Hey friends,

I am sending sleepy love from my bed to yours, alongside a conversation with Wendy May, which felt hopeful and gentle to listen back to just now. I really love how Wendy has managed to articulate her hope for change and big shifts without spiritually bypassing the real pain we’re in right now (we recorded this a bit over a month ago, so the world was still feeling a bit different, but still!). Here is some of what we talked about:

  • What it means to find regenerative purpose
  • Navigating the uncertainty of transition
  • Unlearning patterns of competition and embracing a death process
  • Finding meaning beyond branding
  • Working with the Enneagram

Wendy May is a purpose guide, conscious-business coach, Enneagram teacher and human-experience designer. She started on her purpose path in 2015 after leaving a 15-year career in corporate leadership and organizational consulting. Wendy is the founder of a purpose-business that uses biodegradable glitter as a vehicle for ecological education. She recently published her first book, introducing a new paradigm of purpose work: Regenerative Purpose: The Dynamic Nature of the Way We Choose Work. Through her writing, speaking, private coaching, and group retreats, Wendy supports others in soul purpose alignment so that we can create a world of work that works for everyone.

You can find her online at kaistara.com

And here is more info about the Embodied Business Community that I mentioned in the intro: httpss://pinkwellstudio.com/diy-business-school/

Listen to the Embodied Business Podcast

on Apple Podcast // Spotify

 

⋒ Hi, my name is Yarrow.

My Embodied Business podcast explores what it means to build a livelihood with integrity, joy and anti capitalist values. I offer practical guidance on tech, strategy, ethical marketing, creativity and money and interview other small business owners who do things their own way.

You can learn more about my work, listen to other episodes or join my community at PinkWellStudio.com

You can also sign up for my newsletter - I offer free monthly Spark Sessions and share resources, ideas & new episodes about once per month over on Substack

