Coming home to your heart with Karen Kelly

Karen’s life has taken her from Liverpool to the Australian outback, from running a bustling bridal business to hosting soulful Rainbow Frequency gatherings. 

In this episode of The Unravelling, she shares her midlife rebirth, the spiritual awakening that began in her 40s, and why life now feels like a homecoming to self.

We explore her belief that when someone criticises you, triggers you, or annoys you, it’s actually a gift. A mirror showing you something about yourself. 

We also dive into her unforgettable analogy: “You’ve got the engine on the boat, but you’ve lost the boat,” and what it really means when your head is steering but your heart’s been left behind.

Along the way, Karen talks about the importance of tuning in to yourself, manifestation, the lessons hidden in life’s challenges, and the joy of living simply. 

And for our UK listeners, yes, we clear up exactly what she means when she says she’s mooching around the farm in her thongs and socks.

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Whether you're 30 and your makeup bag is a complete mystery, or you're in midlife and barely recognise the face looking back — this day is for you. We'll work through what you already own, make it actually make sense, and send you home with more than a better routine. You'll leave with that feeling — you know the one — where you look good, you feel good, and that energy ripples into everything.

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👉 https://events.humanitix.com/the-glow-deeper-retreat

 Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Unravelling: The Diary of a Midlife Mess.

If something resonated with you today, I’d love to hear your thoughts,  come join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @theglowupguide_au or visit sharonwilkesburt.com
for more resources and support.

Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you’re enjoying the journey so far!

Transcript

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited for our conversation that we're gonna be having. I'm obviously, as this podcast is unraveling the di of a midlife mess, so we're really gonna be talking about that.

Point where everything's, everything's going ticky boo and then all of a sudden we start to unravel, I think start to fall apart. And there seems to be a bit of a common theme with women in this season of life. Now, we didn't just arrive here as a midlife woman. There was years, decades prior to that.

So I'm gonna start with, if I'm gonna go back to your teens. So if we were to open Karen's teenage diary, what would it say? Oh wow. Oh, Sharon, you just started straight in there. Let's go. Okay. Get your seatbelt on. Here we are. What would it say? I would probably go back and think that I had the world at my feet.

Yeah, but you didn't realize it. You had obviously you had normal life things that every teenager does, and then you had your own. Childhood that got you to those teenage years, which everyone does. Yeah. But then I think that if I could go back to that diary, it would probably be that you've got the world at your feet and you can do and be anything you choose to be.

Yeah. Great attitude. Which is what was that, Sharon? Sorry. That's a great attitude for a teen, for a teenager. Yeah, I think so. And I, but I think I always felt that. But then all Then also things like lack, confidence, and you're only young and you think you know things, and then you think you don't know enough things, but really you had all the ingredients for the cake then.

Yeah, I just think that at that time. You were just so young, you just didn't realize that all you needed to do was open the cupboard and it was all in there. Yeah, I guess that's so true, because I would say the same thing. I think I probably thought, the ward is my oyster at that point. That you can do anything, I don't remember feeling inhibited by too much stuff, we just felt that it was all there. Yeah, I feel it's just our mind and the people around us that we aspire to or look up to in those young forming years. It's what they tell you. Yeah, you are, not all the time, but you can tend to fall into what other people, whether it's.

Teachers in school when you were younger, whether it's your first job, whether it's your friend group, whether it's family, I think you tend to fall into what life tells you. You are. Yeah. And then I think when you get to our age, you get a little bit more, no, hang on a minute. You start to question it, I think.

'Cause that's conditioning, isn't it? So if you go back to being told who you were, who did you want to be? When you grew up, and is she still in there? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that more than anything in this time in society right now, and I dunno whether it's just midlife women or whether it's the whole of society, we all need to be more childlike.

And I feel like that, that child is within everyone, but life can suffocate that child. And then we become very responsible and very you've got other things, children and mortgages and all the other things that you Yeah. Responsible adult stuff that we don't wanna Yeah. Just all the adult stuff, but absolutely that child's in there and I think the key is getting back to that child.

So the one that we've actually grown away from is the one where we should have, and it did come with me all the way. Of course it does. 'cause that is you. Yes. But I do feel that. That's where we need to be. We need to get back to that. Losing every responsibility, making sure that the whole world is okay.

Yeah. And getting back to having fun. Yeah. I think, do you know I was listening to a podcast a while ago and, the woman been interviewed on there. I think the, in the guest, the interviewer had asked her, what age she felt. And of course, normally when you hear these things, you're expect her to say, oh, I feel like I'm 21 still.

And she said she said, oh, I feel like I'm about six or seven years old. I've rediscovered the joy in, like kicking up a bunch of leaves on an autumn day, or I've rediscovered, I'll now stop and look at a pretty butterfly and go, God, isn't it beautiful? And I just thought, God, that's so true.

But that's. Slowing down, isn't it? To enjoy those moments. Yeah, and I feel that, and especially 'cause I live two and a half hours outside Perth and we're very rural. We've got no shops, we've got no neighbors, we've got, we've nothing but a red dirt track and nature. So living here for the last four years makes you very mindful.

