The Next Perfect Step
Candid conversations about spirituality, how to navigate in the world, channeled messages, guided meditations, book reviews and other topics. We invite comments and questions as we look to connect with a community of similar interests.
The Next Perfect Step
How Does Choosing Self Love Lead to Connection, Community and Fun?
The Next Perfect Step cohosts Kim McStay, Lori Tremblay and Laurie Mullen are energy healers and teachers with their own healing practices. They seek to provide a platform to those who are searching for guidance on how to navigate the shift in global consciousness. The podcast embraces spiritually awakened conversation and invites guests to share their healing gifts and knowledge. Contact the hosts: thenextperfectstep@gmail.com.
Ready to trade autopilot for intention? We sit down with certified life coach and community builder Cheryl Dillon to unpack what it really takes to “soar, not settle” in midlife. Cheryl’s path from corporate HR to divorce coaching to launching Funderful Experiences shows how reinvention grows from small, consistent choices—not magical makeovers. Think real talk on self-compassion, deeper friendships, and the courage to pursue joy without apology.
Cheryl shares the moment she realized isolation and inertia were stealing her spark, and how she rebuilt community through local service, volunteering, and a members’ group designed for depth and play. We dig into the Uplift newsletter—a weekly blend of honest stories, reflection prompts, and tiny challenges—plus Connected Hearts, a monthly in-person circle that pairs meaningful conversations with light-hearted games to keep fun on the calendar. The result is a practical blueprint: decide what you want before you obsess over the how, schedule connections while you’re together, and look for reciprocity as a sign of healthy relationships.
We also explore the natural evolution of friendships. As values shift, some bonds fade without drama—and that’s okay. By showing up as your real self, you become a magnet for the people who match your energy and intentions. If you’ve been questioning your path, craving community, or wondering how to bring more laughter into your week, this conversation offers clear steps you can use today. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help others find the show—then tell us: what’s one small step you’ll take toward more joy this week?
Hello everyone and welcome to the next perfect step where all possibilities lie in conversation. I'm your co-host Lori Mullen.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm your co-host, Kim Mix Day, and our podcast is based on community, and it is a nice safe place to thoughtfully share your ideas and learn a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, I'm your co-host, Lori Tremblay. We're happy to have you here with us today. We have a uh wonderful guest from Carlsbed, California, Cheryl Dillon. She's a certified life coach, writer, and founder of wonderful experiences. She has a wonderful uh practice, and we would like to introduce her and have her tell us a little bit about yourself. Cheryl, welcome.
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Well, I'm so happy to be here and be here with you all this morning. Uh, I know we have a little time difference, so it's morning here. Um I'm Cheryl Dillon and I am I've had an interesting journey. Uh I'm originally from the East Coast, New Jersey. I uh lived in Chicago for five years, and I've been in California for about seven and a half years now. So I just keep going west, uh chasing the weather. But um, as far as uh, you know, who I am, I've had different careers over the years, many iterations. Um, I feel like you can never really predict your life looking forward, but you can look back and connect the dots and figure out how each life experience brought you to the next one and then eventually to where you are now. So uh after working in a corporate environment for about 11 years in human resources and recruiting, I became a life coach and I work with my partner and husband Joe. Uh, he's a mediator and I'm a divorce coach, and we've been together uh in that practice for about 17 years. And earlier this year, I uh went back to school for event planning, added that to my coaching, my life experiences, and really uh the pull that I feel towards this chapter. And I started Funderful Experiences, which is for women in midlife. And it's really the goal is uh to help us all have more joy, uh live life more fully and intentionally uh on our own terms versus all the expectations that we've probably been um trying to, you know, live up to for every day of the life, all the way up to here. But now it's like with however much time is left, how do we want to spend it? What do we want that chapter to look like? And it's really intentional. So I'm doing this for my own journey, and I've talked to so many other women who are really resonating and looking for the same thing. And uh, so it's all about what's next? We know we want to have more fun, we know we want to really live every day uh to the fullest, have a lot of meaning, and uh make every day very intentional.
