What We've Learned So Far
Women, wizened by experience, presence, and attention, gather to discuss topics of depth in a world deeply in need of softer, fiercer, clearer perspectives.
What We've Learned So Far
Service
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What We've Learned So Far gathers a group of wise women around life's big questions and everyday experiences. We explore what we're learning about life, relationships, purpose, community, and what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.
Listen, subscribe, share, and join the conversation. We'd love to hear what YOU’VE learned so far.
In this episode our wise women explore Service. And these are some of the questions we’ve posed for ourselves:
- Do we consider ourselves to be of service? How did this recognition come about?
- Is it important to serve? Is everyone meant to serve in some way? Where does the impetus to serve come from?
- How has our service changed over our lifetimes?
- Are there rewards for service?
- Are we also meant to be served? Do we allow ourselves to be served? If so, how?
Our panel of wise women:
Our Moderator for today’s episode: Kay Eck kay@kayeck.com @kayeckwrites (IG) Kay Eck (FB) @kayeck1040 (YouTube)
Ashley Phoenix Guastalli www.ashleyphoenix.net @ashleyphoenixofficial (IG) ashleyphoenixofficial (FB)
Joan Advent joanadvent.com @joanadvent7171 (YT) @joan.advent (IG)
Meggan Riley: www.megganemily.com
Lynnda Pollio: lynnda@frequencyfineart.com frequencyfineart.com
Jade Orth
Video Production by Cyber Citrus Creative: https://www.instagram.com/cybercitruscreative/
Music and Performance by Keith Hill: https://www.instagram.com/khillcorp/
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. This is what we've learned so far. Hello, beautiful panelists. Um, it's a hot day here in Sedona. Uh hope you're all doing well. Uh, we are gathered together today to talk about service. And I'm joined by this lovely panel who I know has a heart of each one of you has a heart of service, so I'm so excited to get this conversation rolling. So I would like to begin with each of you introducing yourselves and telling us a little bit about what you're up to these days, um how you made it through this eclipse equinox season, and what's next for you. Linda, how about let's start with you?
SPEAKER_02Hi, my name is Linda Palio, and I live in Sedona, Arizona. I am a consciousness doula, which basically means I have spent my entire life a time of a child, sort of connected into the unseen realms and committed to helping myself and others birth consciousness out of their unconscious. I'm also an author of a multi-award-winning spiritual novel called Trusting the Currents. And I'm also a frequency artist. I create art that brings frequency through communications onto paper and canvas to help people transform. Um I have navigated this eclipse season as best as I could. It's been a wild ride, mostly just crazy busy and all kinds of things happening and trying to be discerning. My last, my most recent uh painting is called Blossom of Discernment, which is all about being discerning in these kind of chaotic times. So I've been um living what I've been expressing. And I'm happy to be here because being of service is number one in my life right now. I've gotten to the age and to the level of experience in life that I want to be able to give back to um to those that are kind of coming up and trying to navigate this wild world that we're in right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you so much for that. And I want to encourage people to go to Linda's Instagram and check out this um latest work of hers uh on discernment, because I feel like definitely the codes come through um the painting even online, and who couldn't use a little discernment in the chaos. So thank you so much, Linda. Ashley, how about you?
SPEAKER_05Thank you so much. So excited to be a part of this panel today. My name is Ashley Phoenix and oh gosh, so I am newly a community coordinator for a nonprofit that is called Global Light Workers United. I'm very, very excited to share about this. It's my first time saying it out loud in public, so I'm very, very excited. I'm also a tarot advisor and a divine feminine embodiment body reader and spiritual counselor. And so that is what I do. And in regards to this eclipse portal, it's one of those things where anything that was not real or true had to be released completely and fully in trust and surrender to the divine. So what that means for me is that my corporate sort of muggle job did not survive the portal. But but stepping into this amazing opportunity with this nonprofit um did. So um, so yeah, very excited to talk about service.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Ashley. Jade, let's hear from you.
SPEAKER_04Hi, everybody. My name is Jade Orth. I'm so happy to be here with all of you. I can't even stop my smile right now. So um, service is something that ever since I was a child, it's it's definitely transformed through the years, but it's really near and dear to my heart. And um I have been doing different types of service, and it's actually been changing quite a bit. Um, but family alchemy is really something that um I'm really starting to tie together of, you know, I've worked with women and mothers and um people that want to be mothers or birthing things. Um, I started working with men and children, and so now there's like this system that's coming together that I actually don't know what it quite looks like yet. That's part of what this Eclipse portal has been helping me. Um, we ended up moving my family to Prescott. So the heat down in the valley did not survive the portal, thank goodness. Um, and I'm really been focusing on actually internally slowing down, um, asking myself, what do I want my everyday life and my family? I have three children, um, to look like, feel like, and slowing way down. And um, I think I want to bring that type of like somatic experience, frequency experience, very embodied back to some values that I really kind of let go in what I thought I was doing in my service work, but I'm bringing it back in. So um it's really exciting, and I'm really happy to dive into this conversation with everybody.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jade. I really look forward to seeing what you're creating and bringing forth. I know it's been on the burner for a while, and I'm super excited about that. Uh, Joan, could you please introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_03Hello, everyone. I am Joan Advent, and I am in uh the Richmond, Virginia area. And my newest endeavor is um I launched a podcast during the Eclipse Portal, which I didn't know, I didn't know that was going to be happening, but I launched it on uh September 9th, so the 999 portal, and it is uh the Crone Codes, which is all about how we gather the codes for our cronehood throughout the whole arc of our feminine experience as women. And so I am just diving into recording new episodes and interviewing people, and I'm sure at some point I'll be reaching out to each of you about your journeys to include you. And I will say that um during the Eclipse Portal, it was the ninth anniversary of my mother's passing, and it really feels like there was a culmination and completion. So similar to what Ashley said, it it felt like there was no stone left unturned. But in bringing this podcast forth, anything related to my own crowned hood, uh, which much was related to my mother and my daughter, uh, was in the crucible. So I feel like a whole a whole new woman. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Joan. I really look forward to diving into those episodes. I know this has been up for me as well. And I just want to say that some of you do not qualify as Crohn's, and you have to earn your way into it. So I'm sure you will at some point, many, many years down the line. Megan, how about you?
