#37 – Surprising Lessons Podcasting Has Taught Us About Fear, Growth, and Trust

Join us as we reflect on a year of podcasting and the five biggest lessons we've learned along the way. From following our dreams to letting go of perfection, we share how showing up authentically has deepened our creativity, strengthened our connection with others, and transformed the journey in ways we never expected!

Let's stay connected! 

The Road Back Podcast socials:

Instagram: @the.road.back.podcast

YouTube: youtube.com/@TheRoadBackPodcast

Transcript

Celebrating One Year of Podcasting

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Road Back Podcast. We're so glad you're here. I'm Melissa and I'm Desiree. We're two trauma-informed coaches and real life friends.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

If you're returning to yourself, your dreams, or your sense of belovedness, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

We'll pull from our own stories and hard-earned wisdom to support your journey. So take a breath and remember, you belong exactly as you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Wow, Des, can you believe that we have been working on our podcast for over a year now? It's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I I feel it. It's true. Like there's part of me that's like, yes, it's felt like a year. And then part of like, how did it go so fast?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

While we've only been releasing episodes for the last nine months, our behind-the-scenes work on the podcast has been going on for over a year now. And on today's episode, we wanted to share five of the bigger life lessons that we've learned as we've engaged in the process of creating our podcast, collaborating together, learning all the editing and behind the scenes work. And we wanted to bring it to you today, first of all, because I've had a number of people talk to me about a desire to start their own podcast. And also these principles that we have learned are applicable well beyond the realm of a recording studio. We wanted to offer some of those life lessons for you, regardless of whether you're wanting to start your own podcast or whether you just simply have a creative dream in your heart. Just take it from some women who felt a desire and decided to follow our curiosity and follow our yes. And now, a year in, we are a little bit older and uh hopefully a little bit wiser. And we wanted to share some of those lessons with you today. For sure, older.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah. They still look good. That's right, darn it. Yeah, this is a fun milestone to celebrate. And I loved that. These are principles that can expand beyond just the podcast. It's like, what is it like

People Connect More with Humanity Than Perfection

SPEAKER_01 2:10

to hold a dream and then to walk certain dreams out? So we'll get right into this. Is there anything that you would say that you started the podcast in one way and you sort of find growth inside of you or inside of this process now a year later?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Well, I would call that first principle or lesson that I feel like I've learned in a big way is that people actually connect to humanity more than they do perfection. Yes. And just telling on myself, which we do a lot of here. When we first started the podcast, I raised my hand and said, okay, I'll edit it. I'd never edited a podcast before. I didn't know what I was doing, but I felt excited at the thought of learning something new.

Loosening the Grip on Polished Perfection

SPEAKER_00 2:53

And so I get in the back end and I'm trying to edit. And I had this thought in my mind that, okay, I want people to stay engaged. I don't want to be boring. I don't want to have a bunch of ums and ahs and too many filler words. So the first few episodes that I edited, I spent hours cutting out every single um and ah and making sure that things flowed together. And I was concerned that people wouldn't listen unless it sounded perfectly polished. And that was just my own probably relationship with perfectionism, having to let go of that on another level, which has been a lifelong journey for me. Yeah. But as we progressed, and I would do all the editing behind the scenes, but then what my general weekly ritual was was when I would go to pick up my kids from school, I would listen to the episode that came out that week in the car. After a few episodes, I realized just from a listener's standpoint, oh, I can actually leave an occasional um and ah, or you know, there's room for natural conversation to flow. And I began to relax my grip or my need to make everything sound perfectly polished as it went along. And what I realized was in the process, Des and Mai's humanity was allowed to flow through a little bit more. Around that time, I happened to hear a couple of other podcast episodes of people I admired. And I noticed, oh my goodness, they leave so much in. Oh, they just let the conversation flow. It didn't matter. It just was a conversation. And so that helped me as I went along to loosen up the grip. And then what I noticed is as we became more comfortable being on camera and being recorded, our conversation would flow more naturally. And I learned to leave more spaces and more just words as they came

Embracing Natural Conversation and Vulnerability

SPEAKER_00 4:47

out. It was helpful for me to go on the journey, and I don't regret where I started. It was where I was, but it was helpful to recognize: oh, we actually get to be human in this. We don't have to sound like we are PhD level experts on one particular subject because that's actually not who we are. We're two moms, two women who are passionate about the journey that we're on. And it is okay for our natural flair and our natural style to come through. And some of that's going to include tripping over our own words from time to time.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Oh, yeah. Mel, I love that you shared parts of this journey because even from my point of view, especially because I wasn't editing, I remember watching you go on this journey of learning to let go. And I remember us chatting, like, oh my gosh, they just leave in all this stuff. And look, they sounded like silly or they were laughing or they made a joke, or it was just this very organic process that I feel really proud of you because it was a huge undertaking. And a lot of the reason we got to this point was because you said yes, and you went on this journey of letting connection um trump perfection. And so I just want to say thank you for being engaged, noticing what's coming up, and noticing like that you can let go of it. And I just thought, oh, how precious that we we were afraid people weren't gonna listen or we weren't gonna keep their, you know, attention. And yeah, I'm proud of you for being on that journey. I'm really proud of you.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I remember those first few times I listened in the car. I remember the very first episode we did. Me too. When I listened back to it, I actually cried. Me too.