Transcript

Hey, everyone, my name is Yarrow and you’re listening to do do a small business podcast, and sending really sleepy love for my dad to yours or to your home wherever he is. I hope you guys you haven’t done that yet. Yeah, I don’t have a tonne to say anything today. But I felt like sharing this interview because I left the conversation with when you may feeling inspired and uplifted. And that was really lovely. So I hope you might feel the same after listening. Wendy has a lot to say around regenerative purpose and rebuilding, conscious, intentional business. And she’s also an anagram teacher and the human experience designer. So it’s coming from lots of different interesting and exciting angles. And something that I really appreciated about talking to Wendy was that she found a way to articulate the possibility and the beauty of of shifts collectively in a global scale without spiritually bypassing the grief and the hardship and the uncertainty and the fear that can come with that. And I think that’s really hard to do. We recorded this more than a month ago. And I just want to acknowledge that the world was feeling like a pretty different place then. And I had not yet really found a voice. Which is something that I’m really so imposes. And then will be for a while around articulating this complexity between really wanting to speak to a new way of being in the world, and things that we’re hoping for, and at the same time being present with what it is right now. And I think that’s really important to me, and back on Instagram at the moment. And I’m really excited to connect with people and to see what people are doing and sharing. And also sometimes I feel a little bit annoyed by bypassing or an oversimplification of things. And my feeling at the moment is that I want to dream of the future. And I’m really excited. And I really think that if this is not going to radicalise as what is and that makes me feel hopeful. Because I think that there’s a real kind of surge and engagement and, and political causes. And that’s incredible and beautiful. And also I think that for me, it feels like a really important priority right now to keep the most vulnerable people as safe as possible. And to really make sure we’re we’re listening and prioritising voices from the margins, that margins that are most affected right now. And that’s disabled people, people with chronic illnesses, fat people, poor people, older people, people who already have been really isolated. So I want to acknowledge also that being able to dream at this time is a privilege. And that I’m really grateful to have the space and time and energy to even have these kinds of conversations. Because I I know not everyone can have them right now. And many people are struggling on much more basic levels. And I want to do what I can to. Yeah, to kind of give voice to as many different people as possible and to Yeah, not bypass anything in this moment. So that was a little waffle just to speak to the complexity of Yeah, having these conversations. The Lego said, it’s been really beautiful to speak to Wendy. And I’m really excited to read her book. And I really, yeah, her words have really resonated with me. And I was just now speaking to my part of the conversation where I’m just acknowledging that I’m still finding my language and my voice around this. And I’m grateful for your patience in that process. Yeah, also
a quick update the embodied business community is open for enrollment at the moment. And I’ve decided to change the pricing structure quite a bit because that feels good right now. Last year, I decided that I would have asked people to book a one on one session with me as they enter the community. And that made it a bit more expensive, but it felt good because I liked really welcoming people individually and helping them map out a strategy and a way to work through the programme which is really comprehensive and big, but also, you can go at it in your own time and pace. But right now, it just feels more important to keep the financial barriers as low as possible. So I’m also offering it without a one on one session for $24 a month for 10 months as 10 payments of $24. And you can find out more in the link in the show notes. But basically you get everything but the one on one session with me so you get access to the community on mighty networks. We’re here you get the monthly group coaching calls, the monthly seemed workshops and the quarterly business planning. We now also have workshops on building a business and crisis in times of crisis that are regular. And we have a co working space, which I’m really excited about for the first time this month. So yeah, that sounds interesting. Go check that out. And thank you so much for listening. Hey, everyone, I’m really excited to welcome you to another interview episode, as you know, if you’re really lucky with the people that get to talk to you, and today isn’t any different. I’m speaking to Wendy Mae, who’s doing really beautiful work around regenerative purpose and stepping into our businesses with more intention and kind of more connected approach to the bigger picture of our lives and our values, which I really love. And when he has approached me, I have had attempts to read her book yet, but I’m really excited about it. had a look at it already. It’s definitely very high up on my list. And I have a lot of exciting questions. So thank you so much for being here. Wendy, I’m really excited to talk to you. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited as well. I would love to start by grabbing the conversation asking you where you are in the world right now with natives like around you.
Yeah, I’m on a tropical island in the south Thailand, my adopted home. It’s called Copenhagen. It’s probably most famous for these Full Moon parties. But I’m part of this kind of international community here of kind of seekers and healers and teachers, and I guess you could call it a conscious community in a way and I’ve been living here off and on for the best five years, and now starting to really call it my my home, my adopted home even though my, my family roots and ancestry are from a different place. But yeah, I’m in Thailand.
