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Finding the courage to pivot and change careers is a key element to living our best lives. This episode features the inspiring story of Dr. Karen Barnard, who after a 30 year career in medicine leapt into the arms of her intuition and began a new calling as a personal coach. Karen talks about how to know if it’s time to switch careers; how to know what career fits your calling, your soul, and your lifestyle; some simple steps to advance towards this new life. Connect with Dr. Karen at www.drkarenbarnard.com or at [email protected]
For similarly-themed episodes, try these: Live Event: Jumpstart (or Refresh) Your Job Search or Artist Stan Piotroski: A Life that Feels Right
Visit www.refractivecoaching.com or www.refractivepodcast.com for more information on moving towards your best life. Additional uplifting content can be found on the Refractive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6y-HQ1_9-xMnZyq7dhRl4A
Referenced in this episode are the following books and podcast episodes. Refractive receives no compensation or other incentive in recommending these titles.
Books:
Your Body is Your Brain by Amanda Blake
Emotional Agility by Susan David, PhD
Limitless by Laura Gassner Otting
Podcasts:
Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations featuring Caroline Myss: Discovering Your Life’s Purpose
Apps:
Below is the transcript of this episode completed by transcription software; please pardon any inaccuracies from the software’s conversion of sound to text.
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest telling you to move, to love, to speak, to try day after day. You pretend you don’t hear calling, or maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse that it’s there ready for you. And it will wait for you as long as you. My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive.
Hello. Hello.
Speaker 1 00:00:42 Welcome to refractive podcast. This is Johnny G and today I am delighted to present to you a dear friend and an inspiring individual that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting lately. Dr. Karen Barnard, Karen was born in South Africa and at an early age of 15 years, she was encouraged by a school teacher to pursue a career in medicine. Karen knew that she felt driven to live a life of service of some kind, and this happened to align well with what she saw for her future. So at the age of 18 in South Africa, Karen began her training as a doctor, finished medical school and moved to the United States. At that point, she trained here as a general internist and then subsequently chose endocrinology as an area of specialization. After a 30 year career, Karen felt intuition, leading her to a change of career. She knew that she still continued to desire a life of service of some sort, and she landed on life coaching.
Speaker 1 00:01:55 She began training as a life coach in 2019. This is where I had the pleasure of meeting her and she formerly left that 30 year career in June of 2020 to pursue her new dream. So welcome, Karen. I’m so happy to have you on the refractive podcast. Hi Johnny. And thank you so much for this invitation. And I’m really looking forward to the conversation we’re going to have today. That’s right. And so I haven’t presented yet the topic for everyone, but I think this is an area of focus that many, many people are feeling a connection to. Now, I don’t know about you, Karen, but I, in my conversations with people over the past several months, I feel that this COVID pandemic and the shelter in place working from home phenomenon that we’ve experienced has led a lot of people to question what they have chosen as a life path and person after person, after person has told me that they wish they could leave their current career and start something new, even when they don’t know what that is.
Speaker 1 00:03:11 They just know that they have felt a low level consistent dissatisfaction with what is, and they are looking for something new in the future. So today’s episode is all about recognizing those internal signals we have when it’s time to shift our career path and recognizing our saboteurs thoughts, recognizing obstacles that are both real and sometimes not real. And looking at some common sense steps to rowing piece around this concept of making such a major life shift. And I know that something that you and I have both done recently, and I’d love for you to share with the listeners, your origin story, some more details or within what I’ve already discussed. And, um, let’s let everybody know why you have some experience around this to share.
Speaker 2 00:04:12 Oh, absolutely. And before I say talk about my experience, I just wanted to say, I have also heard from so many people who are really looking to making a change and just not sure how to go about it. So this is a very timely topic. So Johnny, as you mentioned, I graduated from medical school in South Africa, actually almost 31 years ago now. And I really enjoyed a productive and rewarding career as an academic internist and endocrinologist. Um, you know, I was able to see patients and I, um, degree search and I told and had administrative leadership roles as very engaged. And I thought I would be doing it for the, my whole life. And then a few years ago, I sensed that something was off that I wanted to contribute in a different way, but I just didn’t know what it would be. So I went on an exploration of sorts that led me to last year to a foundation’s coach training course where I met you, of course. And at that moment at that course, I knew that coaching would become my second act. So, um, I went from medicine, which I now think of as my first act to coaching as my second act. And so here now, September of 2020, I am retired as you mentioned. And I dedicate myself full time to my coaching business. Um, and I work with a broad range of professionals. I have a special interest in healthcare providers and I work with folks to design their careers and lives with clarity and intention and courage.
