it. And I think that's, you know, if if there was a goal, I guess that's it. You're just you know you're okay, even when you're not okay, right? Right. Then you can be in in tragedy or hard times, and you can feel that and be with it and still have that same sense that you're okay. You know, I'm yeah, I'm okay even though this sucks. And I'm mad at somebody or something or whatever, or right, you know, yep. All those trust things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

And you learn to trust it, and you learn to trust yourself, which is super empowering if you can learn to trust yourself. That's a really empowering feeling, and that is really um helpful for so many people because trust is a really hard one for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Really is. Okay, before I let you go, did I miss anything? Is there anything we didn't talk about that you think is, I mean, of course we could we could talk for hours, but is there anything that you think is just so important that people understand or they learn from you that I missed?

SPEAKER_01 40:43

I know. I think we I love, I love this conversation, by the way. This was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Where can we throw out the rule books? I'll just say that again. Where can we throw out all the have to's, the shoulds, the I have to show up this way, I have to read this, I have to watch this, I have to, you know what what's going on in your heart? What's going on in your body? And and is there a curiosity to get to know that a little bit more? Yeah. Simple.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Simple, simple, simple. Right. Yeah. Everyone can do it. That's such a beautiful way to end. I thank you so much for joining the show. I will encourage everyone to actually watch this on YouTube when I post it because it your energy is amazing, not only just because you're, you know, have this beautiful tan glow about you. I do have the greenery in the background, and like I just feel warmer looking at you, which is amazing given it's winter here in New England. Um, but you do have an incredible presence and you have a really calm, peaceful, inviting, opening energy. So I thank you for bringing that to the show because I can feel it. Um, and that is really special. So I thank you. We will put everything in the show notes so that people can follow you, they can find you, they can go to your website if they're interested in learning more. So I thank you for joining us and good luck in Costa Rica. Enjoy the sunshine. I will. Thank you. Thanks for all your work and for having me on. I really appreciate it. This was fun. You're welcome. You're welcome. It was great fun. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Building the Best You. If you are ready to take a deeper dive into transforming your life, check out my Empowerment Fundamentals course on my website, houseofgermar.com. Thank you, and I will see you next week with another inspiring guest.