SPEAKER_00Here I am. Um, hello, everyone. I'm really glad to be here. I'm uh in Arkansas, my new home. Uh so you know, I'm doing great. Um, I'm in a very quiet space. Uh I uh if I see people, it's because I leave my home. Otherwise, I just see this one man over and over and over again every day of my life, which is is going really well. But it's so it's so quiet. It's it's you know a major transition that I've come through moving out in, you know, out into the country, but on the lake. So things are very quiet. Um and I appreciate it because I'll I'll I'll comment on the portal first, on the eclipse portals, because um I I had so many things happen, but in the quiet of my own space, um that it it was it was it was incredibly peaceful. I feel like uh with this the solar eclipse, I I really moved through a bunch of shadow work. And then like literally two weeks later, two and a half weeks later, you're moving through this really illuminated uh portal through that eclipse, and both things happened. Um so for me regarding service, um if I look back on uh the first part of my adult life, I was very dedicated directly to service. I worked for nonprofits, I was an AmeriCorps member, I lived in a group home, I worked with the homeless, I worked with women and children. I was, that's what I did with the entire first, you know, 20 years of my professional life was I worked for nonprofits. It was service. And I remember thinking, well, this is the secret because every day I go to work, I'm fulfilled in this way. Like, this is the secret to being happy professionally. Um, but then you hit this like ceiling. And you're like, oh, I have all these other things I need to do. So I left the nonprofit world um and I went into a different kind of service. Uh um, and I would call that human service, right? Regarding um my teaching yoga, um, me working with people through mantras and meditations and becoming centered and experiencing embodiment, right? That's really the work for me as a yoga instructor is very body-centered service and bringing people into that. Um and now I feel like um I've been like kind of wandering the streets, like, what's my cause? What's my cause? Like, I don't know what my cause is. They're all my causes. Every time something comes forward, I'm like, that's my cause. And I'm taking it so literally, right? Service. So I'll save the rest of my commentary on service until we get into the meat of the questions. Um, but I'm kind of looking, I'm like, I'm for hire over here when it comes to service. But then the portal changed everything. And I have gone full circle, like back to my little activist roots. It's coming out in this like current of activism that's brewing from from inside of me. Um, but the difference is now I have this big gift of quietness. I I don't feel like getting involved in most of the conversations. I'm very capable of observing, not engaging, not fighting, right? There's there's this balance that that um I'm striking to keep my own peace. And so I'm not exactly sure, but this this inner feminist is is coming out and she is not fighting. She is a very gentle, quiet, soft undercurrent. No one's even gonna know it's happening. So I know it's it's centered around women.
SPEAKER_01And that's yeah. Thank you, Megan.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_01Uh my name is Kay, and I thought today was Wednesday. So I apologize to those of you who were looking for us online. We're a little bit late today, and thank you, panelists, for hanging in there with me. Um, but thank you for your patience. So I have come through, uh obviously through the Eclipse portal without my head attached to my body. Um, it's been culmination of um almost a year's worth of accelerated initiations and growth for me. And I'm finding that my biggest challenge is to stay centered, grounded, and calm while my path is flying ahead. Um and um right at the uh tail end of my third draft on my novel, um, getting ready to put that into the world and um continuing with these panel chats and a few other things um coming up too. So happy to be here and let's get started. So I want to start with Jade today because she touched a little bit on what she was up to. And um, Jade, I I know that you consider yourself to be of service, and I'm just wondering how that evolved. How did you come into this? Um this and what does it what place does service actually hold in your life?
SPEAKER_04Amazing. That's such a good um question that is honestly like ever evolving. So um I've was kind of pondering it, and as a little girl, I came in like very service-oriented. Like I remember, you know, when I was six years old, I thought it was so fun to go pick up litter because Mother Earth, it was helping Mother Earth. And my mom worked with um Catholic Social Services at the time for um, you know, a group home for girls, and we had foster daughters growing up or sisters, they had foster. So um, my mom was really someone that exposed me to that type of service worked early on. So I got to see a lot of people that lived differently or didn't have homes or heard stories that um I'm really grateful for looking back that I was like open to that, to really be able to open my eyes and my heart to um wanting to help and be of service. But um I started to realize much later in life that um I was getting like praised for service. So it kind of became an identity of me. And it became like self-sacrificing service where I was, I almost tied my worth to how much I was helping or serving. And um and after a while with that, because you know, you know, helping create different things, even when I worked in Tempe when I was in my early 20s, I was pregnant at the time, I created a little um, you know, thing where we were feeding the homeless every Wednesday, different things like that. Um, so I've always tried to be in service, however, um I started to reevaluate, I have to separate my worthiness or who I am in the world from just being somebody that's here to serve. Like, what does that actually mean? And I had to get really clear. And so for the past two years, I was deconstructing my entire life. I don't even want to say deconstructing, it didn't feel like that. I was dissolving, I was dissolving back into um just my essence, maybe, or or what that looks like. And um I I had to learn that like when we're embodying radically embodying our own energy, our own hearts, our own intention of wanting to live well and helpful, that we're we can be of service in anything we do. Like, you know, there's in my opinion, musicians and artists and people at the grocery store. Like, there's every you can be in service anywhere you go. And um, it's more about just like an embodiment thing. I know you guys were talking about embodiment. And so um, I kind of had to reevaluate when I really honed in on a my family unit of was I still even in service when I wasn't offering sessions or holding these events or doing different things. And um, I really came back to the value of what it means to be of service to me, which is really just having an open heart, knowing that we're all here together, we all have something to offer, and we're all kind of in that space of if we're showing up so fully in ourselves and our gifts, then that is a great service also. And so from that place um and moving very slow, I'm starting to see how I can maybe embody that either for others to teach families and situations, or if it will eventually turn into a service again. But that's kind of my arc of um just always staying open, humble, and curious about what service means to me and how I'm showing up to serve.