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Thank you. Can you maybe also tell us a bit more about your work and how you came to do it?
Oh, wow, this is like it’s mysterious how like what happens in life. And when you look backwards on it, how things unfold and just the meaning that you put on? It’s kind of looking in the rearview mirror, which I think going into it, maybe I wouldn’t have really understood it that way, or described it in that way. I mean, now what I’m, I’m toying with this, like, it’s so funny, these labels that we put on ourselves, but I’ve recently started to call myself a purpose pathlight Tom, because I was like, Oh, am I a coach, am I a guide, and my facilitator, I don’t really know. But what I’m really feeling that resonates with me now is that purpose is sort of my, it’s my path in terms of how I’m guided what I choose to do with my life, energy and my time, money, energy, attention, all of that. And it’s also what feels like, it’s my role to help others also to come into alignment with that. So I’ve been calling myself this purpose pathlight. And the book that you mentioned, regenerative purpose was really a crystallisation, I think of a lot of concepts and ideas and different downloads and patterns, really, that I was recognising in the work that I was doing, which originally, it was really just, I got out of corporate life. About five years ago, I left kind of this very kind of traditional, quote, unquote, successful lives, and really went out into the wild, unknown kind of void of I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m here. And, you know, I sort of found my footing in that. And what I started to do was, what I called transition coaching at that time, was really just reaching a hand behind me to mostly women who were attracted to work with me, to help them also kind of break out of this. I guess, in a way like this patriarchal, hierarchical system, and to choose a different path. And only now, years later, looking back on it, do I realise that the theme, the golden thread, through all the work that I was doing with women’s retreats and one on one coaching, and writing and speaking, it’s all been about purpose. But to be honest, when I started doing it, I wouldn’t have known to name it that it’s only become obvious to me as I start to put together all the pieces that I’m like, oh, wow, what’s the common thread? This is all actually about purpose. It’s about how we’re showing up in life. As embodied, you know, human being incarnated, but like with a soul essence that’s shining through that has a particular Yeah, has a purpose. has a reason to be here. And to understand how we connect with that, and like sort of get out of the way of it in a sense, right, like the undo the programming from society so that we’re actually available for that. That’s what kind of became apparent, I think, for me.
Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love your thoughts on the labels that we choose and how those things sometimes, yeah, really mysteriously unfold over time. And I think there’s a really interesting dance or a balance to be found between claiming certain words because they useful and they help other people, identify with us or decide whether they want to know more, or work with us. And then also, on the other hand, not being too attached and leaving space for evolution and change and language for language to change as well, because I think the words that we’ve used 10 years ago, have a different resonance and meaning now. And so yeah, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Absolutely. I would love to hear a little bit more about why you think so many of us are stuck around our purpose. And you know, how that’s showing up for people. And yeah, just just kind of the bigger picture of the times that we’re living in and how you see that being connected to people struggling to find their purpose.
Yeah. I mean, I think more and more of us are aware, I think you have to be
pretty checked out to not realise that we’re in a massive period of transformation, death, rebirth, and all of that happening right now. Right? So I mean, I think on a very cosmic kind of cellular level, we understand that we are going through something really big in this moment in terms of the history of humanity. So I think more and more people are kind of coming to this question about purpose, right? So it’s this idea that, okay, there’s a lot of things from the old paradigm that are dying, decaying, collapsing. And we’re in this sort of void space right in between where we’re not quite in the new thing yet. And there’s this kind of impulse or activation or desire to want to be part of creating this new thing, right, is this kind of natural, human desire that we want to be in this creativity in this flow, that we want to participate in life in a way. And we’re just sort of in this cycle. And I think the reason that it’s difficult is because, you know, this is not an easy moment for anybody, or any life form, in this cycle of death and rebirth, right? So it’s like, there’s this frustration, almost, I think that people feel like, there’s something very pregnant, you know, in the air right now, where we are in this transition. Time is change times. And we all want to be a part of that, right? This is kind of our like, will to live in what it’s like we want to have meaning we want to have purpose, we want to feel that we’re participating in this global movement that’s happening. And because we’re still kind of carrying with us the conditioning of the old paradigm, which is super individualistic, and scarcity, and fear and competition, and Me, me, me and mine and all of that, it’s like, we have a lot of unlearning to do in order to be able to actually embody what the new earth or you know, the new paradigm is. So it’s like, on a collective level and an individual level, we’re kind of navigating this death process, really, leading into death. And not just not just accepting it and allowing it, which I think is one layer of that it’s sort of surrendering to what’s happening and like not clinging to the old thing, but actually stepping into it, moving towards it, actually, kind of, in a way, pursuing death almost as like, there’s this thing I write about in the book about when death becomes the mission. You know, so this is the moment where, you know, we talk about ego death. And we talk about these kinds of moments of letting go and things like that. So that’s just happening. You know, what I see that’s just happening on a massive level, like collectively, and it’s there’s a lot of pain and grief associated with that. So the work we’re doing is not easy, you know?