Recognizing Growth in Self-Trust and Communication

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Like first, the sense of accomplishment of all the hard work we'd done behind the scenes. And then, gosh, I could almost get emotional about it now. All the work we'd done behind the scenes, but then also the work you and I had done individually to even bring us to the place that we were ready to share our journey with other people. And I remember listening to that first episode, and the tears came to my eyes. And I felt like I had this moment where I really got to sit in the shoes of the listener and I had this thought of this is good. This is actually a good thing. And not just good that we're doing it so it's good, but actually even the quality of it. I remember thinking, we're doing a good job. We're starting out, but we're doing a good job. That was a big deal for me as someone who has had a really loud inner critic in my life for a long time. I think it was a moment of just even recognizing the growth that I had undergone to even come to that point. Did did you notice anything similar for yourself when you heard those early episodes?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah, I was just reflecting. I also felt extremely emotional listening because I think I think we've even shared that probably a catalyst to beginning for me personally was because I could tell my heart had wanted to do this. And so when I actually listened to it, I felt a lot of gratitude that I hadn't disqualified myself. I hadn't kept putting it off to do something that's more, you know, makes more money or this or that or whatever I would always talk myself out of. I felt a lot of gratitude. And I felt that it was good that

The Courage to Share Difficult Topics

SPEAKER_01 8:05

we were doing it. And again, this first takeaway for us is that it's about the connection. It's about connecting to ourselves, it's about connecting to our own stories, it's about connecting to our hearts and our desires and our dreams, and really modeling that for the listener over any concept of like it has to be perfect in order to validate whether or not you should have started it. And I think that um, this was a perfect experience for us to learn how to walk that out. So I felt really grateful. And I think we've grown a lot. And one of my favorite growth points is as I was reflecting over the year is I think because of past experiences of like teaching in ministry or preaching or doing women's retreats and like actually being a speaker, I had a way of doing that. And I could tell that we we used to write out all of our shares and then we'd talk about it like we'd have an episode before the episode. And one of the beautiful growth places is I think we're I'll speak for myself, is that I enjoy connecting to the topic. I enjoy connecting to my heart and my thoughts around it before I sit down. And also I love the impromptu organic nature that's starting to build in our conversations. That feels so fun for me. That feels like a lot of growth. Because I mean, I had 10 pages of notes of like things I would write. And now I just, you know, chicken scratch a piece of paper and you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I know this week's notes are like half, half a page. And it used to be like we'd print out all these, all these behind the scenes. Okay, make sure we go to okay, and then we're gonna transition to that. And good for us. I love that we were prepared, you know? I love that that was the level of preparation we needed, and we showed up. And also, yes, the incremental growth as we're going along feels feels really good. Like you said, to look back and see even where we were and

The Power of Starting Where You Are

SPEAKER_00 10:00

where we are now, and then even looking ahead, where are we gonna be in 12 months' time? There's value in the consistency of showing up where you are and starting where you're at, and then letting that consistency and that work build because we could have looked at somebody who is an experienced podcaster and gone, well, they work like this, and why aren't we doing that? But I I love that we let it be our own journey. And we've learned as we've gone. We we didn't have any podcast 101 experience before this, which has been great.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah. And I think one of the fruits of doing it this way and starting and valuing connection over perfection is that I'm learning to trust myself on a hell of new level. Mm-hmm. By just like being in the moment and being present and starting before I knew everything, I'm just grown in so much trust.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Very, very much so. Because I remember when I was working on some of the design of like, what are we gonna do for the cover? And I remember hitting points where I thought, I'm just gonna let it go. There would have been a version of me 10, 15 years ago that would have been like slaving over minor details to the point that I was actually just then wasting time and spinning my wheels. But I remember I put time and effort into it, but I also remember being in tune enough with myself to recognize, okay, I'm done. This is good enough to start. And I think sometimes we can disqualify ourselves because we go, oh, it's got to be at perfection level 100 before I'm allowed to start. And there's still elements of things I'm like, oh, I want to change that at some point. Oh, that's okay. It's good enough to get out right now. And sometimes done is actually better than perfect. And I think we've really learned to embrace that. There's been certain episodes where I'm like, oh man, we could have gone back and maybe recorded, you know, who cares? It's done. Done is better than perfect. I think there's something where we show ourselves value as creators by just letting what is within us come out and saying, this is a good thing. Is there going to be room for improvement? Sure, but I'm not gonna spit all over or trample

Feeling Fear and Doing It Anyway

SPEAKER_00 11:59

on the work that we are bringing now. We're bringing the best of what we have now to the table, recognizing that there is a continuum and a journey of what is our best six months ago. It's not gonna be our best six months from now, and that's okay. Correct. Love it. Such wise words. Let's talk now about our second lesson that we've learned, which is you can feel afraid and still speak.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

I think that um we've already spoken about this idea of letting what we have be enough that's created the momentum and the longevity inside this experience for us. But something that surprised me in the last year is touching into certain topics that when it came to record them, I was like, oh, I am activated. Like I am triggered, I can tell I um am like wanting to repeat this over and over again because I know this might step on people's toes. And I think that was very interesting for us at the end of episodes, being like, whoa, that was a lot for us. And that was a lot of information. And I thought that every time I was like, ooh, this cost me something. There's a part of my older versions of myself, past versions of myself being activated that I'm bringing into this moment to speak something that if you think about continuity and continuum of like, we I'm in a process of understanding self, understanding this dynamic about God, this concept about emotional health. And I'm allowing that process to be heard. I thought that that was a very unexpected gift in a way. I think I'd probably thought of it, but what the way it actually felt or came out was a little different than I anticipated.

