Everything is Neutral ~ Flow Like Water I Ep 187

After feeling lost and pressured to have everything figured out in the evolution of my business, I share a new approach of taking the pressure off, following my excitement, and recording raw, low-production podcast episodes with no expectations or fixed schedule. 

I also go into how using Jenna Zoe’s human design app, Align (especially its “Ask Jenna” AI feature) helped me get HUGE clarity by answering questions based on my personal chart! THIS IS A GAME-CHANGER!

I then tell a post office story about discovering a cheaper way to ship client packages after a frustrating return, illustrating the lesson that events are neutral and we can’t label them as good or bad.

Jenna Zoe's Align App

Connect with me on IG @saramonikaphoto

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friend, it's been a while and um I just wanna dive straight into everything I just want to share very spontaneously. I'm kind of like at a stage where I'm taking the pressure off myself to have things figured out in my life, in my business, and I feel like for a really, really long time, I mean I've been in business for 13 years, I've had things really figured out, and this is like this weird chapter. I feel like it really hit me in 20 January 2023 till I don't know, last year, where it was just I really felt lost. I'm like, no matter what I do, no matter what courses I take, what how much I meditate, it's not like I meditated every day or anything like that, but it just I can't find clarity. And after two years of me trying to force myself to have clarity in some things, I'm just like, you know what, fuck it. Like I'm I'm just done. I'm taking the pressure off myself, and I'm not like something needs realigning in my education business and the way I share things that I love to share. I still know I have like a deep passion for teaching and sharing and guiding others, and I have that, I just don't know what it looks like moving forward, and I'm not the only one. I've seen this theme so frequently lately across the board, even some of my mentors. So I think it's just a collective energy thing, and I'm like, you know what, it's okay. I'm just gonna kind of like rediscover myself in this new evolved way since becoming a mom, rediscover myself based on like what I remember, energizes me, excites me, and kind of I've decided to uh study myself instead of studying other things, like taking business courses or listening to other people's advice. And I just decided this yesterday. I had this like huge like bout of clarity, finally, it feels like finally. I mean, it did come in spurts the last like a handful of years, but um, but yesterday what I what I did is uh I don't know if you guys have heard of Jenna Zoe. Um, she's like a really incredible expert on human design. Uh she has her home her own uh it's her own app, it's called Align. And I just went in there to recheck my my chart, my human design. But I was listening to her podcast recently and it's very just like relaxed, conversational. She inspires me so much with like the leader that she is, where she just like talks from her heart, unscripted, just like shares whatever she's come is coming to mind. And she had mentioned that her app, which I have been using for years, but on and off, like I would subscribe when I needed it, then unsubscribe. Um, she mentioned that she now has an AI uh option in the app that is called Ask Jenna, and she basically trained that AI how she would answer all questions for all people based on their human design chart. So, what's incredible was before I would kind of know my human design, but it felt like a puzzle to figure out based on my chart like what should I do in this situation in my life? What kind of decision should I make now? And what is most aligned for me? And as soon as she said that the AI in there, as soon as you ask it a question, she has trained it to read charts, and it could literally just in a moment read my chart based on my exact question circumstance and like give me the answer that is aligned based on my design. And I have found human design actually so helpful and so like on point with who I am and what does feel good in my life and my body and how I make decisions, how uh I get the most energized, things like that. So I'm here today, right now, podcasting because I had this huge amount of clarity yesterday from going through that app and asking it a bunch of questions, and I ended up having like so many ideas come to me, and I had this interesting idea of like something felt like um too produced with the podcast. Like I loved creating the podcast and strategizing episodes and planning ahead and batch recording ahead. Like I really enjoyed doing it that way for a while, and then something changed where it didn't feel like a pull and an excitement anymore. It felt like a push, and it felt like no matter how hard I pushed, I couldn't get myself to do it. And I'm a generator and I meant to follow my excitement. Whatever lights me up, I meant to just like follow that current because then I have endless energy, and that's how I felt before. So then I got so confused on like, why don't I have any more energy to podcast? So yesterday I had this idea of like, what if I just like record episodes super raw, like no video, very low production. I just sit at the microphone and talk, and I think about it in the way of like I have this contemplation, this idea, or this thing I want to share with people that I know can help them. Um, and it's as if I'm calling a friend. It's as if I'm calling a friend and I'm excited to tell them about it. And I just want to be that raw. And so I'm just following my inspiration. I literally just got back from a workout and I have a story to share with you that I think is can be really helpful. Um, it's something that happened at the post office, and it really was like a great contemplative moment. And I'm like, oh my god, I need to share this. And then I'm like, oh, I can just share it on the podcast. And then I remembered I can just sit there, call a friend, and tell them the story that what happened, and like you're my friend. Like you get like we just get to be like friends in that kind of way, especially with this whole AI world where everything just seems like it's just so produced and like overly perfect. And I'm sharing this with you like in the moment of me like discovering this yesterday, and I don't know. I don't know if this is how I'm gonna continue the podcast. I don't know. I'm just choosing to say, fuck it, I'm done overthinking. I felt inspired and excited to like just sit down here and talk to you. So I'm gonna fucking do it. And then I'm just gonna and I'm gonna do it with no expectations. I think all the expectations and the pressure of having a podcast for a while and having to deliver things like weekly or bi-weekly or on a schedule, that doesn't really work with my design because I'm meant to be inconsistent. And you know, the world tells us we have to be consistent for attraction and all these things. So I kind of just went down this whole rabbit hole of judging myself that I'm not consistent enough and putting pressure on myself, which drained my energy and drained my ideas and all of that. So that's a little bit of like a catch-up of what's been going on. And yeah, I'm excited to share this episode with you. And so yesterday when I was going through my human design stuff, uh, it mentioned that one of my strengths, I forget which gift this is, but it's uh I have really great contemplations. Like I connect