Yes, totally yes to all of this. I did a death doula training last year, because I was interested in confronting my own feelings around death and the difficulty with that, and I can really kind of, yeah, it’s been really helpful, I think, to reflect on these things, and I can see why we can be so avoidant and how we really just don’t have a lot of practice around grief. I don’t think that we are confident to say I’ve grieved before. I know what the Like, and Allah says part of life and transformation is inevitable on some level. And already, you know, I think that that takes real courage. And I also think that there’s a real fatigue, at least I feel it sometimes about around doing things differently. So I see the value and the purity and going against the stream, and I’m committed to it. And I really, you know, like, yeah, I think that all of my work that I do is really a deep commitment to questioning and allowing for those old structures to fall away and to dream together with the people about how things can be difficult. And also sometimes, and we were just talking about the Mac, Mercury Retrograde, and how it’s ending tomorrow and the full moon and also sometimes I’m exhausted, and I, I, there’s a small part of me that misses that time, where I was just like, floating down the river with the masses, you know, and just kind of like, Did my day job and didn’t question things so much. And I don’t want to go back to that place, I really don’t, but also, I’m sleepy.
I totally feel you this is like exhausting how, like, it’s not easy to choose this way. And I guess, you know, if I would have like, a message of comfort for, you know, those of us who are actually choosing to engage in this and are courageous enough to show up and have the will to participate in the global, you know, transformation and movement that’s happening now. It’s like, a comfort comes from knowing that you’re not doing it alone. in a way that’s like the, the what and the how need to come together to be congruent, because it’s like, the kind of the same way that we have to start to see that death is not opposed to life, but that death is part of life, it’s the same with exactly the feelings that you describe that it’s not bad to feel tired or exhausted, or frustrated, or angry or sad, or that actually like all of that is part of it. And it’s a beautiful part to allow and to give space for. And I guess, you know, when I talk about regenerative purpose, there’s a lot of different dimensions to that one is this, like, cycles, right? embracing the cycles of life and understanding that death is part of the time, and letting go of the forms that we create from purpose and not being attached or identified with, oh, this is my purpose, I’m going to put it on my website, and it’s now branded on my business cards. And this is what I say to people, when they say what do I can proudly kind of proclaim my title and my label of like, this is what I do. This is my purpose, you know, it’s like, Okay, then it’s becoming another ego attachment in a way, but being able to be more fluid, in a way. It’s like it’s a different dimensions, kind of, I think of the same process. And what gives me comfort, I think, when I feel tired is knowing that, actually, it’s not up to me to make my purpose happen. And the way that I talk about purpose in the book is that it’s not a form. It’s not a goal or an objective. It’s not singular, also, it’s actually in relationship, you know, that we have this idea that might my purpose, right. So like, we have this language, like you said about, it’s really subtle, but most often you talk about you talk about my purpose or your purpose, right, there’s this kind of ownership of it, that’s individual. But if you see purposes, like a frequency or more of like a flow of energy, then it’s more like purposes just happening, how it’s kind of flowing with or without you. And you can step into it more or less, but in a way, all of the massive shifts that we’re seeing happening in the world, they’re happening on a scale that’s like beyond us, right? The intelligence that is guiding us is way beyond any of us individually, we can recognise it, tap into it, tuned into it, give our power to it, but it’s actually not up to us like I can just basically take a vacation and the movement is still moving, you know, with or without my energy in it. And so the best thing for me to do is actually to step back from it when I’m exhausted, so that I can replenish myself and really, really be in it with my full presence when I choose to participate instead of kind of doing the new thing in the old way. Which is this like pushy energy this like I have to should energy, right?
Yes. That’s beautiful. That makes so much sense. I really want these words to echo in my body this week, I think as I’m feeling a bit exhausted to remind myself that I do have choices and that it is really so much bigger than you and me and my dog, and my Under this, there’s a community around us that really are interested in same things. And that this beauty and this exploration, and it’s okay to not know exactly what to take that’s going to take next week or these next few months. So thank you for saying that. I would love a little bit more to it, I would love to expand a little bit on the concept of regenerative purpose, because I think the word regenerative is really beautiful, like, so excited about it. When I hear it, I’m like, oh, but also, I think the way we’re using it is a little bit new, and maybe some listeners and not familiar. So I would love to hear a bit more about what it means to you.