Sharing Beliefs That Shifted in the Quest for Healing

SPEAKER_00 13:50

I think the lesson there for me too is that courage and bravery will feel like you're doing something scary. And some of those topics, especially when we were sharing some of the lessons we've learned with God, the ways our relationship with God has changed over the last years, especially as we've learned to embrace mental, emotional health and seek those bridges between spiritual and emotional health. It has required both of us to confront some of the doctrine and teachings that we were taught growing up about who God was, what his character was like, what he expected from us. And undoing those things uh behind the scenes just in our own lives has been a deep process and has required a lot of soul searching and really learning to lean into who is God revealed himself to me to be. And am I okay with challenging some of the status quo of what I'd learned? But some of that's just been behind the scenes. Bringing it then to a public forum, such as a podcast, definitely my nervous system felt actually, I could tell I was nervous. There were certain podcast episodes where we hit record and I thought, oh, I'm actually feeling a little bit scared right now. And it wasn't that I didn't believe what I had learned and what had been unpacked in my life. I had just never been in a position where I was sharing it publicly with other people. And that feels stretching. Stepping out and doing something brave feels stretching. And I recognized that I, on a level, was wanting my nervous system to be calm and unruffled and to be able to walk into and speak as though I'd spoken about this a thousand times and it was second nature to me. But it actually wasn't second nature for us. We actually were sharing things out loud in this space in certain episodes that we'd we just never talked publicly about before. And I think that gift of recognizing my nervous system can be feeling a certain way and I can be activated or or dysregulated. And that doesn't mean that the episode is bad or I don't need to compare it to the episodes where we feel super confident about what we shared because maybe it's something we have discussed a lot, or we feel really, really, you know, settled or grounded. Some of the things that we've talked about have, like you said, they've cost us. And learning that my nervous system can be reacting and feeling stretched by it doesn't negate the value of what we're being. It's not just the calm, regulated, completely confident episodes that are the the best, so to speak. I don't need to rank them. I it's just as important for us to show up in those moments where our voice feels a little shaky and we're learning to be brave even in those shaky moments. Um, those provided easily as much growth for me as some of those moments where I felt like, man, I'm speaking about something that I'm super passionate about and I know it, and I could preach this from every mountaintop. Some of those slightly shakier moments were actually equally transformational for

The Vulnerability of Our Personal Stories

SPEAKER_00 17:01

me.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Absolutely. I think of a of an episode in particular when we were sharing our money stories, and I was like hit. I mean, I I think we took out like 30 minutes of me just crying and talking, like just bawling. I was like, oh. But the act of connecting to myself and realizing, wow, this is a place that I do want to share, but I haven't really talked about this part of my life with many people. Very few people in the world know these things about me and the exposure and then what happens in my nervous system. And for me, I think about this a lot in the work I do is I'm constantly listening to people tell a story. And through their story, I can see what they're believing, where their nervous system's at. How are they currently tracking that story from their past? And when I went to record this podcast, I was like, oh my gosh, to see my own state and my own status, I was like, whoa. There's a lot more to take care of inside of unpacking, sitting with the parts of me that have come up that were present at that time that my money store was developing. It was just a good moment that I was proud of myself for attempting to do it, for experiencing, like you said, the challenge, noticing the cost, and being able to sit with myself and be like, oh, we'll sit with that more. Like there's gonna be more time for us to unpack that. So I felt grateful for that in particular.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I'm reminded of how when we were prepping to start the podcast, you shared something with me that God had invited you into around setting tables. Do you want to share that? Because that just feels really timely to how we're being transformed, even in the process as we are seeking to help others transform.

Setting Tables

SPEAKER_01 19:01

I get feel emotional. So I actually thought about this a little bit this week. But several years ago, when I was active in another ministry, I felt the Lord invite me into setting tables for people. And I I'll be honest, I had no idea what he was talking about. I was like, ooh, that sounds really fun and nice. I have no idea what that means exactly. But probably like most of us here who would be listening, we often hear something and then our brain fills in the blanks. I didn't know what that meant, but I thought, oh, this must be in the context of the ministry I'm doing right now. The older I get and the more time that passes since that moment, I'm convinced that I'm only scratching the surface of what that means. And I will and have been invited into glimpses of what that is, but I'm participating in setting tables in such a divine larger context than anything that I can think or imagine. So much so, you know, when I created my first online emotional health course, I called it the table. And it was very invitational, it was very personal. I think that in this context of when I felt God invite us to this table, he told me again, he said, You're allowed to set tables with this podcast, but I'm setting a table for you that you can't even begin to imagine what's at this table. And that felt really balancing for me. Like, oh, this isn't just for the listener. I love you guys, but it was a lot of I will extend something to others, but there's also a reciprocation of something being extended towards me. And that actually propelled me to move forward a lot in this. So if you think of this growth of understanding the depth of what the table means by doing vulnerable conversations and episodes and being like, whoa, that's in there. It feels very much like I'm sitting down at a table that's been set for me.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