SPEAKER_02:That's wonderful. And I can so relate when I started this journey, it was really because I felt lost. I knew who I was as far as who I was as a mother or who I was as a daughter, but I really didn't know who I was. I didn't even know what I found fun anymore. I knew what, you know, family fun looked like, but I didn't really know how to play. I didn't know what I wanted. And I think it's so important when you get to a certain point in your life, you know, midlife, where you've been all these things and you're you're so rushed to do everything you're trying to get done in a day that you don't even have time to stop and say, you know, did I laugh today? What makes me laugh anymore? Right? Like that free spirit as a child, right? How can you bring that in when you're so busy trying to do everything for everyone else? And to know that it's so important for you to have that as well as everybody else that you love in your life.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And you know, that's really an important, it's a whole bunch of important points that you just made, uh, Lori. And I can resonate with that. And many of my uh connected hearts uh membership are members uh can resonate with that because part of it is when you're younger, you don't have as many responsibilities, and you still probably were conditioned to uh meet other people's expectations, starting with your parents. Uh and some of those things have stayed with you in life. As life goes on, you continue to accumulate more responsibilities, more expectations. We're all doing all the things that we believe we're supposed to do. You know, go to a good college, uh, get a good job, meet a good partner, have children, you know, dot, dot, dot, climb the ladder at work, you know, all these things. And um, many of us, we we just do it on autopilot and don't really give it the time of day to, you know, slow everything down and think about is this aligned with who I am? Is this aligned with what I want? We're just living on autopilot. And at the same time, with all those responsibilities and expectations, you know, there's really no fun in there. And so because it's a lot of I have to do this or I should do this, and those things are um disempowering, right? We're not, we don't feel like we're choosing. We feel like we're just we have no choice, we have an obligation. Um, so fun kind of slip slips down the list. Um, I don't think everybody gets to a place where they're even reflective about how they're living their life. Um, but for many of us, we have and we're we're there now. And um, it's not like any of those other years were not wonderful or not important. There probably were many good things that came from that. Children, you know, maybe great marriage or great memories, good family trips, whatever are the things. But now is the time to start, I think, thinking about how much longer we have on the planet. And it's like if we don't do some of the things we've always wanted to do, or even take the time to figure out what those things are, if not now, then when? Because time just keeps marching on. So I think midlife is a very reflective time for many people. Uh, it's not just one thing that happened that made them stop and re-evaluate. It's just lots of things happening and uh just to really feel the pull of there's got to be something else besides this. And I don't know how much longer I'll have to try to find those things. So I want to just do it right now.
SPEAKER_02:And that's the important thing. I mean, most of us don't even realize that we have a choice. We're so wrapped up in that we have to do this and we have to do that, that we don't even realize that we have to have fun too, right? Like we don't even know that it's a focus or a choice. Um, and we and we get to make that choice. We get to make the choice to add that into our lives. That's right.
SPEAKER_00:Um in your uh when I went onto your website that said midlife isn't for settling, it's for soaring. And I love that. I I might have to write that and put that on my wall. I just thought that was a really you know um profound kind of thing. You know, I've been on my own for quite a while. And you really a lot of your um information has really settled with me in a really positive way because I've you know I've kind of taken on life these last midlife, um, and I'm in my 60s now, so you know it's just keeps on going, but I'm having more fun now than I think I did when I was younger. So I really yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_03:I think um our lives are very different than our parents, our grandparents, you know, their you know, etc. Life is different now. And I have to say, first of all, I have no idea how I got into my mid-50s because that's where I don't know how that happened. And um, but but there it is. In my brain, I still feel like I'm in my 30s, you know. I I'm still um very active, and there's lots of things that I love to do. I have a lot of hobbies and you know, I'm working in two businesses and you know, have have these friendships that are forming this year, and I feel like my life is full. I still feel very young, and I just remember, you know, when you're a little kid and you think about somebody who's in their mid-50s or or beyond, you're they're old, you know. And uh, but I I don't feel that way, at least not up here. And uh, when I look in the mirror, that's another story, you know. But uh, but I think that at this point you see people who are much older and they don't look their numerical age. And uh then you see people who are younger and they look much older. And I believe that that's really um a result of what choices they're making in their life and how they're living their life. And there's a guy, my husband is in the rotary club uh here in town, and it's all ages. And there's a gentleman who, I think he's 89, and I've met him before, and you would never know it. He's he's going and building houses for people, you know, who need homes, you know, they go on these uh these travel excursions and they build homes. And he is, I think, um, a career counselor at uh one of the universities nearby, and he's really active in rotary and he's traveling, and it's amazing. You look at somebody like that and you're like, I want to be like that. And in order to do it, it starts with making choices before you get to that age. And so that's really the impetus for a lot of the things that I personally have been doing this year because at least I'm smart enough to know you can't snap your fingers and those things be your life. You have to make really intentional choices and you have to continue to make good choices every single day so that you're gonna get the dividends when you're that age, that you're still active and mobile and vibrant. Um, so um it's it's amazing that the age number doesn't seem to matter as much as the quality of the life that you're living. There's you know, more life in your days. And uh does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like what you were saying about making intentional choices and um what Lori said about having fun and just you just um reinventing yourself. And I know that you have two um you have a community with wonderful experiences, and then your uplift newsletter. Can you tell us about how that works and what how you're building community with with women who are making these choices and reinventing themselves? And um, I know you're encouraging them to do that, so thank you for that. But can you just tell us a little bit more about those communities?