the dots on things and then I know how to share those in a way that is really helpful for people. And I receive a lot of like aha moments naturally, and I just love sharing them. So this is what this episode is about. And yeah, so I'm here with a story for you that can hopefully help you feel more at peace with whatever you are going through in life right now. So the story is that I ended up um like things that I end up mailing my wedding clients last year. I like batch purchased a ton of like prepaid boxes at the post office where it's like it's a medium-sized box, you prepay for it, and it can go anywhere in Canada. So it was a kind of like a flat rate thing. And I just assumed, I'm like, okay, I think that's probably the most cost effective. So I purchased that. Um, and then for one of the packages, I ended up forgetting to write down the unit number for my client's apartment, and um, it ended up being sent back to me, and I had to go pick it up at the post office. I'm like, huh, why is this being sent back to me? And they said the unit number was missing. I'm like, damn it. And they said, you need to pay for it also being sent back here. And I'm like, okay, and this happened like a couple weeks ago. I was frustrated. I was like, oh, I have to pay for it, and then I'm gonna have to like probably ship it again, whatever. So I was a little frustrated. I paid for it, came back home, and finally I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna do this thing. I'm just gonna pay for it again to ship it back. I'm gonna write down the unit number. Um, but today I I went to workout first. So I went to work out because I know that's what creates the most like aligned energy in me. I know it gives me amazing energy. And then after that, I'm like, okay, I'll I'm already by the post office. I'm just gonna go drop it off and I'll just pay for it. I already made my peace with having to pay for it again, but I kind of labeled the the situation as like an annoying bad situation in general. But after my workout, I felt like such a you know euphoric high from the workout that I went to the post office with this package, all kind of like like you know, like zenned out. I'm like, yeah, whatever, I'll pay for it, you know. Um, and then she's like, Oh, it's gonna be uh$15. I'm like, oh,$15. I don't know, I expected it to be more. Like in my head, I was saying that to myself, and then I'm like, okay, paid for it, all good. And then I was like, wait a second, I was walking, I was leaving the post office. I was like, wait a second, how much is the prepaid box? And I walked back in and I checked their shelving and I looked, and the box that I had purchased to mail that package was uh$24.99, so like pretty much ten dollars more, multiply that by by all my wedding clients, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this reminds me that you we never know whether a situation is good or bad, we can't label it as good or bad because right now in that moment I'm like, oh I I like I know now how I can mail all of my clients' um you know, gifts so much more cost effectively. And this year I have like 23 weddings booked so far. So 23 times 10, that's$230 saved. Woo-hoo! Give myself a little bonus, you know. So I was like, oh, okay, now I see why this happened. So yeah, I paid a little extra for this incident, but it's actually gonna save me more money in the long run. So I right away I jumped on Instagram stories. I'm like, I have to share. I'm like, you guys, everything is neutral in life because we don't know where it's gonna lead. Um, and then so I want to read you uh a Chinese proverb that I heard before, which is very similar. It paints this uh picture really vividly of us to underst for us to understand that we literally can't label anything as good or bad, it just is because we don't know what it's gonna lead to. So here I'm gonna read it for you here. Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. Commiserate? Yeah, commiserate. I don't use that word often. Um they said, We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away, but this is most unfortunate, the farmer said, or the farmer said, Maybe. The next day the horse came back, bringing seven wild horses with it. And in the evening, everybody came back and said, Oh, isn't that lucky? What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses. The farmer again said, Maybe the following day, his son tried to break one of the horses. Huh? What? Okay, I don't know what that means. Sorry. What does that mean? I think it's like maybe like running anyway. That doesn't sound right, but okay, I'll keep reading. Okay, the following day, his horse tried to his son, okay. I'm really failing hard here, you guys. This is my me going on my new journey of me not judging myself, me not overthinking it. I'm just being raw here with you, okay? Like, hopefully this gives you permission to be free and do that yourself. Okay, I'm gonna do this again. The next day, um, his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and it broke his leg. The neighbors then said, Oh dear, that's too bad. And the farmer responded, Maybe. The next day, the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again, all the neighbors came around and said, Isn't that great? Again, he said, Maybe. The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it's really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad, because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune, or you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune. So, finally got through that story, and I hope this really puts things into perspective so that you can move through life and running your business in a more of a place of it's called equanimity, where instead of us, you know, maybe getting finding out something in our business, like maybe a client decided to book a different photographer, right? Instead of us, you know, reacting to that and being like, oh no, that's terrible news. Like I was so excited for them to book me, and I was so excited for the money and everything, you know, hey, maybe the universe is leaving that date open for you for your dream wedding, or maybe you're meant to like go elsewhere that day and then meet someone, and that that turns into a different opportunity, right? We can't label anything as good or bad. So if we can just be like in that neutral place as much as possible, we're a fucking human. It's we're gonna have emotions, we're gonna react to things, but I think the trick is to be the observer when that happens and be conscious of oh, I'm noticing that I'm feeling this way and this way. Okay, how can I just remind myself that actually I don't know, this is neutral, and let me flow through life and business like water? Like, oh, I love that idea of just like imagining your water flowing through a stream. You have to go around a rock and you go around it gently and then under a branch, and then eventually you're gonna get down to wherever you need to go because your water, it's eventual, and this way is gonna feel a lot less stressful if you're not resisting the situation, the emotions that come with it, right? So, yeah, I hope this was helpful in some way. It's great to connect with you again. And I right now I'm just paying attention to how I'm feeling, and I'm like, I'm really loving this. Um, but again, I'm just gonna kind of sign off and say no expectations. I don't know when the next episode is gonna come out. I'm just gonna kind of flow like water, see where it takes me. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Bye.