Yeah, I mean, I think that it’s, it’s one of these things that sort of trending now, right, just like the sort of trendy now. And I think with anything that kind of makes its way into the mainstream lexicon, there can be a lot of different nuances and definitions or interpretations of that. So it’s a good question. I think. For me, regenerative has many different, I guess, qualities to it. I mean, one of them I already mentioned, which is this idea that it’s cyclical. The idea that it’s not, it’s not a linear, straight, logical path, that you you start at the bottom, and then you reach the top, and then you arrive, and then you’re done. It’s a cycle, you know, it’s kind of a never ending process. It’s a it’s a spiral in a way or it’s a circle, it’s a cycle, and you kind of go through different phases or seasons of it, where you’re in incubation. And then you’re in this kind of creation phase and an expression and an integration, reflection. And it’s, it’s really moving through all the different seasons. In a cyclical way. I think, the idea of regenerative also to me, it’s, it’s about being in harmony with nature and recognising ourselves as part of nature. Right. So part of part of that, I think, what’s really a bit toxic, I think about the old paradigm is this addiction that we have around perpetual growth, right, which is totally hooked into this, like consumption mindset and capitalist economic system. So regenerative. regenerative to me means that death is just important as birth decay is just as important as growth. And it’s rebalancing in a way, it’s not the growth is bad. But we’ve gotten way out of balance in terms of the focus on perpetual growth or the addiction to perpetual growth, and having economic systems that actually rely on perpetual growth. Like we’re really trying to build something where the systems that we create on a human level on a community level on a global scale, mirror the cycles of nature, in the sense that death and decay are just as much embraced as part of it as the birth and the growth part, right, we tend to be biassed towards favouring that part, right. But we’re severely out of balance. And this is why we see so much pain and suffering in terms of like on an ecological scale. Right. So that is also a huge part of it this like connection with our own nature as part of nature.
Yes, I’ve been nodding my head along as you’re speaking. Yeah, I would also love to know a little bit more about what the creative process of writing your book with like and how these ideas have come together for you.
Yeah, this is also a bit magical how like, it’s really funny, because before I actually wrote a book, I had a very strong opinion about myself that I’m not the kind of person who writes books. And I had to kind of let go of that concept of myself in the process of birthing a book, you know, and it was really one of these things where, you know, how you talk about, you know, getting divine messages and things like that. And it was really one of those things where I kept getting these messages to the point that they were so loud, and they were so frequent that they were so in my face that I couldn’t ignore them anymore. And I mean, it’s hard to summarise, like all the different synchronistic kind of things that happen and signals to came that came to me, but, you know, I had someone from my past from, you know, 12 years prior, who hadn’t hadn’t spoken to forever, contacted me and say, Have you ever thought about writing a book, and that was sort of the first seed and then I met somebody who had just written a book. And then I met somebody who was a writing coach, and then I met someone who was starting a publishing company, and I met somebody who was hosting a writer’s retreat, right. So all of a sudden, this just became my reality, right? It was just showing up in every like, it was just in my face, you know? And so I finally said, kind of, with my like, conversation to the universe a bit like okay, I hear you
I got the message,
I am going to write a book. And my first step was actually to commit publicly to that, which to me looked like a Facebook post, where I made myself accountable to the collective by declaring out loud in public to the ether, basically, I’m writing a book. And at that moment, I was like, I have no clue how this is going to happen. But there’s something powerful about simply committing to say, like, I’m going to do this, I don’t know how I have no clue what I’m doing. I’m not sure if I’m going to be successful, maybe I won’t actually complete it. But I put out this intention. And that started to attract people, resources, information, opportunities, and, you know, then it was sort of, there were stops and tough starts along the way, like, I don’t want to make it seem like Oh, it was just this magical flow. No, there were some really dark nights of the soul in the process, when I was like, I’m not going to make it or, you know, even like, I had sort of book aside all thoughts in the sense that, like, I had moments where I was, like, I’m gonna basically delete all the files, and I’m just gonna quit, you know, like, I can’t do it, it’s too much, you know, and so, for sure, I had severe moments of self doubt, and worry about people judging me. And just writer’s block, you know, like a month where nothing was coming out, and I’m like, maybe, maybe I’m not in the flow anymore. Maybe it’s just not happening. And I need to give it up, you know, and I had to actually get to the point where I was willing to give it up, in order for it to start flowing again, you know, this whole paradox. So was quite an initiation into the whole creative process. And in a way, it was me embodying a lot of the principles that I talked about in the book, I had to live in the process of birthing the book. So it was kind of happening on a meta level. But I was living the principles in the book, as I was writing about them, they were kind of coming into my own reality as I was doing this project, because I had to basically live the teaching of the book, as I was offering it. interesting how that happens.