SPEAKER_01That's so beautiful. Thank you. I'm wondering if, you know, during this early time in your um experience with service, if you were simultaneously being served, like were you able to receive while you were in this all-out giving mode? Because I I think you pointed a little bit um to this, you know, the difference between being a servant and being a martyr. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, martyr, martyr runs deep in my my line, a lineage for me. Yeah. So, and that thank you for naming that word so clearly because absolutely, like I definitely um was taking on the martyr archetype for a long time. Um, looking back, I think I was served also just by really understanding from an early age certain importances, and absolutely um it wasn't like a reciprocity type thing for a long time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think when you, you know, when you arrive on the planet um, or you know, as a young child, are aware of your heart of service. I feel the same way. That was that was my experience. You can kind of fall into the trap of thinking that you are meant to always be giving and never receiving. And I'm still working that one out. So um, Ashley, I see you nodding your head. I'm wondering if that also is your experience and kind of wondering about how your involvement with service began and evolved.
SPEAKER_05Um, thank you so much. And yes, my my story is very, very similar to Jade's, uh, in the sense that um I feel like I was born. I I I don't I don't know if it was learned so much. I mean, I think it was reinforced, but I really feel like I came in with a seated knowledge that humanity is important and how we engage with others and how we create community or or groups of play friends or whatever it is. Like I learned that those dynamics were were important very, very early on. Um, and I feel that service naturally came from that space, whether it was um gifting time or or gifting um a creativity or helping out a friend who was upset over something. I just I noticed that this sort of heart of service was very present within any engagement that I had with others. Didn't matter if it was a teacher, didn't matter if they were older, younger, animals, all the things. And that's sort of been the progression of my entire life. I I've had the gift of working with animals, I've had the gift of working with humans in different experiences. And I love that Jade brought up sort of the shadow aspect of service because it's also was on my heart and something that I wrote down and pretty much the same words, too, exactly the same of this idea of having a heart of service, but the dynamic of martyrdom that is sometimes encouraged and reinforced within our collective uh consciousness that we have to sort of die for our beliefs or we have to die in service. And I noticed for me the biggest shadow aspect when I was operating from a martyrdom space is that those accolades and that sort of it's out of balance the reciprocity that exists there. Uh, it the law, the universal law of reciprocity is definitely out of alignment when you're operating from a martyrdom space. And I found the smallest seed of resentment started to plant and it actually started to affect my heart of service. My heart of service became a space of dis-ease instead of abundant, joyous, overflowing um space. So I I've gone full circle with that, where I learned what the extreme was, and I've learned to lay that down and now operate from a space of of uh of reciprocity, of balance, of making sure that my old heart always feels um open, present, abundant.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Um do you think that the the heart of service is intrinsic? In every human being?
SPEAKER_05That's a great question. I actually haven't considered that before, to be honest. I I don't know if it is. I believe that humanity has an interdependence. I think that we exist in an interdependent space. But I feel like there are so many unique blueprints of humans that come here. I I'm not I'm not 100% sure about that. But I'm already, I can already feel my consciousness shifting like right now in this split second, because now that I'm thinking about it, I I do think it is an innate uh gift and skill that is either pushed aside and underdeveloped and not encouraged, or or it's on the opposite side. And I think service looks different. And I think humanity has not gotten clear about what the definition of service is. Um, because I think it plays out in different scenarios in different ways, but people might not understand that they're actually being of service in those split-second moments in their everyday human experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, beautiful. I I I've read or heard before that people come to the planet with either uh a mission to serve other or serve self. And it's I don't mean like in a self-serving way, but more focused on their own growth in this lifetime. So I don't know if that um, I don't know if that's true, and I'm sure there's overlap and there has to be more than two options, right? I just can't believe that's it. But um let's move on here to Linda. I'm interested, Linda, in hearing about um your ex your uh uh evolution with service because you were um you know born in a time when um sort of the service looked a certain way, you know, movements, feminism, civil not civil rights, you're not that you're not quite that old, but you know, like these big blocks of movements, and that's kind of the frame around which service was enacted in society. So I'm wondering what your experience was with that.