Yes, you have to take everything to dump yourself so you realize you don't just go out and put it in the bin. 'cause you've got to actually then. Take it physically to the dump every, wherever you wanna go. Yeah. So that's just one thing, but you become more mindful of everything. And that's been a really big learning curve for me to become that way.

Because you can become, oh, just put it in the bin. Oh, we just get another one. Yes. Yeah. We can't get another one 'cause we're not near the shops. We can, but you go into Perth. Yeah. But you we're not near the shops, so you just become more mindful and I think. That society as a whole, that's where we do need to go.

We do need to go back to being more mindful. Yeah. Yeah. And almost like that childlike state of wonder in a sense a lot of the time. Just that slowing down to notice that, that beautiful. Yeah, I'd done a, I'd done a couple of years ago I'd done this. I'd done like just a just a bit of looking at myself.

Put my name in the middle of the page and then I just done a bit of a brainstorm of what I liked when I was a child. Yeah, I love that. When you go through that, you actually see that you like all those things now. Oh, for sure. But some of them, and actually I will come onto that because that's very much I'll be talking about threads and I think that's a really important, that's such an important thing to do.

So if I go back through the decades again now. In your, if we could take you back to your twenties, what did success look like to you in your twenties? Oh, I would say success for me in my twenties was providing for myself financially. Being independent as I could possibly be. And love just wanting.

A family and to be married to be, I've always been entrepreneurial, so that was always there. Yeah. But I'd say those things, independence, finance, and love, that's what my twenties would've, I would've said was to make just striving for better. Yeah. Although, yeah, I realize now that striving for better, there's never a destination and you never actually get there.

No. It doesn't exist. We don't learn that until we get older. Until, when at 20 again, it's like your teens. You think you've got it all ahead of you and it's, again it's not until we reach this stage, we go, oh wow, I'm still after that thing, whatever that thing.

I'm still on that path. Yeah. It's also, I just felt, it's it, you hear all those old quotes. Oh, it's not the destination, it's the journey. And it's so true. Oh, for sure. Yeah. If it never, ever comes when you're 20, you think, oh, when I've got a car, when I get my first car, yeah I'll be all right then.

And then, when me and my boyfriend do this, and oh, we're gonna go on holiday here and we're gonna, should we get a mortgage? Or should we rent? It's all those. Yes. And you always think that the next job, the next holiday, the next partner, the next is gonna be the Willy Wonkers golden Ticket.

Oh. But there is actually the land of this moment of kind like, oh my God, I've made it success. But you're absolutely right. There's never, you never come it's like a tick box, isn't it? Oh, and next, that's not it. It's just, yeah. You're gonna get to the deathbed and literally go, I've got 1,000,001 ticks, but I never actually got the prize.

Yeah, but the prize. Is in every moment. And the prize can be as simple as the grandchildren coming over, having a really good laugh with someone a, a milestone that whether it's. A new career change or a new hobby that you've, you've looked at your brainstorming that you were talking about before and said, I'm gonna do that.

Yeah. There for me are now the destinations. So it's really, you live in a destination every moment. Not Oh, I love that. That's so Yeah. Out here. It's so true. It's so true. Yeah. So if we go to your thirties, so now, i've talked about this. My, my thirties was like my lost decade in a sense because that was the year I was fully embedded in child rearing and, and yeah, although, I was running my business through this, but I was like so busy.

I don't, I caught it my last decade 'cause I don't have any sense of who I was during that decade because it was like so full on. What would you say, what was driving you in your thirties? The children. I absolutely loved being a stay at home mom, even though I am very entrepreneurial and I like to get out there and do things.

I'm a doer. I loved the child rearing and I was blessed enough that I could be at home with the four kids at that time, and I wouldn't swap that for the world. No. I used to like, it'd be a hot day and we'd just move to Australia and I'd think this is too hot. The kids can't be in school today.

So I just used to go and I'd just walk in and say, oh, Rachel's got a dentist appointment. And Rachel say, no, I haven't. And I'd be like, yes, you have. And then I'd just take them, I'd take them all school classic, love it. And I'd be like, come on, we're going to Hillary's. And we'd just go with a great bag of floaties and towels and go to Hillary for the day.

So I loved my thirties for me was all about, just rearing the children and putting as much love into them as I possibly could. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. We all have our mistakes and we all, can do better, but I feel like that would say that was what my thirties was. Yeah. That, I love that.

I think that's parenting 1 0 1. Take you get outta school. 'cause it's a nice day. My kids have been totally up for that. I think any kid was, but it's when she like called me out in front. No we're not. 'cause she's always so sensible, the oldest child and she'd say, she didn't tell me we had a dentist appointment.

And I'm like, get in the car. It's like having that sy child in absolutely fabulous. Where sys the s's the grown up one. You the Adena in this. Come on darling. Yeah, I'd say that was, it was very much family and child and Yeah. And settling into Australia that, that. Was definitely the thirties.

Thirties, yeah. So quite, yeah, busy time. So in your forties then, in your forties, what did, when you thought ahead to, or even considered the word midlife, and I'm not even sure we use that word, we just use the word middle aged. When you were in your forties, what did middle aged mean to you? I would say.