Oh, yes. Totally. Thank you for sharing that. And I also know that the enneagram is a big part of your work. And I would love to hear a bit more about that. I will also frame this question by telling you a little bit more. Well, I will come up with my type in a moment. I would love to hear yours as well, if you want to share that. I have known about the enneagram since last summer, and yeah, I was a bit sceptical if I’m honest, I hadn’t considered myself someone who’s really into personality test type of things before that. And but when I did my test, and work with someone called Jessica Hughes, who was has also been on my other podcast, and it really it just came together beautifully and made a lot of sense to me. And I think what I needed to learn was that it’s not about making a judgement on myself as a whole person that it’s really about discovering the kind of like, the things that my my desires are grounded in, if that makes sense. And then I was like, oh, wow, yes, this is a really useful concept to think about. And it really helps me to reframe a few things that I keep running into my life as a tool. And so yeah, I’m excited to hear how you came across it and how it’s part of your work now. Yeah.
My boyfriend and university gave me this book, the wisdom of the enneagram. And so that was like, 20 years ago, I was first given this book, and it was my first exposure to it. And I think my understanding of it at that time was more on this personality typing psychology level, which was fun, in a way it was interesting, right? It was nice to be able to recognise myself and start to feel not so alone in my distortions and dysfunctions to say like, oh, like, this is just a flavour that I am. And there’s lots of other people like me, and somebody actually wrote about my deepest, darkest, darkest secrets in this book. So it’s actually like, it’s not me, you know, like, so I had this a little bit of a, I guess, awakening moment of like, oh, like not taking my bad habits so personally. And it was also a bit fun to kind of like go around and type your friends and you know, this kind of thing, right. But the way that I use it now is a bit different. Because there’s many layers to it. Like I would talk about the enneagram as being useful for different stages of your personal journey. Right. I think the first stage is what I just described, which is this recognition. You know, there’s comfort of knowing like I’m not alone in the way that I struggle. The way that I suffered, it’s not unique, but I’m not especially deficient or defective in
some way.
That’s the recognition stage. And I would say the next part is then liberating yourself from that. So my enneagram teacher, his name is Russ Hudson. And he’s one of the authors of this book that I mentioned. And one of the things that he always says is that the enneagram is, it’s not about showing you what box you’re in so that you can live and die in that box, it’s showing you the box that you’re in so that you have the keys to get out. Right. So it’s not about taking this on as another badge and other identity. Another label that you kind of use it to excuse all your patterns, right? It’s like, okay, you see the patterns, but the point of that is, so you can choose something else, right from, from consciousness that you can choose something else. And you understand that this is what’s happening. And you can hold it with empathy, like, Okay, this is just my ego, it’s doing its thing, but not to push the ego away, either. Right? So he would say, my teacher would say, like, it’s about, you know, from perspective of source or perspective of essence, egos, the essence doesn’t have an opinion about the ego, basically, right? The ego is not good or bad. It’s just something that’s happening. And you just, you watch it, and from the space where you’re the watcher, space opens up, and you can make a different choice, right. So that’s the next kind of layers, liberation from the pattern. And then the final stage, which is, I don’t know, maybe a bit esoteric or conceptual in a way, but I’ll mention it anyway. Because I feel like, you probably will get it and probably a lot of your listeners was, well, the last stages is integration, right? So it’s like we learn about these distinctions of these nine types, to first recognise our humanity. And then we use this as a tool to kind of get free of our fixations, and our identifications with concepts of this is the kind of person I think I am No, actually, it’s not really my true identity. It’s just the pattern that’s playing out. And I can actually choose something else. That’s not that right. And after you move through that stage, then you come into this, like true freedom of like, actually, I’m not one of these nine types, I’m all of them. The potential for all of them is in me, and actually, like, I’m just part of this human mandola in a sense of like, yeah, we’re not all the same. We have different flavours, we have different imbalances or whatever, we have different gifts to offer, we have different limitations, different challenges, different life paths, but as a whole, as a collective when you’re connected with community, that is wholeness, right that like actually, when we’re in connection with other humans, as the fabric of humanity that’s complete, that includes everything, and maybe as an individual, you know, body bounded being you feel certain things are missing, or whatever. But then we come to that wholeness when we’re connected in this community, right. And so that’s integration stage where I’m all of it. Right? Not in this kind of dissociative way of like, oh, oneness, and you know, unity, but, like, from a mind perspective, but really understanding that I am whole, and I’m also part of the whole. On depending on which level you’re looking at,
right. Yeah, thank you so much for illustrating that further, that that’s beautiful. I really recommend anyone who’s interested to check the book out that he mentioned and learn more about the anagram, because it’s really insightful. I can be really powerful. I think. It’s He also mentioned the idea of creating intentional economic ecosystems. Can you speak to data with it more? How is that? Yeah. How do you envision that for small business owners?