SPEAKER_03:Sure. Fonderful Experiences is the umbrella. Uh, so that's my company. And inside is the Uplift newsletter. It's a free weekly newsletter. It goes out every Thursday. In fact, it's probably being sent out as we speak uh for this week. And um, and I started that first because for a few reasons, but for primarily because uh I'm not a celebrity. So people are, you know, who is she, you know? And so I thought it would be a good way for people to start to get to know a little bit about who I am, um, what my values are, what my style and approach uh are, um, and see if they resonate. And so every week I'll write about something that's a personal story from my own life, typically from my own midlife journey. Um, it's pretty vulnerable. And I'll also talk about how I'm getting through it or how I've overcome it or steps I've been taking to address it. Um, luckily for me, I'm able to coach myself, right? I have these coaching skills, and if I apply them to myself, which is easier to dish out to other people, but uh when I when I follow those things myself, um, it really, you know, it's like I can make a lot of improvements. Um, so I'll share some of those kinds of tips and tools about shifting perspective. Um, I'll share a couple of reflection prompts where I'll ask the reader to reflect on something that I just wrote about. You know, what would it be like if you did X, Y, or Z? Or what would your life be like if you added more fun or added more time for friends or et cetera? Um, and then I'll share something called the the weekly uplift. And that is a mini challenge where I'll say, okay, this week I want you to, you know, think about this and then try one of these things. And it's a tiny little baby step, but the point is for them to internalize, um, try it on, see how it fits in their own lives, and hopefully start to see some small shifts of their own. So that's the uplift. And then um Connected Hearts is my membership community. That is a local, at the moment, it's a local in-person membership community. It's paid. Women uh gather once a month, and it's similar to the uplift in that there's like a meat and potatoes kind of topic, but we go much deeper. And so uh we had one official gathering so far a few weeks ago, and our next one is in mid-January. Uh, last time we talked about starting to cultivate a better friendship with yourself and how you speak to yourself. And so I presented the topic. I shared a little bit about um what it means to me, uh, some coaching tips and tools, uh, how to start to think about that. Again, we did reflection prompts and everyone went around and shared. Uh, these women are very open. They're looking for more depth in the conversation. It's a safe space. So we all uh we had a nice group discussion about the topic. And then um then we take a little break and then we do something silly. Uh so we played Midlife Pictionary, and that was really meant to be a palate cleanser and to balance, uh, like Lori said, to have the fun because we talk about these deep, meaningful topics that are uh very satisfying, you know, to be talking about, but then we balance it with some silly fun. For some women, they're not having any more fun. So it's uh it's a wonderful way to bond, have some laughs, and um and then we'll have a closing uh, a closing uh, I guess, ritual, but it's light. It's not anything churchy or it's not like a yoga group. It's really just more some things that we say to make an intention for the rest of the month so that we can carry this energy, you know, into the rest of our daily lives. So um it's still forming and growing. I'm excited about it though. I had a big smile on my face for about, you know, a week afterwards, just thinking about how wonderful it was to be in person and to be sharing the space, uh sharing the energy, you know, learning about these other wonderful women who are on their own journeys, but we have many similarities in terms of what we're looking for. And uh, so it was really, really nice to be together.