SPEAKER_02Um well I think I think service has sort of evolved over time. Um and the I I think service, like everything else we do um in the world of consciousness, is really probably not the right l word for it. Um, but we don't really have proper words, so although our words are very polarizing. Um, you know, I look at service as sort of collaboration to the point of generosity. Like I feel like whenever I'm yeah, I feel very much connected to service. And when I was a child, I was the caregiver. I took care of every bug, every plant, every animal, family, friends. I mean, that was I didn't I didn't call it service, but that was just unique part of my personality that felt like I had something to offer. Um and yes, that does get pushed into kind of martyrdom and you then begin to think that that's your value. Um and your service is not your value. Um your value extends way beyond that. Service is I think something that gets brought in when you when you have extra to give. If you don't have extra to give, it's very hard to be of service and not felt taken advantage of or not felt like you need something back for that service. Um and for me, service is just service. Like right now, my life, you know, when I was younger, it was all about taking care of things. Um now it's more of um providing support and holding a space and sharing my life experience so that people that come after me maybe don't have to go through everything I went through. Um, you know, because I think you know, at my age, you know, I was basically out there with a machete chopping down the path in a jungle. And what I want to do as part of my service is use what I've done in that pathway to help others get through to the next level beyond where I am, so that we can keep growing as a culture and as a consciousness. But um yeah, I I um I think I think service is a misunderstood idea. Um I believe that we are all capable of service, the potential is there, whether we take it on. I don't think you have to. I think you're it's a calling in life. Like if you become a nun, I mean or you become an artist. Um the idea of service is a is a calling. It's not something that we need to try to figure out how to be. It will it will tell you, it will it will show you the way, and that way may change over the years, but you will definitely know how you're going to be of service.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think that's interesting what you're what you're hinting to is that you know we roll through these periods of service to self where we become qualified to to serve others. And I I happen to think that it it probably is somehow intrinsic in human nature that we're just a helping species. We we all came here with um the divine knowing that we're all one. And I think the idea of service has like like everything else has been distorted and used to hook us into kind of self-sacrificing programs and um that end up being ultimately being self-destructive. Um so Megan, um I know that you uh you hinted at your lifetime of of service, and um I'm curious like where the impetus from for that came from. Um was it your what what's your why? Did you just drop in with your why intact and never had to examine it?
SPEAKER_00I think like a few panelists have um suggested there was this sort of, you know, from birth, I have have this heart of service. It's like I just have that compassion, I have that empathy, and it's you know, it's part of the wiring, I feel to a certain degree. I grew up in a Catholic family where we did like our soup kitchens and did very, like, very literal, right? Volunteer time and hours. And so I I think it actually counter, I actually hate hated it. I didn't like that charitable thing. I I still to this day, I don't give them money a lot quite often. I don't, I I pulled my son out of the jump rope for heart, you know, at school. Like I'm like very anti-fundraiser a lot of time. That's another story for another time. But but it's important because I feel like it's because it was told, I was being told what service was, and it didn't match the frequency of my heart's service, which um at a very um, you know, at such an obvious turning point when I went into college. I took an anthropology class, and Dr. Leslie Beltran talked all about cultural anthropology. I'm like, there's this whole world out there. And then like you can go and you can, you know, you can go serve in other countries. You could go work all over the world and help people that aren't doing this thing that I had sort of been spoon-fed my whole life. It was another version, and that's what opened my eyes to service. And so when it was time for me to actually go to college and like you get decide my major, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had those core credits behind me and I remembered I'm like, I'm gonna go volunteer for a year or two or whatever until I figure out who I am. I'm not gonna go get a degree. So again, it was sort of literal. I became an AmeriCorps member. I moved into this uh a group home in Las Vegas. Um ultimately for two and a half years, I lived in that home and and you know, it was um it was a domestic job. It was just like raising these young men in this house. And we were asked, there was another moment when I had that job where um I was asked the question, or we were all asked the question. This we were at a conference with everyone who worked for this nonprofit. How do we define success? And everyone was saying, oh, they graduate and go to college, because that was kind of the mission to get kids that weren't probably going to go to college in the college. Did all these all these things. And I just raised my hand, like not knowing I was being all prophetic and stuff. But I was like, I think if they are serving others, we can consider it successful. And the showstopper, right? Like in the room, like mic dropped. I didn't mean it though. It was so obvious to me. Because what I had discovered at an incredibly young age is that that when you serve, you you don't question the meaning of life. You you know it. You're you do it, man. You feel it. You never feel so alive. If your service, especially, is aligned with with your soul path, right? Like perhaps if you're so blessed to experience it in an environment that fires you up, you you don't you don't have these bigger questions. This is the point. And so I feel like coming back really quick to one of the things that that we were talking about, I feel like it's community, right? Like everyone can be of service if the community is a vital operating system. When the community's broke, we lose the people that aren't just like, oh, I'm of service. Here's my service cape, you know, I'm here. It's so in obvious what people's purpose for service is. When our communities are broke, they they might not even get the the niche that they need, right? When our communities are intact, it's so obvious what every contributing member's purpose is. It's kind of purpose in a way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's almost like when your community is broken, you have the sense of you know fending for yourself, and you're you're kind of you know trying to survive, you're trying to make sure you have what you need. And it it do you think that service has to come from a standpoint of some sense of abundance?
SPEAKER_00Are you asking me? Yes. Well, no, because I mean we've all seen the the the the the video, the reel of the homeless person offering one of the two dollars they collected that day to their friend who's also homeless. Like, no. And no, in fact, uh I believe when the community is intact, when there is a time of need or want, that the abundance will just overflow, right? It's kind of silly to think of it that way, but it would be so obvious to those who who have to be in service to those who have not. Because those who have not, then when they're nourished, what what are they going to do? Lo and behold, they're gonna, it's gonna boil over. And so I I do see like you could come into this world with part of your purpose for service is to be uh be healthy, be balanced, you know, be okay, right?
SPEAKER_01Um, so how how do you um avoid the trap of like judging others for their you know service or lack thereof? Or on the other side, the ego of being, you know, special because you're serving.