That's a beautiful picture. And when we were first thinking about podcast titles, we really toyed with the idea of something that included a table or something to do with hospitality in our title. I mean, we went back and forth on it for ages. And I remember you sharing that with me, and it felt even when it's as we've gone into the different seasons, often when I'm just brainstorming behind the scenes, it comes back to like, okay, we want to feel like we are sitting around a table with people we love. And there's good food and good drink and just a communal space. Space where not only are the guests being fed, but the hosts are being fed as well. And that's what I really heard you saying there. That's just I feel like that's a theme that comes through, even though we didn't end on a title, basically, because all the titles we came up with already had podcasts by that same name.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

But man, I love our title so much. I love our title. When we got to it, we're like, that's it 100%. It was.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

It was like ding ding ding. This is it. And again, you it's one of those things that shows you you start the journey. And we were talking about tables and invitation from the get-go. And as we let the ideas evolve and we brainstormed back and forth, it it's true. You start out thinking it's going to be one thing. And then when you land on the thing that it's meant to be, it just feels right. We just knew. Yeah. Yeah. So good.

The Significance of Boundaries for Longevity

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Do you want to speak to how longevity requires boundaries? That's our third lesson.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yes. I think that this has been such an area of growth for me because we've chosen to do this together. I think it's been exponential of my growth of boundaries around hey, we're our own bosses. Like no one's going to fire us. No one's going to get mad at us. We're not going to get a performance review. We need a weekend off. We need to take a break. We're allowed to do that. And I think having this experience now for a year, realizing that we were very intentional and creating certain boundaries. We even had moments where, like, oh, we probably pushed it a little bit too much when we were doubling up around the holidays. We're like, oh, maybe we didn't have to do that, but we didn't turn on ourselves. We didn't have shame or anything about it. It's been a constant growth that allowing boundaries and sort of like a lot of ways, I'm breaking the rules that I had in my head in order to make new rules that actually support this podcast that support our hearts, our bodies, our souls, our families. And it's been so good for me to have this experience with you.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah. The longevity requiring boundaries feels like I actually remember I had an idea one day. This was before we'd started recording, and I messaged you and I said, What if we did seasons? Yes. And I actually Googled it. I was like, Do people do podcast seasons? Because I'm going to tell on myself right now, I really don't listen to many podcasts. I rarely listen to podcasts, to be honest. But I was like, Do people even do seasons and podcasts? And Google was like, Yeah, you can do it. And I was like, Yes. And I said, Des, let's do seasons. Because that was something that was feeling a little bit daunting when I thought, oh my goodness, if we commit to a weekly podcast, we never get to take a break. Oh, that feels like a lot as a mom with school-aged kids, with basketball schedules and gymnastics, you know, all the things going on. I just was like, this has got to feel like something that's sustainable because I think we both knew from the beginning that this was something that was in our heart that we weren't just gonna dabble in. We were going to go as wholehearted as we could in the season we were in. And that's why I love that we got to make our own rules. And we said, okay, we're gonna do seasons. And it wasn't even like, okay, each season is going to be 12 weeks or 16 weeks or 20 weeks. We're just like, we're gonna do a season. And when we need to take a break, we're gonna take a break, and then we're gonna do the next season, and then we're gonna do another season. And just making our own rules and choosing not to be a slave to an algorithm or embrace hustle culture or even give ourselves permission to pivot. We were actually gonna start this season three a week earlier than we actually did. And then stuff came up in our private lives, and we're just like, we actually need to push this out a week. And you know what? We're not bad if we do. We're our own bosses here. So we actually get to make the rules. Yeah. And that for me, I'm gonna tell the truth. For me, we're 37 episodes in, and I'm like, I'm just getting started because I feel like we've built the structures around ourselves to make this sustainable and to not burn out. And that's where the longevity requires boundaries. If we had just Googled or Chat GPT'd, okay, what do we need to do to have a successful podcast? It could have given us all these things, but without bringing in our humanity, our individual needs, our individual seasons into it, we could have gotten sucked into trying to meet some invisible standard that would have left us feeling burnt out and then potentially resentful and not wanting to do it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Absolutely. I think if any listener who's doing anything could hear that your capacity is the container that you can work with and what are boundaries that need to be in place for the longevity, for the momentum. And we've pivoted. We've really confronted so much in this year. I'm amazed at what we've discovered and then being able to keep pivoting and making new rules and creating the boundaries and structures so that we can keep going. I feel really proud of us for that.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Especially for me, I used to be such a rule follower. There would have been a season in my life where I wouldn't have felt permission to pivot or to change or to not do it according to the status quo of whatever the expected podcast design looked like. And so getting to go, we make the rules. Yeah. And I think we've showed up really consistently, which has helped. I feel like we've made the rules, but then we've honored the rules that we've made. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, I agree. I think I know that about myself in general. I tend to lean into like more consistently and I do it no matter what, because I said I do it. So to me, the stretch towards giving myself permission to not do that has felt the most life-giving. Don't underestimate the power of giving yourself the permission to not do it anymore to help you realize if it, if that's really what you want to do and what you need to keep going. So I I love