SPEAKER_01:That sounds great. I I'm sure that other the women that were there had a big smile on their face as well for a week or more.
SPEAKER_03:Hopefully longer.
SPEAKER_01:I know that's a that's a great um community uh you know thing for women and just the bonding that goes on. That's wonderful. Um, um I had a question for you. Like, what prompted you to begin to do the work that you're doing? What like what things in your life kind of um yeah, I guess prompted you to begin this work?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a great question. Um, there have been a number of things, and they didn't all happen at once, but they've all happened, I would say, within a year-long span, uh, uh, or maybe a little bit longer. The first thing was I moved to California in my late 40s. So in midlife, I didn't know anybody here. By the time you know we got our house and settled in, it was the pandemic. And so when we were ready to go out and become part of our community, make friends, we couldn't, right? Because we were all self self-isolated or quarantining or whatever. Um, so it felt like for a good two and a half years we were isolated. Um, and then even when things started to lift and you could interact again. I don't know if uh you can relate to this, but for me, it's like a body at rest stays at rest. To get the energy to get out of my sweatpants and take a shower and, you know, go out and interact with people was actually really hard. I just didn't have the motivation, even though I wanted to be with people, I didn't have the motivation to actually take the steps and do it. Um, so that was happening. So I felt like I was really missing community, I was really missing um friends. Luckily, my husband is my best friend, but I wanted to make some women, women friends. And so I felt pretty alone. Earlier this year, I went to visit a family member for their 80th birthday, and I hadn't seen them in a couple of years. And I noticed this time they were um in their chair playing video games, watching a lot of television. Um, they have some health issues, some mobility issues, and you know, they just um they didn't look the same to me from what I remembered. And so that was like, oh, this was a jolt. I also remembered my grandmother, who was very social, very gregarious woman when I was a little girl. And towards the end of her life, she also was inside in her chair, she didn't want to go out anymore, she didn't interact really with anybody anymore. So I'm sensing this pattern, and I'm getting really scared because I don't want that for my life. Um, my father passed away when he was 58, and this year I'm 56. So that's kind of on my mind. So all these things are on my mind, and I don't want that, I want this, I don't know how to get it, but if I keep sitting around, I'm not nothing's gonna happen that's different. And so I really had to start questioning myself, um, not blaming anybody else for why my life was a certain way. I took responsibility and said, okay, well, if I want friends, I have to take consistent, repeatable steps to go out and meet people and cultivate those relationships. If I want community, I have to get involved in my community. And if I want To be active as I get older, now's the time to make that foundation. And so that was really the impetus for all the work I'm doing this year by going back to school and getting the event planning certificate, you know, get some new skills, keep my brain active. Um, I am now very involved in my community. I joined a woman's a local woman's club. It's a service organization. I do that. Um, I joined um, I actually was appointed to our city's senior commission. So uh that was interesting. So I'm I've been doing that. I volunteer at our local senior center once a month. Um, and I'm doing that. A lot of things I'm really enjoying, I'm loving, just being part of where I live. And uh and then what was left was making some good friends. And that was really where Funderful came in because some of the people I know, they have the friends they go to sports games with, or the friends they go to a concert with, or friends that they go out to dinner with, friends that they walk with or go to coffee with, they're different people. For me, I've always been the kind of person that appreciates more depth in the friendship. I want to be able to go to the sports game and the concert and the coffee and be silly and have a deep, meaningful conversation with the same person. And so um, whereas I've noticed out in my community, there are hiking groups, there are people who like to just go have coffee or brunch. Uh, there's people who have an affinity, a book club, things that they have in common. But for me, it was a little bit too surface for what I was really seeking. I couldn't find anything, and so I created it. And that's really where Connected Hearts came from is the desire to build a community of women where the depth was there, the friendship, the support, no, no competition, no clicks, uh, where we really all were, you know, there for each other, showing up for each other, and that we could also have fun and be silly.