SPEAKER_00I mean, like I'd like to think I'm so laser focused, I don't even kind like don't even notice what where other people are are falling short in service. Um but that's that's such an easy answer. That's like escapism answer. Um I don't I don't really know how to answer that, Kay, um, because I do get mad, right? At the so like when I say of this little interactivist, this feminine feminist, my degree is in women's studies, right? It's it's like boiling back to the surface from like 2001 when I graduated college. But it's like, it's like um I I I for me right now, it's about rearing back and checking back in, like, ooh, transfer that anger feeling because because something that that Linda you know just spoke a little bit about. And the question you asked her is like, what is this timeline, right? What has it looked like in your life, you know, when it comes to like being an activist or protesting things? Is that service? Like, heck yeah, it feels like service at times because you're standing up for people and human rights. So that's where I get caught in the judgment, is when I think that people are hurting other people or hurting animals and you're wrong and I'm right, and I want to yell about it, or I want to try to change you. That's not the work. I'm gonna try to change people. Yeah, that's not the work. So I think that's how my judgment comes out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's interesting to um when the service comes in the form of um, you know, this it comes from a place of outrage, you know, and and justice rather than um a place of just regular kindness and and giving. So, Joan, I would love for you to weigh in here first, um, starting with your evolution with service, kind of how you came into service and where it fits in your life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I too uh came in, was born with the heart of service and certainly within my family of origin, was the one who was uh kind of most tuned in to what was going on and what the perceived needs were of what was happening and and how to address those things. I did later get a degree in social work, which is deeply rooted in uh in service. And also as everyone has been talking, I was remembering, you know, I also have roots in the 12-step tradition. And uh being of service is of a foundational principle there that uh in people's earliest recovery from addiction, for example, they encourage service work in a way to recognize that A, you're not broken, B, uh B, you have something to offer, C, you are needed. Um so that I think is important. And I recently saw a post related to children and the importance of them having a role to play in the family or contribution to make, and just that sense of the sense of who we are, not so much that affirmation of the ego, which I certainly have had that experience as well of identifying with being of service, but but really just knowing that my contribution matters, I have a contribution to make, the the community runs better when everyone is making some form of contribution, which may be more in the the being form or the doing form. So that's what comes to mind.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful, thank you. Um let's see. Can you talk a little bit about your uh your personal path with service and how that evolved based on you know your age, where you were in your life?
SPEAKER_03Um well I will say, so I as I said, I have a master's in social work, and I initially started doing uh intensive in-home services for at-risk families, and so I would go into people's homes and do my best to be of support to moms and kids who were uh just in need of some stabilizing or some kindness or some resources, um, and and then also did work in a spiritual community as a spiritual teacher and guide. And then, as I said, a member of uh 12 steps. So so, in many ways, there's been a weaving of threads of being of service, but also the truism of charity begins at home came to mind as we were talking, and and for many years pouring myself into service uh within my family as a mom, as a wife, um and and really sometimes uh overdoing that, overgiving, so to speak, um, and and sometimes um coming into more of a balanced state.
SPEAKER_01So thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. So I'm so happy that we have Jade here um with us because I am so curious about because I consider you to be a conscious parent. Um, I mean, others of you are conscious as what conscious parents, I was not particularly. So um, I'm just wondering how this legacy of service is being passed down to your children and how what form that's taking. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thank you so much. Um it's actually I'm having a somatic experience right now as you asked me that question. Um, so I wasn't, I just want to say, I wasn't always a conscious parent. Like my oldest will be 18 in December. And um, at the I was a very young parent, I was very in the trenches, trying my best. My heart of service, I feel like did make an imprint, but um I don't know how conscious I was. Um, so I just need to say that. But um, what I what's coming to me right now is I think just the presence of always opening up the conversation and allowing it to evolve because there were times where I would be considered of being of service, whether that was helping in communities or doing sessions, yet my energy was pulled more from my family. And then, you know, they knew I was going out to help people or whatever, you know, the the story was, or they would hear people, you know, when we would pass, or a friend would say something like that I helped. So they would hear that. However, um, then the dynamic would shift where I would focus more to the family and we would see like, what does that really mean for us? Like, what are you what am I bringing them to do? How are they watching me interact when I'm with people? And so for me, um, I I don't even know really how to articulate it because I feel like so much of um these different versions of them either witnessing being with me, help, you know, doing it with me, or just hearing that I'm doing it. Do you know what I mean? So I can't wait to, I can't wait because I want them to see little, but um, it will be curious to see what their versions of it because each of them are so different. And you know, when you you guys know when you have multiple kids, they look at it different. So, you know, one of my kids is like, don't leave, I don't care if you help anybody else. And then another one has um, I can see his heart of service happened very early. So um I don't think I even answered your question. It's actually just giving me a lot to ponder. Um, and I think I'm just in it presently. So yeah, thanks for bringing that up for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I I think that's interesting because children are, you know, they're naturally ego driven, self driven, and they do tend to see your service to others. As a lack of