Yeah, I mean, we have limited resources, right. As humans, we have limited time, money, energy attention. And these are all the currencies that we trade, right with our life force, their life energy. And I think one of the things that’s shifting now is that we’re becoming much more intentional about where we’re spending those currencies. And I would say, we’re shifting from this like, disconnected way of sharing and exchanging and investing and spending those currencies and coming into a space where more connected. So meaning that we kind of went to the super far extreme of like, everything that I want is available with the touch of a button on an app on my smartphone, but I have no idea who is behind that the human who is actually behind food showing up at my door when I touched an app and like some transaction happens with my credit card and you know, some guy was named I don’t even know gets on a bicycle and drives across town and delivers the food to my door. And I don’t ever see any of the humans behind that whole process. The people who designed the app, the you know, whatever the interface is, it’s just like so many invisible actors in that kind of idea where I can just be in my flat in a city and get all of my needs met without ever touching another human. And I think that, you know, we’ve realised the downfall of that, in a way. And so when I talk about intentional economic ecosystems, it is understanding, like, if I buy this thing super hard, right, it takes a lot of energy to research a lot of these things, but it’s becoming more aware of, if I spend money on this, what does that actually supporting? And does it align with my values, right, and the way to make that less taxing, is to make those decisions more locally. Right. So if you know, the person that you buy your vegetables from, you can be more sure, maybe that there’s no pesticides, and you know, the land where they grow the food. And, you know, this is kind of in an ideal state, I think there’s different degrees of that, right. But it’s just this idea of like, coming back from this super extreme of like, I’m actually spending my currency of time, energy attention, and all of my human resource, right my life energy, in ways that I have no idea what it’s actually supporting, right, it could be supporting, you know, child labour, it could be supporting, you know, an ethical mining practices, it could be supporting, you know, toxic farming practices or whatever, right. And so coming back from this, like, I just push a button, and things come to me, and I have no idea where how it gets there, to actually being intentional about I’m going to use the currency that I have, in a way to support the kind of world I want to see. And oftentimes, that means investing in people in your local community who are doing, and providing and sharing and offering the things that you need. And maybe it means it’s more expensive, actually, like on a literal economic level, it might, the price tag might be higher, but you don’t have all these kind of other hidden costs, right, but you don’t see.
Yes, I love that. I think these are beautiful examples. And these are things that I’ve been thinking a lot about, too, I moved to Scotland last summer, and living and living in a much smaller village. Now I used to live in Brighton in the south of England before. And I can connect really with the people here that I buy things from, like the farmers, and the smaller shops, and it is a little bit more expensive. And I really don’t want to dismiss the fact that that isn’t accessible to everyone. And that sometimes things like disability and, and access really make it beneficial for us to have those kinds of buttons and say, you know, I’m meeting this need, and that’s okay. But I’m also really seeing the hidden cost that you were talking about that i emotional, where I’m noticing and myself that this really kind of unconscious consumerism, where I sometimes got into the habit and more stressful periods of feeling like oh, okay, like something is missing here, I feel almost like an emptiness inside of myself, I’m just going to push these buttons and maybe buy some Herbes or get some supplement because I feel like there’s something to be fixed. And actually, I think, really feeling more grounded in my local community here and looking people in the eye and hearing the stories behind the things that I’m buying has been a much more sustainable and, and beautiful way of filling this kind of emptiness that I was feeling inside myself. Right. And I think and I think that there’s also when we’re building a small business, and we are kind of created trying to create these, these more human interactions, and we’re looking someone in the eye, be that on a free feeler call or on Instagram, or we’re saying I’m offering this thing, and this is what it costs, it can be really awkward, because we don’t have much practice around us, right? Because we’re so used to having these super anonymous transactions where there isn’t any sense of a Nokia negotiation and we’re where we’re not really thinking so much about the value of something or how it’s been made, or who made it and how and and so I think yeah, that’s, that’s super interesting. And I’m really excited about all of us practising practising this in small ways at first and then in bigger and bigger ways and really growing this confidence and feeling the healing of the human brain, the humaneness and back into trading with each other.
And it’s not always about buying things either. I mean, just brings to mind a situation that I had earlier this week because I’m getting ready to record my audio book. And one of the things I needed to do Set up the recording studios, I needed to have a tablet, an iPad, I don’t have one, I just have my phone. And in terms of electronics and my laptop, and I needed something that could be fixed and stationary, that I could read the book from my initial impulse was I need an iPad, I have to buy one. Right? And, like 24 hours later, I thought, but I only really need it for this one project. And I’m probably not going to use it that much afterwards, do I really need to have another device, you know, like in the cost of that, like, you know, production shipping and taxes and all this stuff? And I just, I put a request out to my community and said, Does anybody have a spare tablet that I could borrow? for a couple of weeks? And within 48 hours, I have three tablets? You know, it’s like, wow. And it’s just like changing your mindset about having to have your own