SPEAKER_02:And in that book, I talked about just that. If you don't have what you need in your life, taking responsibility for your life and knowing that you can't just sit and wait for somebody else to come and say, Oh, you want friends? Here's a bunch of friends for you. Oh, you want this in your life? Here, here. We're always, you know, waiting for it to happen to us or for somebody else to give it to us. No, you need to, you need to create that in your life, right? Like there's nothing wrong with your friends that you go to sports games with, or you can still have them. But if you're looking for something more meaningful, it's searching for it. And if you can't find it, creating it. I love that. You know, we're capable of that. You don't have to have a degree, you don't have to be, you know, a celebrity. You don't have to, you can create something uh meaningful that you're looking for in your life, and yeah, and you will be amazed how many other people are looking for those same things, and you will have to create that community.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that's a really good point. And um again, two things you said really struck me. Uh, you know, one is you have to set an intention. So it's again, you don't snap your fingers and you have it. You set the intention. First, you have to, I always say you have to decide what you want, not how you're gonna get it. It always starts with the what. What do I want? Then you can work backwards and start to decide what steps to take in order to achieve that goal or whatever it is that you want. Um, so it's worry about the what, you know, not the how. Um, the second thing is you have to put in consistent time, investment of yourself, effort. You have to keep showing up. You know, sometimes I'll go to a coffee with someone, we have a lovely time, and we say, oh, well, this is a famous, you know, we should do it again. We should do it again real soon. And we all say it, it's such a throwaway. Um, but I'll say, great, get out your calendar. Let's find another day. I truly believe you need to see somebody at least once a month, probably more, in order to be able to start to build a relationship. Because otherwise, every time you see them, you're kind of starting at the beginning, you're catching up on things. You're not moving forward. Uh, you're not creating memories and you're not really building uh any kind of sustainable relationship. And so it's showing up over and over again. It is work, you know, and many of us are stretched for time. But if this is something that's important to you, it would be up to you now to make the time consistently show up and also to find other people where they're showing up back, where it's you know, reciprocity, where if you're making all the plans, but they're never asking you, or you get together with them and you're asking them questions, but they're not asking you anything about you, that also is not going to be sustainable, right? And it's maybe not a relationship that you want to invest in. So you kind of have to sort of kiss a lot of frogs before you find the gems, the people who are like you invested and um and not to give up if you don't find it right away. You know, it's it's a numbers game. Don't get discouraged because it's easy to do that. Well, I tried and I didn't find anything, and then you give up. It's really, it takes a lot of courage for you to work through whatever your feelings are of rejection and disappointment, you know, to just get back up and do it again, keep going back out there because if you do, you you will achieve what it is you're after. You will get what you want. Um, and you're playing an active role in in doing that and making that happen. And the other thing that you said, you know, it's like you said the two things, right? It's setting the intention, but it's also um showing up over and over again to ensure that that you know things things come to fruition, that really what you want, what that intention is, you're manifesting it and you are uh you're creating it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I I think that what you said is perfect. It and it's not um, you haven't made a mistake or done anything wrong when you show up and somebody isn't showing up for you. You've learned something, right? So it's in those you said earlier about baby steps. I am a person who thinks that baby steps, that there's so much power in baby steps, even more than the big step. Um I think when you do the small little baby steps, you're creating a foundation. Um, you're integrating it into your life to make it a reality. Um, but I I find that even like when you're learning what community you do want, you're gonna go to a bunch of communities where you've learned something. Well, I don't want this. Well, I really liked this about that. Maybe this wasn't the community I wanted, but I liked this part of it. So you're actually building and um taking on all this information to create. So when you decide what you what you want, you may not fully realize all that you want within that desire. Right. So when you're exploring um all of the different uh groups um or communities, you're learning and you're building that to really get what you truly want, to create what you want. That's right. It's never a mistake, it's never, it's never a waste of time. Um yeah, agreed. It's like everything is an opportunity, right? Building that, you're building that information to really narrow um pinpoint, be pacific about really what you do want within that desire.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. Yeah, everything's an opportunity. There's no mistakes. If you are getting, if you're learning, or um, like you said, even if all you're learning is I don't like that, uh, you know, but it was an experience. And just by being out there, and you never know, maybe you go to a group, and the group in general, the vibe doesn't resonate with you, but you meet one person and you have a good conversation, and you you go to lunch with that person, and they actually wind up becoming one of your really close friends. So you never really know where you might find your people um unless you just keep trying trying things, right?