Trusting the Voice of Your Heart

SPEAKER_01 27:43

that.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Your heart being in what you do is really important. I feel like some people need to hear that. Your heart being in what you do and what you say yes to is really important because it affects the way you show up. We all have firsthand accounts of times where we ran over ourselves and we said yes when we meant no. And then it was really hard to keep our hearts in something because our hearts weren't in it. And I love what we have built here because it is easy for me to give a yes to this because I'm not running over myself in order to be in this space. That's beautifully said. And neither are you.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Mm-mm. And I think too, as we look ahead to the future, this idea of collaborating with more people and kind of building our podcast team, which is super exciting. I think that that's one of the priorities. And the experience we've had thus far will only help us really create the structure that we need and then the team needs. And everyone can be feeling this autonomy and be able to work because they're connected to self and within those boundaries that they're needing.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

So yeah, it's it's the culture, isn't it? It's the culture we're creating, the value system that we're choosing to abide by.

unknown 29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Very contrasting to other places I've worked. I think there's a redemption in that too. There's a redemption in us building something according to what fits and not what is the guiding principle for somebody else that maybe fits really well for them. I feel proud of the way we've done that. And even hearing people's feedback of like, oh wow, you guys are doing it your way. I think anytime somebody is brave and chooses to follow that inner GPS system that we're all born with, I feel like it inadvertently gives permission to people around them to begin re-examining what they're saying yes to and why they're saying yes to it. And actually, you had permission to do it your own way. Oh, I could do it my own way too. Yes. And I love the stories and feedback that we've gotten, even as we've just like, okay, we're gonna do it this way. And then people are like, oh, wow, I really felt impacted by the fact that I don't have to do it this way. It's encouraging to know that anytime you step out on something that's right for you, it's actually making an impact, sometimes even an impact that you don't initially recognize right away. Don't underestimate what your yeses and your no's and your boundaries are offering to those around you who you are influencing.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah. And this feels like a perfect time to even announce that. In light of our capacities and what we're currently needing in this season, we're gonna be taking the summer off of releasing any new episodes until August. I personally feel really excited about what's ahead because we're regrouping, we're refocusing and thinking about the next season.

Partnership Changes What Feels Possible

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah. Let's talk about our next lesson, which is partnership changes what feels possible.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

This is so good. When I considered this, not only do I think that the permission for boundaries has been exponential because of partnership, even looking back a year ago, understanding that though we both wanted to start a podcast several years, like we both had that dream solo. The gift of doing it together has been this exponential power and strength and commitment. And when we even think about growing our team, I I feel the expectancy and anticipation of what that will do. Because when wholehearted yeses are together, it just grows the impact. And I feel really honored to be able to do this with you and do it in a group and to grow the team.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Yeah. And I I love, I can't think of anybody else I'd want to do a podcast with right now because I feel like we're just so well aligned. We really do like each other, people. We don't have to like put all our differences aside and put on a brave face. We like doing this. This is a fun highlight of my week each week. I was thinking when I was prepping for today's episode, I just kept hearing the phrase, together we go far. Yeah. And that feels really true because it was true. Des and I both had thought of doing a solo podcast on our own, and neither one of us did it. Partially, I'll speak for me, part of it was because I was just, I was scared. It felt over overwhelming. And I was, it was daunting to think about doing it. I wanted to, and I also didn't have the the wherewithal to actually pull the trigger for myself. But a few weeks ago, I recorded my solo episode because Des was unavailable one day. And I was like, okay, I'll record an episode to keep the continuity. And when it came out, I was thinking to myself, there probably would have been a point where that would have just felt too scary. And get the strength that we've been able to draw from one another. I felt this sense of satisfaction again, of like, oh wow, look how far we've come. I feel confident to do something now that I would have dreamed about in the past, but realistically probably not done. And now I see the collaboration and the permission we've given one another. And even I would say the co-regulation we've been able to offer to one another at times. You know, and it's like there's been times I'm like, oh, Des is really grounded right now. I'm feeling a little all over the place. I'm gonna pull on, like, there literally are times when I'm like, I'm gonna pull on her right now in this moment, and and probably vice versa. There's this expanded capacity as we collaborate because I look back now. If I had known the amount of work that would have gone into this podcast, I couldn't have done it by myself without help. But because we've been able to do it together and share the load, there's something about not having to do hard things by yourself that feels very, I would say, redemptive as well. I've learned to do hard things by myself in the past. I actually had a belief that told me if I want it, I have to do it by myself because nobody else is gonna help me. Right. But this has gotten to be something that I've wanted that I haven't had to do by myself. And it's meant that together we've been able to go further than what I would have been able to create had I had to create it on my own.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yes. And I think that for someone like me, I'm tend to be a visionary, the gift of both having vision and then being able to hold on to that vision for this podcast space separately, but also hearing you articulate your own vision and the way you're um holding it, it has felt like such a redemptive gift for me. I don't know if I've ever told you that, but I think that No, I don't think we have. No, when we consider our next step and we really are like, what are we gonna do? Are we we have to grow the team, or what is our next step? We kind of I'll I call it a come to Jesus moment. Like we were at a holy sacred threshold. I think that those moments, because I had you and because I I wasn't doing this alone, there was something so much richer and more complex and more deep. There was so much more longevity. There was more in us doing and considering it together than I think I would have if I had gotten to that threshold alone. I may have chosen a different thing because, like you said, there's certain limits inside of one person. But if you have two people, those limits are expanded upon. Like I was gonna say double, but I would even say maybe tripled or quadrupled. Or I remember even as we were dreaming for the season ahead, hearing vision of other people who might join us. That has given me fresh life inside of this. I think that's why I do a lot of group things because it feels like there's something special there that we just can't get to alone.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah. There's a gift to it. It's that synergistic effect. It's like uh I was thinking of that verse in the Bible that says one puts a thousand to flight, but two put 10,000 to flight. Yes. And it's that one plus one equals a hundred feeling. And you really, it is an experience. It's something maybe I won't understand until I get to