Somebody that had walked be in the path that I was following in. Somebody that had wisdom life experience and could and had more choices. That's what it looked like to me. Yeah. I've never been somebody that's afraid of being older. No. I feel like every year. Is more of a blessing than the year before.

I've never really been I've just not been that person that, when people say I'm 40 and I'm 50, and I found that forties was a huge shakeup for me, the biggest probably dynamics I got divorced. I. Got I started a business and moved out and had the four kids with me. So it was huge amount of everything, promotions, workload huge work, a lot.

Yeah, I got I basically moved out and took the kids and started a business and worked solid day and night. Seven days a week for about three years nonstop and just focused. It's interesting because this is a theme that I'm finding, as I'm having these conversations, that forties is like a decade really of big changes.

A there's a lot goes on in those forties. It's a real kind of we're like busier than ever. We're imagining that when we get to our midlife that everything will be sorted and like we'll have all our shit together completely through all this. It was on its head.

Mad for now, but soon I'll be in my fifties and I'll be absolutely fine. Yeah, and I also think for me, I felt even though I had businesses in the past when I was younger with my ex-husband. I still feel that in the forties. Oh, it just feel it. It was such a big change and it was me doing it on my own then yes.

But then I look back to what people say to your children when they're 19 and 20. Oh, so what are you gonna do? Yeah. And they expect them young ones to know. Yeah. When I didn't find out till I was 40. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's still that thing and it's, that's 14 year olds it, because of course it's pick your subjects for school.

What do you wanna do when you grow up? I don't know. I'm 55, I'm still working it out. Yeah. I'm like, what? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, then in school, you've just gotta pick what appeals to you, I think, because you know how many people go to uni and then they say, I've done six years of, now I'm the opposite. And you're like, okay's fine too.

Yeah. But I do think there's a lot of pressure on younger ones to say, what do you wanna be when you're this? When really I only came into my own. Yeah. Then, and it was almost through. Pain rather than choice. Yes. Yeah. And I think amount of pain comes good because that's the biggest lesson, isn't it?

Of course, they don't, pain isn't on the syllabus at school, so it's in the background somewhere. It'd be quite good to get it all out the way earlier, but, yeah. It's part of that journey, isn't it? Yeah. So if you if your life had chapters, what would you title this chapter that you are in now as.

The rebirth. The rebirth. Okay. And I think this is pretty much what I think this is, again, this is a theme. This is something that a lot of women are we get to this point and go, oh, okay. So yeah. When we look back at, Karen through the decades, is there a thread that kind of runs through it all?

Yeah, I would say, ooh, there's quite a few threads. Yeah, it's a bit of a bit woven basket really. It's that thing that you said, wasn't it, about putting your name in the middle and because it's all those childhood things. Essentially how many of those are frigid through your life?

How many of them are still there? And I think it come it comes back to the core of you. So it's what's at the core that always continues on. You can think that it's. Something you've learned, but I think it's always at the core it's a bit hard. Is if we go specifically, is there a strength that has run through your course, through your life?

Yeah. What would you say that was? I grew very young, so I was, I think I was adult in from about five right. And that why that may look negative at the time. That has been an absolute godsend and a blessing that has allowed me to do the things and be the things that I have done and achieved. So I would say strength courage, love, and.

Also trying to reach as high as I could. And I don't mean that on a ladder level of better than anyone or climbing career ladders. I don't mean it in that sense. Just to try and show up every day and be a bit better than the day before. But also I just feel I think the main, if I had a motto for life, I think it'd be just treat others how you'd like to be treated.

Yeah. So I feel like I've always taken that with me and try and, yeah. Try and put feed that through life, whether it's in motherhood, whether it's in business, in relationships. If you can treat others how you'd like to be treated, I think we wouldn't go too far wrong. Yeah, I I think mine would be the same actually.

Interestingly, mine would be the same. It's always been that kind of a win. And I think it gives you that ability to have that perspective. On situations and people like, how would you feel if that was you? How would you feel if you had been treated that way? Yeah, and don't get me wrong, we all make mistakes and we can all learn.

It's as long as you learn from them and sit and think, I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have done that. Yeah, I shouldn't have acted that way. And as long as you can, we learn, don't we? It is having that self-awareness and step back from it and have learned from it. I'm not actually waiting for my center to be delivered at any point soon because I've been a perfect saint throughout my life.

But any, anytime, I'm sure probably in the post right now. Yeah. But there's no book that comes, so it's all you've got to just do the best that you can. But yeah, I feel that the more I went. On the more confident you actually become in that center column of the real you.

Yes. Yeah. Because a lot on the edge is like the fully program stuff, but the real you is right at the core. That's think as long. There's always a win-win. Yeah. All the conditioning, all the programming, and there's so much of it. Yeah, for sure. I suppose it's programs. So when we talk about that, so if you talk about the kind of the real you that started to come to the form more now.

What's one thing then from, or one thing that you found from maybe it's from your conditioning, maybe it's from all those teachings or whatever. What is it for you that started to unravel? I, my stepfather passed away in the UK in 2 0 3. And so we got a call. My, my mom had been with him since I was about 15.

And so in 2 0 3 we got this call. So they'd been together 20 plus years. And I got this call that he'd had a heart attack, so I jumped on the plane with my son. He was about seven at the time, and just literally flew back to the uk. And I hadn't really been spiritual before that. I was just a.