SPEAKER_01:I remember um moving here to uh and this at the same time around COVID in in New Hampshire. I didn't have know anybody. And I wrote down specifically I'd want to meet my tribe, and I didn't know anybody, but uh we always talk about on this on this show is that you know what you said about letting go of the how, you know, you you've got um your intention and you let go of the how and you just we just allow the next perfect step to happen and you you follow your intuition as far as taking those baby steps, right? You just like listen to what's going on, and then you also had mentioned about you can see in hindsight um the the things that unfold that you never expected. And over you know, a few years, those kind of things happened. And I did find my tribe to included these lovely ladies here today, but um, it was amazing. It's amazing how things unfold and you let go of the how you don't know how it's gonna happen, but it does. It does. Right. And it's yeah, and you yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And you know, something else. Um I feel like, you know, this year more than any other year, I've been really intentional about just being myself. Um, you know, to go along with these expectations that we were talking about earlier, I always felt like you needed to look a certain way or carry yourself a certain way, or of certain material things so that you looked like you had things things together in your life and uh or that these are the things that society rewards, you know, beauty and youth and um whatever. You know, you interact with a lot of people in the world. And if if you're being yourself, not everyone's gonna like you. Um, but that's okay because if you like you, if you are your own best friend, if you feel comfortable in your own skin, you're not pretending to be somebody else. And it is terrifying to show up as you because you are definitely opening yourself up to rejection, judgment, criticism, right? Being cast out, you don't fit in. Um, and that brings up a lot of scary things for people, myself included. Like, why would I ever do that? You know, um, but I've just decided to embrace it because uh what I think there's some saying it's like, just be yourself because everybody else is taken, you know. Be yourself, your people will be magnetized to you. You will put be putting out energy that is attracting back your people. And if you're not being yourself, you're still going to be putting out energy. You're gonna be attracting people and situations to yourself that are not aligned with who you are or what you want. So even though it might be scary to just be you, I found trying these baby steps, because it all was happening with baby steps, and it's still a work in pro every day. I have to think about that. Just be you. You know, don't start to get anxious about, you know, looking at everybody else and what they have and just, you know, stay grounded, love yourself, uh, be kind to yourself. Taking these little steps feels a little bit less scary, and you're gonna start to get rewarded by it because you'll be doing something that maybe someone else wants to do, but they're too afraid. So you're kind of opening the door to these connections uh with others who are like you say, your tribe, you know, your people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I thought I there are a few things that you've said that I'd like to touch on with that. And like it's back in the beginning when you were talking about the way we talk to ourselves. Um, and I really loved that that you incorporate that into your work is is to kind of go over some of those things. And I also one of the things that I've learned um by becoming I'm not gonna say older, I'm gonna say wiser, by you know, by becoming wiser, that as much as I love all my friends, as you as you grow and you reach into new topics of conversation and you start to understand the world differently than you did to be younger, you you have to be able to let yourself let go of some of the relationships that even though they're very loving and you adore these people, it's very difficult sometimes to to break through that. And like you were talking earlier about having that action behind getting yourself out there that you know, get yourself out of your sweatpants, and I struggle with that all the time because I am out here on 35 acres of land, and you know, I don't I I work outside of my pajamas a lot, and I don't get motivated to do the community thing as much as I could. So, you know, that motivation of doing it and that being able to let go of what doesn't serve you, and not that it doesn't serve you anymore, but it doesn't serve the the new you, the the new um questions and curiosity that you have.