The Impact of Collaboration and Community

SPEAKER_00 36:14

heaven. I I don't know how it works, but there's something that unlocks when people to come together with a like one heart, one mind, like a joint focus and a joint intention. There really is a chemistry that just starts to unlock. And then if you start pulling other people into the space that feel drawn or feel aligned, then I feel like as we've gone along, my own gifts get to shine in a different way because I'm not having to carry all the all the things myself. And yeah, I think you're saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah. And I think that that's one of the redemptive places. If you don't have to do everything by yourself, then what you do do can be very authentically, wholeheartedly you. And that's very freeing.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

And it reinforces to me uh my value for letting people do what is in their heart to do. For many years, I filled needs because the needs were there. It didn't matter if I was gifted at it, it didn't matter if I wanted to do it. There was the need, and so I filled it. And I I'm gonna say this in the context of nuance in that I think there is times where serving because there is a need that needs to be filled, there are valuable lessons that I learned in those spaces. And in my ideal world, my preference would be that every person actually gets to flow in the thing that is their gift and not just the thing that is necessary.

Building from a Wholehearted 'Yes!'

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Because there is something that unlocks inside of you when you get to do the thing that you love, that you're good at, that you're passionate about. I would rather build at a slower pace, but have people come alongside us who care and have the vision and have the passion and they'll get to flow in their gifts than saying, oh, we just need somebody to come and fill a gap because a gap needs to be filled. It shows me, just even saying it now, how much of a core value of mine it is that you actually get to have a whole-hearted hell yes from your heart. Because if you're doing something that lights you up that you love, you bring a different energy, you bring a different spiritual influence into the space. And that feels really important to me. If you don't love it, I actually don't want you to do it. If you don't love it, I don't want you to. I I would rather have less in the short term. And I I just I don't think that that's how a lot of jobs, how a lot of ministries, how a lot of people operate. And it's one of those things that for me, it feels like a non-negotiable. Anything I build, it needs to have people who have wholehearted yeses on it because it is a completely different environment. It's a completely different culture, it's a different organism that grows when it is people saying yes because it is coming from the heart versus a yes because, well, I don't really have a choice, or it's just what's expected of me. I want people in my life who are connected to what is going on inside because that's how I want to live and I want to invite other people to have that too. Okay, that's my little soapbox for this episode. Thank you for tuning in. Melissa, out. Our fifth and final life lesson that we want to share today is your voice sharpens through use.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

One of the reasons why I kind of went on this journey of starting this podcast. I really wanted to be able to articulate the crossroads of emotional health and spiritual health. And it's something that's changed my life. I think a huge part of me feeling like I've been able to return back the road back to my own life, to my own sense of self. The title of this podcast, the very heart of this, is that we're in process talking about the process. By giving myself the permission to just be in the process and to share as I go. I don't think listeners may know that there are

Your Voice Sharpens Through Use and Time

SPEAKER_01 40:17

so many times that I've felt like I had something to say, but I disqualified myself because I thought, hmm, what if I don't know everything about this? And in five years from now, I'm gonna be like, why would I think that? There's so many things that like 10 years ago, Des would have had a thought. And now I have this thought. I'm like, imagine 10 years from now. And one of the safest experiences in my healing journey is to allow that to be true. I'm like, of course, I probably will 10 years from now look back at this episode and be like, oh, Des, that's cute. Uh-huh. And I'm allowed to be right here and start and speak and use my voice, share my story to the ability and the extent that I've sat with it and sat with my heart and sat with the emotions that come up in inside of my story. So I love this concept. It feels like it's like a green light concept for me. Just like, go. You're allowed to just start and be in process.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Do you feel like there's ways that your voice has sharpened over these last 10 months of recording, but even just in the whole process, how what ways have you seen your voice sharpen?