I wasn't religious, I was just doing life, doing kids. And I went back and I had quite a number of experiences with him while he was in intensive care. And then I was the only one that was with him when he actually passed, when he turned the machine off. And when he did I felt his spirit leave his body on a Okay.

Yeah it's quite long. And I was with him and the room went icy cold, and then I heard all the machines going do, but then I could feel what, I could only describe as a vortex, an icy cold vortex that was spinning. So the only way I could liken it was, do you ever remember the shops in England, like Marks and Spencer's, and it'd be freezing cold outside and you'd open the doors and that.

Blast of air would blast you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno whether you remember that. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. You'd walk in the shops and think, oh, it's warm in here. 'cause it sticks. Yeah. It's lovely. Yeah. The minute you walk through that you always nice in here. Yeah. It flat the opposite. It was just so powerful that wow air and I could see and feel this energy swirling and leaving his body.

And then I flew back to Australia. And I just came back and I've always been creative, but I had this urge to paint, right? I didn't have any paints and I just ran down to the garage and I had this, I don't know this canvas that had been one of the kids and I just got house paints and I painted and it was a journey of, and I felt like I didn't paint that painting.

It was a journey of the spirit going back to source. And even I've got it, I still got it now up in the house and it's it's a bit indigenous, but it's actually energy all going back into the source. And I felt like it was him and my whole world changed from that point of being with him when he passed to.

Then I realized that I'm not just this. This meat suit and this human that was doing what I was doing, there was a lot more. In fact, there was a, I was only seeing not 0.5% of what really is, and that's when my whole spiritual world opened and I realized there was a lot more to life and beyond the veil than what I knew.

Yeah. So that was very pivotal for me. Yeah, because that's a really, often when we talk about this kind of unraveling this it can often be mine was slow, mine was a very slow unraveling, where you try to scramble it back and going, oh no, this, I, I must be, I'm falling apart here.

But that's a very. Specific moment for you. That's something that was an event essentially, wasn't it? That kind of, yeah. There's more to it, but I don't know how your reasons are taken. They'd be like, what? I think, it's just fascinating because obviously we have these moments in our lives where we, and it can be, I always think.

You know the universal start off by giving a little whisper, and if you're not listening out for it, then the whisper just gets louder and essentially it's just gonna hit you in the head of the malice at the end of it and go, we say this all the time, please catch God on the whisper. Not on the shout for sure you don't.

On the brick to the face. And we've all had that. I've had that. But this was a it, this was necessary and I'm grateful to him for that. Yes. That I was able to witness and be there for all these things that happened. Yeah, very. Yeah, it was very, I won't go into details, but it was other worldly, let's just say.

Okay. It happened when I was there, so it, I couldn't do anything. And it was pre-internet. Yeah. And pre all that. So I was at the library. I think Clarkson Library had just opened and I was in there like, how does spirits leave the body? And you could, and trying to read up on, yeah, I was hungry for more information and then.

From that day forward, it's just been a constant, step forward of just learning that there's so much more than what we actually realize. God, that's so fascinating. So when, so obviously you were so the Karen that you were before this and then obviously there was this event happened, what was.

Was there any part of that you were most attached to? No. She just, she's just fell away. Like she's gone now. She doesn't really exist that person anymore. In fact, I don't exist from six months ago. I had this conversation the other day. I feel like time used to go and I feel like. Maybe a lot of other people can relate to this.

I feel like humanity is going through the biggest shift it's ever gone through, whether we're aware of it or not. Yeah. And a lot of people can just think, oh I went too hard at the weekend, or, oh, I'm just, it's just this. I'm not getting on with so and but it's not it's so much bigger than that.

It's planet alignments. It's a lot of the whole of humanity. The frequency is changing of us, and I feel that. And it, some people might understand it and some people don't and either is fine. Yeah. And I just feel that we are now we're evolving as we're going somewhere where we've never been before.

And I look back even six months and I don't even know who that was. Yeah. That's how much I think your life used to be pretty steady, Eddy. Yeah. I'm going to work and then, oh yeah. The weekend we'll do this and then, oh, in the summer we're going on holiday There. Now I feel like it's boom.

Every day is like three months in old school. Oh God. Yeah. Oh, I think that, like we're at the end of July here. What happened? I'm Ali Barley, who just Christmas Day. It's hang on a minute. I just don't even bother anymore. I'm just like Christmas. What Christmas?

Yeah. 'cause it's Christmas and then it's Christmas. Yes. That's exactly how it seems. It just seems which is I at the end and I'm like, no, it hasn't even started. Yeah. But this, but it's interesting what you say about this, like the person that you were like six months ago isn't the person that you were today.

'cause I can absolutely relate to that because, I'm a big journaler, so I love to get my journals out most every day. And I always find it fascinating. Sometimes I'll pick up a journal from last year and I go, oh, I remember her. She's a different me. Exactly.

And it is fascinating and I think it's such a, yeah, I don't know. It's an odd thing, isn't it? Because we have this thing where we're looking back in the decades and going, who is she? Who is she? But actually, you don't go, who was I six months ago? And that's how fast I feel like this shift is happening.