service to them. And I had the experience with my children growing up that I when I was growing up, you weren't supposed to talk about your service or your contribution. You know, it was kind of supposed to take place in quiet, and you did it without any expectations. And so when I was raising my kids, I didn't really talk about what I was doing. And some years rolled on, and I was having a conversation with my daughter, and I was, I something came up, and I told her, you know, something that I had done. And she said, Oh, I just, I just assume that all this time you were just selfish. And I was like, okay, yeah, I may have miss, um, I may have missed something there in the um communication. So I I think it's really, it's really tricky, you know, this um this quandary of passing down the legacy of service. And but I think it it's probably true what you're saying is that everybody has their own path with service, just the way they do every other aspect of life. So it's it's gonna be interesting to watch. And I know I'm seeing that, you know, with with my kids for sure. Um thank you so much. Ashley, I wanted to ask you um where joy comes in. So I'm wondering like what the relationship is between joy and service, uh, as opposed to service and obligation. And um, you know, kind of what your experience is with that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, thank you. I feel like uh for for me, joy is such an innate part of um connecting with other other humans. Uh, like when I'm in the positive, when I'm in the light, when I'm uh when I'm in a balanced state for myself. And I've always found just this delight in the frequency of service and how it creates joy. It almost feels like the alchemy of two um of two separate things, of that there is there is some way to support the humanity. There's some way to support humanity, and then there's the way that humanity is receiving that support, and it just creates this magic of of joy and and and and the reciprocity is flowing and it's it's lovely and it's it's beautiful. And when it operates from that space, it feels like your kind of cup can overflow with and that you can consider to kind of move forward in that trajectory of service. Uh, it just feels like there's no there's no space of depletion, there's no space of uh exhaustion or lack um on either side. It just feels like it continues. And I also feel there's this joy in knowing that there's a ripple effect that can exist uh that can shift the trajectory. Um, I know this is more of a gift-giving example, but it's what's coming to mind. I um I one time got a gift card to a coffee shop that is not a coffee shop I typically attend, and it was quite a significant gift card. And I thought, I'm never, I'm never gonna get through this gift. I'm just, I'm just not. And I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay it forward. I'm gonna, I'm gonna serve in some ways like humanity. And I was sitting at this coffee shop because I had work to do or whatever. And so I had gifted this and I watched over and over and over again that this card watching the reaction and them not knowing they didn't know where it came from. I didn't want to be identified, but I just watched the joy, and then I started watching once the card depleted, that people were paying for the person behind them. And it just rippled that that natural service that came from a very innocent, curious, not self-serving place. It just had an effect that day. And who knows what that gift did for the people who touched in on the drive with those people or wherever they went to work or whatever they did. Like you don't, you don't know, and it's none of your business in a lot of ways, but it just offered this moment of joy in dreaming and just a beautiful experience. And I feel like, you know, on the counter of that, when it's obligation, when you feel an obligation, when you feel this demand or command, um, the energy, the frequency is different. It stops. Like there's something that kind of stops the energy from reaching that energy of service reaching its full potential. There's a there's a resentment, there's a resistance, there's like I can feel it in my body. There's just like a little bit of a tussle that's going on, and you really have to persevere. You have to, or you have to resist. Like you have to, there's some energy, there's a force that is stopping the the potential creation. And I think it's something that all of us that are drawn to service or feel like it's an innate part of our beingness, it's so important to kind of tune in to that, kind of similar to what Megan was sharing. It's like, it's like, what are you fighting against? And is that is that the thing? Um, so that's what I'll share.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. I'm feeling called to pop back to Joan because I I feel with your professional experience and your 12-step experience, you could probably um answer this question. And I'm I'm very curious about the delicate um balance between helping someone and recognizing that they're not actually in lack in any way, you know. Kind of um, do you understand where what I'm getting at there? Yeah, please.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um, well, the roots of social work were friendly visitors, like that's the oldest turn of the century birth of the um of the profession. And it does speak to the issue of uh of sovereignty and perceived need and uh respecting and honoring whomever you're being of service to. So and and you did choose well in choosing me because I I think another aspect of the shadow of service can be that like I know best or I I know what you need, and so I'm going to give you that. I'm not necessarily going to ask you what you believe you need or want. Um, I can see what you need, and so that's what I'm gonna give. Um and I I think that had, you know, in terms of the profession of social work, that was kind of some of the dark side of that. And and certainly, you know, when we talk about Megan was speaking about uh maybe the the haves or those with more resources looking after or being of service to those with less resources. I think there have been many examples of that, and there's certainly philanthropy is is a huge part of uh communities of wealth. However, uh it's not always given from the standpoint of really understanding a community's need or want or desire or even I think about just the whole issue of colonization. People could say, well, that's being of service. Um, you know, we're gonna save these people from themselves or from their primitive ideas. So it can get carried away.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, yeah, it's a it's a tricky area. Megan, I'm wondering if you could speak to this um because you also have been in so many situations where people um are perceived as lacking. And um how do you how do you deal with that? And and also can you talk a little bit about expectations and um of the giver and what what are the pitfalls of that?