everything, right, really understanding what is actually the need that you have? And is it something that you can meet in a way that is not buying something new? I know that you can borrow it or get a used version? You know, there were a few people that were like, yeah, I have this tablet just lying around, it’s been sitting in my drawer for months, you can just keep it as long as you want. Maybe I don’t ever get it to have it back even. Yeah, and I think it’s just this idea also that it’s two things, right. So like I talked about in the book, that abundance has two phases, right? That it’s a movement through us. And it has two phases, which is gratitude, and generosity, right. So I think it’s important to activate both of those things. So it’s, it’s one thing for me to think, Oh, I can ask for what I need. And it will be provided. That’s the receiving end. But you know, to kind of put energy into that from an outflow, I need to also notice, what can I give that’s costless to me. And then also, I went away for a week on a trip a few weeks ago, and I had a friend staying in my house for free, because it was costless. To me, I thought, I’m not going to be in my house anyway. It’s only for a week, I don’t want to have some stranger staying in my house. So I can give this for free. Actually, it’s easy for me to give, it’s actually kind of an excess resource in a way that I can turn into something of value for someone else. And it’s actually costless for me to give right and you talk about nourishing economic ecosystems. It’s also attention economy as well, right? So I think about that when my friends who are small business owners are sharing my social media posts, or vice versa, right. It’s something that’s effectively costless. To me, if somebody is doing something that I like, I like what they’re offering. I like the way that they’re doing it. And I share something of theirs on social media. That’s also giving right, something that’s a value to them and is effectively costless for me, right? And to be generous with those kinds of things, because we support each other and lift each other up with that as well.
Yes, we do. And it’s so beautiful. That’s a really, really great example. Thank you. And before we go, I would love to hear what you’re wishing for us collectively in 2020. In small businesses, but also more generally, just for creative people who are interested in this kind of work.
You’re the first word that comes to mind is gentleness. Because we are in this really intense cauldron right now. And I think that it’s really not just self care, but community care, right. So it’s less again, the same mentality of like, I don’t need to take care of everything myself. But that we’re caring for ourselves and each other in community in connection. And that we need to be gentle with the process, because what’s happening now in the world is intense. And we need to take rest, we need to take a timeout, like I think a lot of us are feeling exhausted, right? Because it’s a huge burden of responsibility that can accumulate over time of like, Whoa, what we’re doing is really big, and it feels really heavy. You know, and just to be able to put that down, you know, when I talk about responsibility, not in the traditional sense of, you know, having a obligation or a duty, but response ability in terms of just the ability to respond. And the way that we take care of that is actually by having enough rest, and not getting so depleted, right? and managing, you know, the overstimulation and in a way blocking out signals that aren’t meant for us, right, we get a lot of noise, right? We get a lot of information that’s actually not instructional in terms of, it doesn’t give us anything we can act on. So then what it does, it just drains our energy and it gets us into fear and, you know, actually it’s pointless, right? So being really able to manage our energy leaks in that sense. have really kind of blocking out things on some level that aren’t serving us to serve.
Yes, I love that what a beautiful note to complete on. I would also love to know what you’re currently offering and where people can find you.
I do a lot of different things I teach about the enneagram. I do individual sessions and couples sessions around the enneagram. I also offer purpose alignment coaching, right. So using the principles that I talked about in regenerative purpose, I help people to really examine their relationship to the four sort of purpose qualities that I talked about in the book, which are authenticity, attunement, responsiveness and receptivity. So really doing a deep dive into opening up those qualities to allow the purpose to flow. And part of that is also creative emergence space, managing space and clearing and cleaning space so that the purpose can flow and learning practices like hygiene around those things, basically, for cleaning and clearing and also devotional decision making. So I do a lot of coaching around. Yeah, I would say purpose alignment. And then I also hold retreats for women more deep dive immersions that are a week long. I don’t have one on the schedule yet for this year, but there may be soon. So that’s also something that I do. Yeah, and I hold women’s circles, locally, as well as online for different organisations. Yeah, and I’m really, really passionate about spreading this message of regenerative purpose, right. So I have written the book. The next step is the audio book, which will hopefully be available soon and doing more interviews and saying yes to speaking engagements to really share this message and just spread some of this. Yeah,
yeah, I’m excited for that. I think your voice is beautiful as your message and I are really excited to share this interview with everyone and to read your book and to also see where your book is going to travel. And it’s new audio form and other things that you’re doing and that are unfolding for you this year. So thank you so much for making time Monday. And while you’re sharing your wisdom and inspiring as and sharing with us, what’s happening behind the scenes in your business as well. It was really beautiful to listen to you and your story. Thank you so much. Thank you

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