And it can be a bit chaotic and erratic for a lot of people because unless you know that you don't know. It's a bit of a washing machine at the moment. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. And if you've got other people to speak to and then they say, yeah, we're, we feel the same and we're going through this and we're going, that's great because then that's where community's important.

Yeah. But if you haven't, it could be a bit of a what on earth is going on? 'cause I wanna say, I don't know who it was. Of course I do. But and when I look through old journals the same as yourself. The core is still there. Yeah, the core of you is still there of what you want. Getting back to that love and that striving to.

Be a better person than what and learn and grow and help others and they can help you. But the core's still there, but the frilly bits have changed. The actual things that are important are changing. And I just, yeah. Once I had that spiritual experience, we used to be a family where we'd go out and we'd have, everyone over, yeah.

All over for a Barbie and all the kids are in the pool and, all Yeah. And it just went from that to, I wanted to read books, I wanted more information. I wanted to dive so deep into this new world that I'd found that all those things just literally fell away. Yeah. See, that's, it's fascinating I think.

Anything else, the speed of that, for you that was went from one stage to, did you ever have any moments of just looking in the mirror and going, I don't know who I am anymore, or is that such a profound experience for you that was I know who I am, that I, this is, this feels completely aligned to me.

Yes, it was the latter definitely. I've never really felt like I don't know who I am anymore. I've always met it. And allowed it. And I'm somebody that quite likes change. Yeah. So if change comes, I never really run from it. I always usually go, okay, let's go. Yeah. And just trust, I think that's a big thing for me is trust.

I think that's the key, isn't it? And I think this is a problem. Of course we do, we hold onto, and this is, I think this is where the resistance comes from because we're holding onto. Versions of us that we once were, or holding onto situations that, we feel are safe potentially. But I think it does come down to trust and just that letting go, doesn't it really?

Yeah. I just think that it's just about surrender because that is not there. No, those everything isn't there. Those people have changed you. Everything has changed. Yeah. I do feel like we are evolving and the evolving is more internal than external. Those days were more external. Yes.

And now I feel, for me it's more internal and the outside takes care of itself. So in terms of obviously you went from this this external life and more to this internal life, when you say that this is quite a. A quick process for you. Was there any resistance to it? Was there any part of you that kind of thought, oh God, hang on, I should be, was there any shoulds?

'cause of course that's always a no, there was just more of recognizing that my life wasn't serving me personally. Of course, he's still a wife and a mom, and. But it, I didn't wanna carry on doing those old things that we used to do. Yeah. They'd gone past their sell by date, been there, done that.

There's so much more I need to explore and it's in here. So the, it was really just a path that unfolded very nicely, almost you could say. It's like finding yourself isn't unraveling. Huh? Yeah. It's a, it's like a sp it's like unraveling on speed because I know personally my unraveling has been like a slow unraveling, it's this kind of this like slow discovery.

But I think obviously because of that experience that you had, yours was let's go, we're gonna fast track this. Unraveling. Yeah, it has, and it's been like that ever since. And then some days I just think. What on earth, some of the things that have happened since then, like manifestations.

Yeah. You, I could literally write a book. It just, it blows my own brains out sometimes I think. Wow. Just, wow. Wow. I'm looking forward to the book. So if we. Consider all of this period where there was this kind of, this big turning point for you and it was speedy and you you completely trusted, which I think is probably the key that, you were Yes.

Going on this path that you needed to be. I'm sure there were probably people that were offering advice at that time because they're probably thinking, was there anybody from the outside? Did it look like you had it together or were the people around you that were thinking, I think Karen's lost the plot.

Probably, I would say. And that's okay. 'cause I've always been a bit quirky anyway. I'm a bit left to center. Yeah. So I just thought, oh, she's just a bit more left to center today, so during this been, I just, what was the, would there have been any advice then that you ignored? And what and what, and essentially what is the best advice you've ever.

Oh. When myself and my partner, my husband was splitting up, and I thought I've gotta provide for myself and the kids. And I'd always loved I. Like period costumes. Oh okay. There's no cook for that, so that's not something I would go, I just love all that old history. And so the next thing to that was wedding dresses.

So I, I got a wedding dress shop. Actually I bought a, I just got a, an empty shop down in Mount Hawthorne, right in amongst all the other big stores, Uhhuh. I didn't have. Hardly any money at all. And I got the smallest shop in amongst all the big wedding stores. And I knew that business could not fail.

It would not fail under any circumstances whatsoever. And I had that for 10 years and every single year it just got better and better and better. Why? Wow. That was, that's where I first heard of you is obviously, 'cause I was in the wedding for so long. That's where you first came onto my scope in a sense, because obviously I was aware of the, the wedding shop.

'cause obviously, my brides got their dresses from your shop and Yeah. You doing all the hair crossover there, so it was just, that was, I was very driven in that. That's when I'd been the stay at home mom and that entrepreneur that was always simmering in there. She came out. 'cause I think we all have many layers to us.

Oh, for sure. And sometimes we can think we're just a career woman or just a mum. And I don't mean just on any of those parts. No. For sure. We can think we're a career lady or a mum or both, or this or that, when really we've got all those coats things Yeah. Just wear them all differently. Somewhere that coat grate somewhere.