SPEAKER_00I think that's why I said sometimes I would get like a little bit triggered by like charity, right? Um, because it is already the framework's there. This is what they need. Give it to them, right? And so sometimes that's why I think I I was triggered in charitable situations. Um, but I I lived both sides when I worked uh for Cirque de Soleil for many years. Uh, we both were we had social action programs where we worked with marginalized and homeless youth in social circus workshops, and we were on the streets and in the nonprofits servicing homeless youth, working directly with them. But then we were also writing really big checks and going to red carpet events on the Saturday night. So my world was like, I was in both worlds. I was giving money from, you know, a well-known entertainment company and mixing and mingling on red carpets, very weird, but then also, you know, working in the trenches. And so I think for me, I saw the disconnect very directly at times. I won't say that was across the board. Not everyone was disconnected because they were philanthropists by any uh stretch. However, I saw that full spectrum for a period of my life. And for me, it's just really all been about that heart of compassion. I mean, it is, it's, you know, it's like if if I was a midwife and I was with a woman who was was giving a baby, because I did that too. I I did a mock apprenticeship for for a minute. So I was at like nine home births. And even though a midwife is being paid, it's very much a service. And um, you know, in that moment, I'm not seeing this woman as broken, not even technically, like like like so many the medical world might refer to a woman as having a condition, right? Like things like this. It's just that raw humanity. There's there's no time for judgment, there's no time um for saying you should do it this way or that way. Like we're here to birth a baby, that's the work, right? It's not about it's it's not even fully about the mother at that moment. It doesn't, that mother could be in a homeless shelter. We could be having a baby in a homeless shelter, and it's just about that deep, raw humanity. Um, it's the same exact feeling I have when I look into the eyes of it of an animal. It's it's no different for me. It's all just this like life and sustenance, right? We're we're here, I'm here because in some way, shape, or form, sustenance is needed. Let's do this, let's sustain your life. Um, expectations of the giver. I don't I don't know how to answer that. Um, I mean, you can get expectations of the giver. Well, dependency could could be could come into play, meaning that you're expected to be like superhuman in your giving. Um, or um that expectations of the giver could be like, well, I'm about to receive some sort of service for you. You're you're judging me. I'm receiving service from you, and I expect that you're judging me right now. So I'm actually feeling ashamed or I'm feeling embarrassed or humiliated. What about me as the as the person in service? Can I do to work around that, right? I would, you know, so that's something that comes to mind is I wouldn't ever want somebody to feel like I'm judging them or that they're pathetic or any of that. Like, what if we treated a mother having a baby as pathetic instead of being there in service of this birth? That's it. The work is the work, right? Yeah, the the service is the point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To serve is the whole purpose of service.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Yeah. It's so, it's so interesting. And I think Ashley really nodded to this um, you know, giving from a place of of joy and connection and you know, this awareness that we all will be givers and receivers at certain points in our lives. And um, so that's that's really beautiful. Um, Linda, I want to change uh switch gears just a little bit and ask you. Um, can you speak a little bit about how we are uh being in service when we seek to be more of ourselves, just being.
SPEAKER_02I think the better the highest service we can be is ourselves. Because you know, we we're not trained to be ourselves, we're trained to be someone else that fits better into societal conditioning. So the more work we do on ourselves to really reveal who we we really are, because we're so in we're actually so individual, and we each bring in something that's beautiful and necessary on the planet at the time that we're born here. So the more that we can um uncover that and activate that, I think that itself, you know, being our true selves is uh is one of the highest forms of service because when we offer that to people in its purity, um we we are bringing frequencies and vibrations to people that uh can see who we really are, and that can become a model for them becoming who they are. So that to me is um the most important thing is because it's really hard to be of service when you're not really when you're not being of service. You have a a mask being of service or an idea being of service. But I think you know, when you are actually of service, that's when discernment comes in, and that's when the purity of the act comes in, and you don't really ask for anything back, and nothing is really taken from you either, because you know how much you can give. So I think you know, that's uh that's the bullseye when it comes to this, is just you know, again, like we have to be of service to ourselves first and and know who we are, um and then we can then we have that space to be able to provide to the people.
SPEAKER_01Um I I think it's um I I agree with everything that you're saying there, and um, I also feel like it's almost like we each have like a bubble of falseness around us. And when you can crack your own bubble open, people can observe that and say, oh, it's actually possible. But I think that um, and also that service is probably the most courageous service um that we can offer. And so um I know that there, I know even in my own experience that I've been on this path to crack myself open, crack my bubble open. And people, I think people close to me observe that and are like, no, thank you. If that's what it looks like, um, yeah, I'll think I'll take a pass. But eventually, um, you know, you you when you move through those pain, the pain of it and the mess of it, and they see like, oh, you know, there's something on the other side of that. That's always been part of my service is the other side. It's like providing a little bit of a hint that there is another side. So um, we're coming close to our hour, and I was I want to get through all of you um one more time. And I just would like for you to share a little bit of how you are dreaming about serving. What what what would be your ultimate act of service that you can see for yourself in the future? And at the same time, how are you receiving service in your life right now? Let's start. Oh, Linda.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, I have to leave at 5.15. I have another call, so I I will listen. But at 5.15, I'm just going to jump off. Why don't you just start? Oh, how I dream of being of service in the future. Um I just want to, I think for me, the uh my life journey and the experiences I have, I would like that to help other people as they go through their life journey because I've had a lot of experiences, both positive and negative. I've been to the mountain and I've been to the valley. And I just want my life to be a model for others who are kind of following in the same footsteps. Anyone who's in the process of waking up and going through sort of expansion of consciousness and don't really know what's happening and don't really know what to do about it all, and are kind of stumbling and bumbling their way through. Um, you know, to let people know that it's normal to feel that way. And so my my service is at this point is just about being, like I said, like being who I am and being available to anyone that needs that for a period of time to help themselves and to get to the other side of it because it's it's not an easy, you all know. This is not for the faint of heart. Yeah. So I think the biggest service I want is to help make it a little easier for everyone else that's coming up behind me.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Thank you so much. Jade, would you be able to share with us?