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely. I mean, we're always evolving. And uh, you know, if you think about your younger self, right? Maybe you were friends with people from a job, and you really maybe didn't have that much in common other than you all worked at the same company and you were all working in close proximity to each other. And so maybe they would you'd be gossiping about your terrible boss, or you'd be on the company softball team together, or you'd go to lunch or happy hour or something like that, and you had this proximity, and uh you didn't really maybe even have to get to know them so, so well because it was just kind of baked in. You know, they were the people around you and they were your friends. Then you leave that company and you go to another company or you're self-employed. For most people, those relationships fall away because there wasn't anything else to sustain it other than the familiarity, or maybe if all you did was gossip with that coworker and you're you don't care anymore about what's going on at that company, it's not gonna be, you're not gonna be able to sustain that relationship, nor will you want to. And um, and then in college, right, you get different group of friends and things change, you all move to different places, you get married, or you're doing different things in your lives, you don't have some of the same things in common anymore. There, there may always be people, it doesn't matter how many years have gone by, you can pick pick up right where you left off with them. I feel fortunate that way. There are people I don't keep in touch with very frequently, but maybe I talk to them once a year around the holidays. And it's wonderful to hear their voice. We don't have to start all over again getting to know each other. We already have established that we care about each other, and they're gonna always be lifelong friends. Um, then there will be other people who are in and out of your life depending on what's happening for you. And if you're growing and evolving yourself, it's natural that some of the relationships around you may no longer suit who you are or who you're becoming. It is sad. Sometimes the person, you didn't get in a fight, they didn't do anything wrong. It's just that you're feeling um, you're not feeling drawn to them anymore. You don't, maybe you don't have anything to talk about, or they can't understand where you are now. And so there's a disconnect. Um, I think those things are really sad. But again, um, it's like what Lori said earlier, right? Those things aren't a waste of time. Those relationships weren't diminished, they're not wasted. You have wonderful memories, wonderful years, and they served a purpose in your journey of life based on where you were at that time. And uh it's okay to let them go. And some of them, I think, kind of fall away naturally without it even having to be a conversation. And they probably feel the same way. They don't have anything in common with you anymore. And there's just, you know, things just kind of fall away. But um I think that when you think about these people in your life, as you're evolving, some of them are also, and they're evolving in a similar path to you. So you stay connected, and some aren't, or they're evolving in a way that's farther away from where you are. And it's okay to let those naturally go. You'll be making room for new people and new situations to to come into your life, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and like you said, too, you know, it's a it's an energetic field. You're you know, you're a magnet to the people that are resonating with you at the time. And so, you know, I I I just know that you know, for some people that I've talked to, it's very hard to release the guilt about leaving where they think they're leaving people behind. But like you, you know, there's so many friends that you just you haven't seen in forever, and then you do, and it's like, wow, this is great. And you have this great conversation, it just doesn't, you know, project into other conversations and other conversations until the next one.
SPEAKER_03:Many, many years ago, uh, went through a divorce. I was previously married, and my husband and I now we're married 20 years, um, but I was previously married uh when I was younger, and you know, we had couples' friends, and there were some other people that were in my life. And after the divorce, those people they weren't coming around anymore, either because we weren't a couple anymore to be couples' friends with them, uh, or they, I don't know, maybe they thought divorce was contagious. That if they, you know, maybe if things weren't working out well in their own marriage and the close up, it was like, wow, somebody that I know is divorced, maybe that could happen to me. And so it was, you know, terrifying for them. So they just didn't come around. Um, or maybe they don't believe in divorce, so they weren't able to be my friend anymore. I don't know. You know, I I never know what happens for somebody else, only for what I see is some of those friendships went away. Um, and at first I felt really lonely and I was really upset about it. But I moved, of course, I moved on and my life changed and I, you know, I healed, I moved forward, I met new people, and some of those people that kind of fell away. Way. I didn't really even miss those friendships anymore. It just didn't serve who I was. At the time it was very painful, but looking back, I realized it's, you know, it's okay. That's just how how things are in life. It's perfectly fine, you know. Um, so I think for all of us, it's really just about aligning to who are we? What are our values? Who are we right now? What do we want? Who do we want to be around? We always have those friends that are very negative, they complain all the time, they gossip about other people. Maybe it's what you had in common with them. You both bonded over that. And you decide now that you don't want that anymore. You don't want that negativity, you don't want to sink down to that level. Um, and so now that person doesn't understand what's wrong with you, right? We we used to have so much fun together. You realize that doesn't really serve me right now. And so you decide that you're gonna move on. And so um I think that in life, it's just, you know, we're all kind of marching in the same direction. And it's how do you want to spend your days and who who are the people that you want around you? And it's perfectly normal that people will come and go as you're going through your life, you know, depending on um, you know, what's happening for you, it's okay.