That coat great. And there's no right or wrong. Yeah. It's just what makes you tick and feel good inside. Yeah, a hundred percent. And listening to them inner voices. And when I was getting the shop, there's people saying, oh, you're not gonna make it. Oh, that won't work. I was like, oh no, it can't fail.

There was no option to fail. And when there's no option for failure, then there can only be success. Yeah. Love that. But you had to be at the, where I was to run with that because it's a bit like, when you wanna go on a diet but you're not in the right frame of mind. Yeah. Then you're gonna feel Yeah.

But if you go on that diet when you are ready to go on the diet. Yes. Then you will succeed. You can only be one. You can't go on because you think these jeans aren't fitting me. I need to you, you've gotta really go No change. Yes. And then you'll succeed. So it was a bit like that. It was a non fail option.

Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, you talked about your forties been this. A period in your life that was a lot of changes going on. As I say, you talking about, you got divorced, you'd opened this new business this, not, it's never gonna fail shop, which it really didn't to me.

It was incredible. And obviously you are where you are today, so is there anything that you are still unlearning or anything that you're still releasing? I'm all, I'm learning every day and I know nothing. Yeah. Because if you think that you do, you just don't, I'm just learning every day. You think, and that's going back to that, who were you six months ago, six months ago, you think?

Yeah. That's box that's sorted. No, you, it's you. And I think that now I'm just at a place of just trust, surrender and allowing, instead of pushing the old way was to push. Yeah. Especially more business it was doing, it was masculine where I feel like the feminine is coming in a lot more into play now of showing up, taking action from love, having win-win situations do being the best person I can be for myself and for the for other people.

And then just totally surrendering and allowing it to flow rather than forcing or pushing. Honestly, I can, I, that sort of speaks to me on some kind of level because I've had my business for, over 20, 30 years and and was very much loved it, very entrepreneurial, very kind of focus.

Next next bigger better, and and it was almost like that side of me had a death, yeah. And now it just feels very much that kind of feminine side where it's just no give back. What do you love? What do what feels right for you?

And it's more now about very much how it feels rather than what it looks like to others. A hundred percent. It doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, it doesn't matter. We live up here on the farm. I walk round in these trackies, I'm covered in chicken and duck poop.

I've got fongs on with socks, no makeup and hair like a mop. And then sometimes my mom who lives with us, she's 90 and she says. She'll comes out and she goes, whatever happened to you? What happened to you? I'm living my best life. Yeah. I'm just, you used to be going into that shop looking beautiful and look at you now, but it's just, yeah.

You've just got to just yeah. Everything just makes sense. It all just comes together. Yeah. That, that you don't, there's no, there's no need to worry about what anyone thinks. And you know what? You can never change what anyone thinks. No. And you can never change what anyone says. No. So what is the point?

True. Absolutely true. So if we look at this whole experience for you, like this, you know this, we've gone, we've had sort of Karen through the decades and this, what was the, I'm gonna say what was the lesson, but because as you said, there are so many lessons you are learning all the time. What did this whole experience reveal about you?

Oh, so much. And I'm working through all that now. And it's, it all goes back to your childhood and probably a lot of people can relate to just I'm an empath. People please. So that's where I'm working on now, trying to set boundaries that I should have set when I was about five. So there's just a little bit of homework to do, but we might catch up.

Yeah. So just it's going back to basics really. It's like a homecoming. Yeah. Homecoming to self and. Still loving and still caring, but putting yourself even on the list with the others that you love and care for. Yeah. Because I think as moms, not always, but we can tend to be a bit down the queue.

Oh, for sure. He's done. They're done. That's done. And then you're like, ah, but like that Christmas Eve feel to it. Yeah. Everything else is done and you are like, I've had a shower. Yeah. Puzzled. Yeah. So I think it's getting back to what is, how can I show up as the best version of myself so that then I can help others instead of helping others.

But not, tending to this garden. I guess it's that thing, isn't it? Because it's that whole, they tell you to put your life mask on, so your life jacket on first or your thing, the air oxygen mask on first. That's it. Yeah, it's that, isn't it? And it's and of course we hear it all the time, but I guess it's not until.

Your kids grow up and there's more space. You're not having to keep small humans from trying to damage themselves. And I think you are, you've just got that bit more space that you can actually go, oh God, there actually is an oxygen mask I can put on.

It's just having the awareness, there's that, that, that's even a thing that you could even possibly be on that list of, self care that isn't just a quick bath with somebody knocking at the door saying, have you finished yet? Yeah, exactly. Oh, I didn't even just shut the door.

It was just pointless. I just, yeah, they'd bring the coloring, get back. I do remember sitting under, there were the kids bringing their coloring box in. You get, what is this? Yeah. You just, yeah. That's just part of it. But I do, and I think it's about, it's, I feel like this time is about taking responsibilities for ourselves as individuals, because if we can nurture and hold.