SPEAKER_04Um, I can, and I have a little guy that's at my window right now. So I'm telling him just a few more minutes. Um so where's the dinner? Um so I am dreaming of being of service, and I'm really going through this space of just so fully and creatively and wholly and joyfully like being. And, you know, you guys, so many people have touched on it, like knowing yourself, knowing your part to play in this co-creation that we're living, and that that talks about each family member and how we co-create in community like we're doing now. Like, what does that look like? But I think that um what's been most alive for me is really getting to the space of bringing like my nervous system, my beliefs, like everything to the forefront of the center of like being and enjoying and living. Like, I think so far in my future, and it may change, so don't quote me on this, but um, I used to look at my service like what legacy do I want to live? What? And that's great, but but it's like now, like I don't want to miss a moment. It like almost brings tears in my eyes, like the slowing down and the creating of service. Like, how do I embody this where other people, whether it just be through observing or we co-create, where it's like you don't have to go anywhere? Like life is like life is so beautiful. And um, I don't know if I'm making much sense because I got so excited to just feel that for a moment. Um, but I think that's what I'm how do I create experiences or just moments where this can be a shared experience?
SPEAKER_01So that's beautiful that you are able to um, you know, while your children are still young, uh stop and really be in that present moment and enjoy every aspect of it. I really appreciate that. Megan, how about you? Thank you, Jade.
SPEAKER_00Um, so right now I'm having fun receiving service. I uh not too long ago was working full-time uh doing yoga and mantras and uh healing sessions, and I and I have a publication too. I never mention it, but I do a lot of mantras uh through that uh card deck that I have. Um, but I haven't been like like working uh for for almost a year now, and I've been on um receiving uh service tour. I go to a lot of yoga classes, I'm doing many wellness things, sitting in the saunas, etc. But I feel like there's this actual crossroads between the giving and the receiving because one of the things that I'm also doing is um trying to um purpose. Purchase things as much as possible from my friends and from my very small knit community. I'm trying to support my friends' businesses by their books, by their products, promote their promote them and what they're doing. And so I'm kind of receiving and um in service in that moment. Um for my future, I do see a lot of music coming out. I feel this um I don't feel an urgency to like like uh produce and like make an album and go on tour, like not like that. But like it would be, I can't leave this earthly plane without these songs being out there. That's the urgency. So I will be recording music and I feel um that it's it is empowerment music. It's certainly very empowering for women, a lot of my music. And I have just had droves of music streaming through me for the last couple of years, and I'm like, what am I doing with all this music? So um I know that I am going to be giving my music away. Maybe I'll see some like retreats or something, you know, in in the future. But for me, it's really um the way that I've seen I'm being called to service is I am literally I would say three days doesn't go by where I don't get some solicited need for advice. People are calling me and asking me to just talk, say something. And then their whole world changes by the end of the conversation. So there is something I think I get that from you a little bit, Kay, like dropping little like, I didn't even know I needed to hear that. That's a gift of K. Yeah. Without even talking to Kay, she sends you exactly what you need to hear, the meditation that you need. And and that's happening a little bit in my life. People are calling up and asking, what the heck are we doing? What am I to do? So that's been, you know, a service that I see.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Thank you so much, Megan. I feel like, you know, something that we really haven't mentioned, but I that I feel so strongly about our panel, um, those present today, and and some of the the beautiful souls who join us periodically, is that we're we're all in service to this creation of the new way of being human, you know, which is it's a heart-based world. It's not based on beliefs and thinking and striving, it's about entering into this beautiful flow, and it doesn't happen without each other. We can't we can't do that with we're not a flow by ourselves. We have to be in in community with others. So I just wanted to mention that. Um, Joan, can you share with us, please, about your future in service and also if you would like to share about how you're being served.
SPEAKER_03Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Served.
SPEAKER_03Well, I will say it's not that long ago that I went through my second Saturn return, and during that journey, there was a a dissolving and a falling of way, similar to what Jade and Ashley mentioned, of about the conceptions I had related to service. And I remember a moment where I recognized that if the only thing I did in this life was to love myself fully, that that would be enough. And I I really needed that, like I needed to be let off the hook about doing whatever grand, great big thing. But if if I was not able to love myself, you know, it's like what's the point? Um so I will say I I have called been felt called through this podcast to resurrect uh the word crone and to be a force and a presence of honoring the sacred in women and the gift of aging and the gift of the beingness and the presence and the wisdom that goes along with being conscious over the arc or as conscious as we're able, and uh arriving at a distillation point. And I remember when the most recent assassination occurred and and things were just erupting. I was feeling the resolve of um like knowing how important it is for those of us that have just a sense of presence to be a point where people, like Megan said, people can reach out to you or people can look to you and just feel a grounding presence or feel a presence of sanity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Ashley, uh can you weigh in here? We'd like to bring it full circle with you.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. Um, for me, my service comes in community. It it has been, it's just the greatest joy of my life. I'm gonna cry. Oh my gosh. I just love bringing people together. And I've started to uh adapt that to not just being a community that gathers under one ideology or one book or one spiritual leader or one movement practice or one spiritual tool, but actually allowing for everyone with their unique gifts and skills and wisdom to actually come to the table and start having a dialogue in a safe space to allow for how we are going to continue to amplify this new paradigm of operating from the heart. And I honestly feel like the only way that I could understand that is uh is through in my weakest moment. Wow, I'm really emotional, my goodness. In my biggest heartbreak that happened in relationship to community, excuse me. I had to lean into my friends, I had to lean into my community to help pick me up off the floor. And it helped me to realize that that this type of community, that new blueprint of different ideologies and different understandings of the world, that's how we come together. That's how we do it. So that's what my service will look like. Thank you. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for that heartfelt share that heartfelt share. I also just want to conclude by saying that each of our panelists is creating a vision for the future, and that is possibly the biggest service that we can render is the dreaming of a better way. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your service in that way. Thank you all for participating. It was a lovely conversation. Thank you for your patience as I, you know, did the thing. Um, so bye guys. Thank you so much.