SPEAKER_01 41:36

I've noticed that I have done a lot of teaching and there was a lot of ways that I would explain concepts and topics to my clients that I found to be a little bit different in the podcast realm and learning to grow inside of it. I think the biggest takeaway is self-trust. I trust myself a lot more. When I give myself permission to be learning something, to be in the process, that has opened up so much safety inside of me because I don't have to be a novice in order to qualify me to do the thing that my heart wants to do. So if I were to change the course of my life and be like, I'm not gonna do my business anymore, I'm gonna learn to make flowers. It's the ability to let myself pivot and go on the journey that's gonna keep my heart intact, like me connected to myself through all the phases of who I am. So it feels like a big takeaway for me. I'm just okay with myself as I am in process. That's huge. Where I've experienced so much self-rejection, yeah, self-disqualification. That was my go-to for, you know, 40 years of my life. Yeah. So it feels contrasting in that sense and so safe and so supportive.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

In some ways, it's like we're healing our own stories out loud. We are as we are walking this process out. And I think there's times and seasons for that. I think there's times where you're walking out your healing process in secret or behind the scenes. And this has definitely felt like a season where we've been invited to engage in the journey out loud. And I love that. I remember I'm similar with you in some of the things that I was wanting to learn. I remember when we were planning the podcast and we're like, we don't know if anybody's gonna listen.

Growing in Our Ability to Communicate

SPEAKER_00 43:29

But I remember being pretty clear to myself that one of the things I wanted to do with this podcast was learn to communicate concepts and ideas more clearly. I wanted to learn how to take things that I had been working on for years behind the scenes and say them out loud to people and bring truly, it felt like the wisdom of lived experience and healing and paying that price and doing that work. I think there's just a time that comes where it's like, okay, you're ready. It's time for you to pour out water. You have. And I know that we talked about it. We're like, we don't know if anybody's gonna listen, but for me, it didn't matter. The listener count and the feedback was less important to me than can I show up? Can I learn how to communicate? And the benefit I had was being the editor. I got to hear what we sounded like uncut. And I would hear myself say things and I'd go, I use that phrase a lot. Oh, that's interesting. Something to note about how I communicate. That's been a gift for me in the editing process of getting to hear myself and then be able to make tweaks as we've gone through the months. And I actually do think that my communication skills have improved simply through the use of showing up and using my voice every week. I've heard this saying before and I love it. It says, clarity comes from engagement, not thought. And that has been a big part of our journey here. We could have sat on the sidelines and analyzed starting a podcast for the rest of our lives and never actually pulled a trigger. And I I can I'm the first to confess I've done that with other dreams before. I've overanalyzed to the point that either the opportunity passed me by or I just never took action. But there's something about stepping out and just going, we're gonna go. I'm gonna learn the communication as I go. I had feedback from somebody earlier this week just saying, wow, I love the way that you're able to communicate these concepts. You're helping me understand things that I haven't been able to understand because you're communicating them in a simple way that helps me grasp them. And I think, yes, now that is so encouraging to me because it's telling me that the heart and intention with which I started is actually landing for people. And I think that's the goodness of God when you go out on a journey that's a level of faith and a level of obedience and a level of trust. And you know, you even talking about self-trust, I think we've had to let a go of a lot of certainty or control around things because there's a lot of things that we just simply can't control. It's outside our sphere of being able to predict an outcome. I love that you said there's the joy in the journey because I think that's another thing that's fed the longevity and the sustainability for me because I haven't tried to hit a metric. It's not like, oh my goodness, we have to have this many views and this many subscribers and this many five-star reviews or feedback. There's something that is organically feeding itself because we're doing this because it's feeding us.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yes, I agree. And I think that it's true. We're like, who knows? Maybe, maybe two people will listen. And I think the biggest gift is like my husband listens. Shout out. Thank you, honey, every week. And that has been huge. I was like, I had no idea that he would.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

And the people who are listening and the things that are landing and the support. Thank you for articulating that. Or I've thought about this many times since you've said it on the podcast. Those types of moments, because we didn't need them in order to prove that we should have started, they feel like such generous little gifts, like little

Celebrating Growth and Connection

SPEAKER_01 46:57

delicious nuggets along the way of like, wow, connection. It's felt like connection. We're connecting with people. Like people are connecting to themselves, people are connecting to their stories and to their heart. There's connection to these transformational things that's impacted us. It's been such a gift. The way we've held it and the way we started and the way we're trying to continue to hold this has been a real gift.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Yeah, there's a value in creating something because of the value for you as the creator and unhooking a large need for external validation or other people to tell me it was good in order to prove that it was worth my while.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

It's felt very liberating to do this because it was in our heart. We were responding to the invitation we felt. And there's an intrinsic joy that we're drawing from the journey itself. And I think that's something that you embody so well, Des. I really feel like that's one of those things you've wrestled through of like, it is it's less about the destination and it is all about the journey and who I am becoming in the process of the path. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, I think again, to know me 20 years ago was not to know that experience. It was very much there is a destination that I was supposed to arrive at. And the anxiety I had that I had missed God and missed that, you know, landmark or shells or yellow arrows of like pointing me. The cost of getting into this place