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's really important to say again, it's perfectly natural, right? I mean, just what you said, I mean, we don't have to even have a reason, right? It just energetically, it just like you said, you've changed or they've changed, and it just doesn't match anymore. Like we're such a society of trying to figure out like what went wrong. Is it them? Is it me? Like, we don't really need to focus or even have that explanation. Like, we are just not, we're walking down that same path, and now we've gone to two different passes. And if our path meets again, like in a year, like you said, you have those friends that once a year you talk and like everything's great, wonderful. Yeah, but why do we have to nitpick it to figure it out, right? Like it's just a natural process. Yeah. You know, we've just gone separate ways for a while, and we may come back and we may never come back. Like you said, like that, you know, you could hope that the person who you had fun with, you know, gossiping and and and joking about other people, that you no longer that no longer it brings you joy. Yeah. And someday that person that doesn't bring them joy anymore either. Um, but they may not go down that path. And that's okay. That's their happening. And just to make this that we don't have to look or to nitpick or think what's wrong with us or what's wrong with them, or why didn't this relationship work? But to just say it's natural. We're we're evolving that way, and that it's all okay, right? I mean, it's just it we just get to let it be what it is. And like you said, we've learned, right? We've learned that, oh, look, I've changed. I'm now becoming more of the person I wanted to be. And that doesn't lessen them or anything like that, but it can be a reflection of how far you've come and that you are becoming more in line with your authentic self.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. And by the way, you you genuinely want the best for them, and there's no ill will. And you know, it's just if you saw them walking down the street, you'd you know, give them a big hug and maybe catch up, and you're genuinely happy to see them. It's just if you spend all of your time feeling guilty or shame or beating yourself up or questioning what happened, you're really just taking a lot of your energy that could be used in a different way, uh, that you know, to move to move you forward. And uh, you know, you we all just have so much going on in our mind, the narrative, and it really occupies a lot of time and energy.
SPEAKER_01:So, Cheryl, thank you. We really appreciate like your tips and your tips about self-care, reinvention, connection, community, and all of the things that you've um talked about. Is there anything else that you'd like to add to today's topic?
SPEAKER_03:I think um, you know, we're all on our own journeys and we're all trying to just figure out life, right? And um I feel that it's most important to start with yourself and really becoming a good friend to yourself because once you've done that, it opens up everything else in your life. You don't feel lonely anymore because you have your own company and you enjoy it and right, and you're not beating yourself up. There's plenty of other people out there that want to beat you up. You don't need to beat yourself up, right? And uh, and if you're feeling like you need to find your people and you're there for yourself and you're supporting yourself and speaking to yourself with kindness and patience and compassion, you're good. You're in good shape. So um I would say for anybody who's on this journey and questioning life or questioning their choices or questioning anything, that's not important. What's important is you're here right now. What do you want? Decide the what. And uh, and then the, you know, then you could start to figure out the how, but I always feel like you're on the right path if the how is beginning with the small steps of of self-compassion and learning to really love yourself. And so uh from there, the people in the situations you'll attract back will mirror, mirror that. And that's kind of what we all want. So um it's not looking outside for what is missing, it's looking inside first and cultivating it there.
SPEAKER_01:That's well said. Thank you. Where can our listeners find out more about you and your work?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yes, thank you for asking. Uh they can go to my website, funderful experiences.com. And if they would like to subscribe to the uplift, it's free, uh, comes out weekly. There's a big button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. They can subscribe. Uh, and for anyone who is local to North County, San Diego, and is interested in learning more about connected hearts, uh, there is a tab there for membership. And they can uh come as a guest, check it out, see if it resonates. Uh, and if so, join us. That's wonderful. And for everybody, you guys fly out, you can come join us too.
SPEAKER_02:Yay. And I suggest everybody sign up for her newsletter because we could all use more positivity in our lives. For sure. Agreed. So if you've liked this episode as much as we have, please like, share, and subscribe. And until next time, how is your intuition leading you to the next perfect step?