And we can hold others And they can hold us. Yes. Because it's like leading by example almost, 'cause we spend our life telling our kids what to do. But then maybe not doing it ourselves. Yeah, for sure. So maybe we just did it for ourselves, then our kids would follow. That's it. Model it. Model it for the others rather than because there's no point preaching something that you're not doing because it doesn't mean anything, does it, exactly. And I think, life just gets busy, but I do feel like this un route, it really is. I feel like this year when it was 2025 was coming up I said, this is the year of you. I just feel that 2025 should just be called the year of you, and I feel that for everyone. I've never heard of so many relationship endings career changes just all those lots of things are happening.

Shifts, big shifts of people are going back, more people are coming in, and I know that always happens, but I just do feel like this is a year of. Cleaning out the closet. Yeah, it does. What do I want? Yeah. Where am I going? What is this? What am I doing? And again, I'm not asking that 'cause I'm striving and pushing.

It's just almost knowing that there is other ways. It's a bit hard to explain just I guess it's as you say, it's, I think it's just about curiosity, isn't it? Approaching life with curiosity rather than. Having that kind of, needing to know the answers necessarily. Just asking the questions because I think asking the questions in itself opens you up to possibilities.

Yeah. And also I've found for myself personally you think you've got something down patterning area and you think, oh yeah, that area's I'm really good in that area. I'm sorted there and like it's being delivered to you. The whisper. Yeah. And you actually realized. I was miles off track.

Yeah. But it's being brave enough to actually say, oh, I was wrong. Yeah. I there's this way, there's that way, there's more. And then because we can all, we, a lot of the times we tend to project that out and go, no, it's obviously you with the problem. 'cause I'm all good here. Yeah. So it's obviously over there.

Yes. I think everyone, we really need to start looking at ourselves. Yeah. In a, not in a negative way, in a loving more how can I help? Way, yeah. With kindness. I think that's, I think that's the key. I think it's the whole being kind to yourself thing, so if I could go and pop you into a time machine.

Yeah. And I said Karen, you've got 20 minutes to spend with your younger self, who would that younger self be and what would you be sharing with her? Oh, I would probably go back to the 5-year-old and say, it's okay. Yeah. I'd go back there and say, yeah you. I've always felt protected and guided, and I felt it then, and I still feel it now.

I feel like I feel very blessed. So if I could go back, it would be to the younger one. The very younger one to say yeah, it's all okay. Yeah. Would she listen to you and I, yeah. Yeah. And I think, I feel like for me the prime of my life was probably when I was 50. People fantasize about their teenage years and when they, everything.

Sat in its place, your jeans just flew on and all those things. Yeah. You can wear your bra out in public if you want, or not. Now they still held, they're still in position. Take them into your waist van, I hear. Yeah. Carry on now. It'd be a bit. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, I think, yeah, going back to, I, I think.

Teenage years are given lots of almost like it's a bit gift wrapped, but really for me, things my life, it just went at 50 and I'm like, wow, this is, we're getting there now we're getting somewhere. So if you were to, you've gone back to this five-year-old, is there an, is there a myth about adulthood that you would bust for her on that spot?

Because obviously you've got this 5-year-old that's about to enter this world mean she's gotta be a teenager, she's gonna be an adult. Is there any myths that you would bust for her? Oh yeah. Oh wow. That's a bit hard. That one. That's a hard one, Sharon. How? What would I, myths? Would I bust?

Just that everyone's learning. Yeah. Everyone. And take what resonates, even though that would be hard for a 5-year-old to understand, and you'll probably have to reword it differently, but just if it feels good in here, go with it. Yeah. If it doesn't feel good in here, getting back to listening to our instincts.

Yeah. Busting myths that, oh, there's just so much programming that we need to unravel that. Yeah. That might be another podcast. There's a lot of, there's a lot of programming that's put into males and females. Whilst the females go through midlife, so do the men. And at the minute I feel there's a big distortion in the masculine and the feminine.

A lot of this programming is leaving us with distorted masculine. Yeah. And distorted feminine. Yeah, I agree. And the masculine. Losing, even you look at adverts on the TV and he's changing the baby's nappy. I'm not saying men shouldn't change baby's nappies. No, for sure. But it's very much everything should just be equal and we are all equal.

Yeah. In our own different ways. But I'm just saying, you, you look at the adverts and the man's changing the nappy. The wife's on the phone, I'm sorting out the finance. Just change the baby's nappy. That's quite derogatory. And I'm sure the shoe was on the other foot. Yes. And the man was on the phone saying, change the baby's nappy.

Yes, there'd be an outcry for sure. So there's a, that's just one ex minuscule example, but there's a lot of distortion in the masculine. The masculine are our warriors. They are our doers. They are our protectors and our guides. Yeah. And the women are the nurturers, the intuitives, the feelers, the seekers.

And we used to dance together. Yeah. But you've got men absolutely wearing this coat and a woman's wearing that coat, and we're all in a bit of a washing machine. Yeah. So we need. Back to we need the men and the men need us. Yeah. For that dance to be beautiful dance again. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of stress on a lot of people right now.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And it's quite strange times. Hard to see. So just to finish up, if you could give some. Piece of wisdom of which I know that you have so much to someone who is deep in their own unraveling, what would it be? Oh, it's definitely listen to yourself because you know best.

And I would say change your tap water. Don't drink tap water. Don't drink tap water. It blocks your penial gland. And we, that penal gland is there to help us see, to help us feel. So when you walk into a room, you think that it's, you personally. You think it's this mind that is saying, oh, don't really like it in here.