Unexpected Gifts

SPEAKER_01 48:28

is a lot of letting go and a lot of transformative experiences. So to feast, it feels like again, this table metaphor. Like I get to like feast on it now in this context, in this container of a podcast. I get to taste it every week while we do this. And yeah, it's been a gift. I think the connection that I have with you has really mattered. That's been a huge growth. I'm like, I feel like we've gone grown so much in our friendship doing this in a year. And like you said, and hearing feedback from people all over the world, sending me little messages. And of course, my husband. Him walking up and just being like, that was such a good episode. I was like, this man does not give compliments easily. So I I'm like, feel like I won the lotto. So just those types of unexpected things have been beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

The unexpected gifts. I think that's really true. I think there's been a lot of unexpected gifts. And I think that is a a life lesson or life principle. When you take that journey of the heart and you really start stepping out into some of those dreams, here's two things that I found to be true. I got support in unexpected places. And then I also, there were times I didn't get support from places that I thought I would get support. Expected. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

So there's these unexpected nuggets along the way. And I feel really like I would say surrendered and relaxed in that the people who this is meant for are gonna find it. If you're creating something or you have a desire in your heart, sometimes we want the certainty of I want to know how it's all gonna work out, and I want to know that this is gonna happen, and these people will support me, and this will be here. There's so much that did not turn out the way I thought it would. There's so many things that like haven't turned out the way I thought. But I don't, I feel so grateful and so blessed with what we do have. It's like the things that we needed did show up. That's felt what's felt really important. Sometimes what you think you need and what you really need are two different things.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Girl, that's a whole word. That is so true. What you think you need is probably not what you actually need. Is there anything you want to leave the listener with, like to land with as we sign out here for today's episode?

The Power of Acknowledging Your Desires

SPEAKER_00 50:32

You can trust the voice of your heart. You can trust the feeling of invitation. There are desires and dreams that are waiting for you to take that brave step. And some of them are going to require you to partner with other people. So don't be afraid to acknowledge the desires in your heart. I knew that I wanted to work with Des and collaborate on something at least a year before we started this. And I didn't know what it was, but I DM'd her on Instagram one day and I just said, hey girl, I feel like there's something that we need to collaborate on at some point in the future. And I didn't know what it was at the time, but I gave my heart a voice. And it's like, okay, we put a little pin in it. And when the time was right, we circled back and it ended up flowing together. I've learned to pay attention to those nudges. And I guarantee some of you who are listening, there is a nudge that you have or there's a connection that you feel with somebody, and maybe you're close friends with them, maybe you're not, maybe you're acquaintances, but pay attention to the people that are highlighted to you. Pay attention to those little dreams that spring up in your heart where you think, oh man, wouldn't it be fun if so-and-so and I could do something? I didn't know what it was going to be with Des, but I knew enough to recognize that I felt the connection and to give my heart a voice. And there would have been times and seasons where I would not have given myself that permission because it would have felt too scary. I would have been too maybe afraid of the rejection, or what if it doesn't work? Or maybe they think I'm stupid. Hold it loosely. Don't place demands on the person to have to be ready. If you can live with the belief that it is this or something better as a guiding principle of your life, you're never gonna miss out. You're gonna be fine. Yeah. It's so beautiful. I would have been fine if Desert said no. But I, it wasn't about whether or not she said yes or no. It was about me valuing my own heart enough to say what you have to say is important, and I'm gonna give you a voice. So good. So good.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

You have permission to break all the rules in your mind, in your head of how you think you should be or how you think you should show up, or whatever you think would qualify you to start. And you're allowed to give yourself as many permissions and to create the concepts or the framework, the timetable. It doesn't matter what. You are allowed to just go to town. You're the co-creator of this part of your life. So whatever you can dream up, go for it. And that excites me. It's excites me to see people pioneering in what they think is possible, the permissions they're giving themselves, the capacities that they think they have, expanding those capacities. I think that's what really creates us to become more resilient people, is both the the need to contract into some of those capacities and then to expand them when necessary. I would just want to speak that um and offer that as as we close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

So

Rate and Review!

SPEAKER_00 53:33

I want to I want to see us start a heart-centered revolution or continue a heart-centered revolution. I think there's just so many people out there who are already on that journey. I just want to add our voices to the, yep, you can trust the voice of your heart. Yeah, you definitely can. And and one last thing as we wrap. If you, as the listeners, could do us a huge favor and write us a review or rate the show, reviews especially would be amazing. I would love to see some of those reviews show up there for other people out there who need to hear this message of hope and of perseverance and life. And if this has spoken to you and you could take just a couple of minutes to write a review, whatever podcast platform you're listening to, it would be a huge blessing to us. We'll be back in August. We'll get specific dates to you. Feel free to follow us on Instagram, which is the dot road dot back dot podcast, or the roadback podcast on YouTube. And we'll keep you updated. Thank you, friends. Have a great summer, and we'll see you later. Yep. And that's a wrap for season three.