It feels a bit off. It's not, it's your heart. And this penial gland, they can walk in and feel that for the feminine. That's your intuitiveness. So don't drink tap water 'cause you want that working. And I would say it's listening to that gut and taking time to listen to it, try and look after our souls as best we can.

Get out in nature. Get off the screens. Don't compare yourself. Checking in with yourself, am I okay? Do I wanna do this? Yeah. Listening to yourself, there's lots really, there's lots of avenues. I think that's such a big one that kind of checking in with yourself thing, and we don't do it. We just go, oh, I'm fine.

Oh, I'll just get through this. I'll just get through this day. I've just gotta get through this thing, yeah. I think there's that kind of slow checking in with yourself, but actually listening, that I think, you talk about your. The, your gut and your heart and all of these things.

We don't just have this one brain, there's we've got this mind, heart, gut connection. We've got numerous brains, and I think it's taken the time to stop and listen to all of them. Yeah, because what we're meant to, we're light bodies in these meat suits and we're meant to operate from this heart.

And the brain is just the receiver of information, but the heart is supposed to be the guiding force and the brain was given to us so that when the heart says, oh, I feel I'm, I need to help people just say, the brain says, oh, we can help somebody by doing this. Then the brain kicks in. But what we've done is through the years of the programming, we've shut the heart onto a much lower or off, and we've gone bang up into the head and we're like, should we do this?

Should we do that? And that brain, it's, you've got the engine on the boat, but you've lost the boat. Yeah. Yeah. You're just gonna go analogy. Yeah. It's just gonna go around. So I think for me, it's getting, it's listening. It's listening to your real. If something doesn't feel right, you're probably right.

Yeah. For sure. And I think also the last bit of wisdom I'd offer is if we could look, our life is what we project. So if you are judgemental, you're going to meet a lot of people in your day that are gonna judge you because you are projecting judgment. Yeah. And they're gonna judge you.

If you are angry, you're going to meet a lot of people. You're gonna go out and go, oh, I had a altercation at shops and this guy road rage and this happened. If you feel beauty. You'll see beauty. If you feel distaste, you'll see distaste. So I've become really aware that the environment isn't just doing its thing.

I am projecting that environment. So if I can get here at its highest potential, its highest timeline, it's highest loving heart, and I can project that out, it's gonna come straight back. Yeah. Feel abundant. You will have abundance. If you feel lack, then the universe will deliver it every time. Sure.

Everything's on an energetic level and I think that's what this shift is. It's taken us outta this head and back into the heart. 'cause that is where all the goodness is, which I think is actually a really hopeful thing, isn't it? It's a really it's actually, because at the moment the shift feels like.

Scary as all shifts do. There just feels like there's stuff going on, but I think that's a really kind of hopeful message that it's all if we're going back from the head to the heart, I think that's not a bad direction to be headed. No, and that's right. And to know that we are actually playing a huge part because it's us.

We are it's a mirror and it's not a mirror. You and I are mirrors, but we're, when it's when somebody comes with you. And they might say something to you and you think it's, you're triggered by it, that trigger is actually a gift. Yeah. Somebody is coming to you with a gift and saying, Hey have you noticed that when I do this, I annoy you?

Yeah. You need to go there and look at why I annoy you. Yeah. And but most of the time we point the finger out and think, isn't that person annoying? Yeah. And then with that gift is wasted, it's a wasted growth. For sure. And this is why I love journaling. 'cause for me, every time something like that happens, I have to go, Ooh what?

I always question, what was it about that annoyed me? Not what was it about the person, not was it about what was it about that thing that annoyed me? What's that sort me? Yeah. So I think, whichever way, whatever tools you are using to get curious and it is about curiosity about those things rather than finger pointing or there.

X, Y, Z because they've made me feel this way. It's a, it's a it's a really good thing to get curious about it, reflect on it, and see what, find the gift in it. Yeah, absolutely. And if you can find that gift and sit with it, but that's it. We don't allow, we tend to go, when that comes in. We might have, we might eat it away.

We might gamble it away, shop it away, drink it away. Whereas if we can just allow it and sit with it and it can feel uncomfortable we did a fast in March and we're done a five day water fast. Okay. And that was life changing. Life changing. If I could recommend anything to people that wanna change their lives, our water fast is it?

I'm gonna chat to you about that in a bit. Yeah. And it's not, yeah, it's not about, it's not about being without the food. 'cause I love the food. Yeah. It's about how you eat, not to feed yourself, you eat to cover your emotions. Yeah. God, that's so true. And I'm sitting here with a piece of cake that somebody bought me yesterday, just in front of me there.

Yeah,

maybe I'll start tomorrow. You can have it. Have the cake. Do it. Karen, it has been so lovely to speak to you and you are, you're such a. Just such a light, in this world. And I think it's, I think people listening today, I think there, there's gonna be some people that are really gonna go, there's so much wisdom in that, I'm gonna be replaying this kind of go and I need to listen to that again because there's, so many sort of truth bombs, wisdom explosions, all the rest of it.

So thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much, Sharon. Thank you so much for having me.