Speaker 1 00:05:56 I relate so deeply to the calling that you’ve mentioned. And I think that just based on what I’ve experienced, I think that you, Karen, with your background and your set of experiences, I just think that there’s an entire medical community that has invested so much time and love and money and energy to pursuing a life in medicine that the option of ever putting that down and moving to something else just feels like they’re disrespecting themselves. And I think the idea that you can lovingly begin your second act and integrate your first act into your second act in helping members of the medical community as they feel this sense of impending change. I think it’s very inspiring.
Speaker 2 00:06:50 Well, thank you and your exit you, right. It’s never easy to leave a career where you’ve put so much energy and society has also partly sort of helped to fund. And so, you know, there’s that, and there’s just the expertise you develop. And one just wonders where there is there anything else I can do. I only know how to do medicine. That’s what I hear a lot. Um, and, and yes, there’s a whole world out there and, and every single experience in life counts, whether you’re in medicine or whether you’re doing what ever, that really sets you up for however, you’re going to serve in the future.
Speaker 1 00:07:30 Sure. If we dive right in Karen, let’s talk about how people can discern whether what they’re feeling is a drive towards a new career, or if what they’re feeling might just be some frustration at their current job, because there’s a difference there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 00:07:51 Yeah. This is such an important question. Uh, Johnny, and, you know, here, I like to talk a little bit about the harnessing, the wisdom of the body. You know, we tend to think that all of our knowledge and wisdom comes from above the neck now, cognitive processes. Um, but in fact, there’s this tremendous network of hormonal and your illogical signaling below the neck, coming from our gut and from our heart, from our skin, from our connective tissue. And in prioritizing above the neck data as reliable and valid, we’ve kind of turned off or we neglect this ferry finally to sense organ that we have, uh, that can really help us sort of tease apart some things of what we feeling and what might be next. And here, I love to talk about the work of Amanda Blake. Um, she wrote a book called your body is your brain.
Speaker 2 00:08:54 And she relates how we treat our bodies as vehicles to get to the next meeting or machines that could be fixed by experts. And Hey, I’ve been guilty of this too. So this really resonated with me and we have unlearned in this busy, distracted world to pay attention to what’s really going on inside Johnny, if I may, I just want to say how it relates to how I ignored my own senses. Here was I started a few years ago, really feeling a lot of fatigue, you know, not just the usual, Oh, at the end of the day, I’m tired or they’ve really wasn’t fixed by going on vacation or having a weekend. It was just this low grade fatigue, which was very unusual for me. The other thing that started happening is that my migraines started increasing in severity, both in frequency and in intensity, it was like, my body was just, I hadn’t listened.
Speaker 2 00:09:51 I hadn’t listened to study. My body was saying, Oh, okay, stop. And literally it stopped me in my tracks. And I was like, okay, something is going on here. The other piece to this. So, you know, there is the signals we get from our body about how we feel with where we’re at. Then there’s also our emotional state and really listening to our emotions is, is critically important. And here, I like to draw on the work from Susan Davis. Who’s actually also a South African she’s a psychologist at Harvard medical school. And she wrote a book called emotional agility. And she asks the question, what are your emotions signaling to you? Notice them become curious, um, and look at them as data. Um, but they’re not directed. It doesn’t mean you follow everything, but you pay attention. And so for me, the emotion was that I left Infusio autism.
Speaker 2 00:10:57 Like I was always this take on any project. I look for this, go for promotion, like really go home. And I started withdrawing, like my enthusiasm chest was rock bottom, which was, again, something was signaling there’s Euston. We have a problem. Similarly, you know, there’s a challenging emotions. We need to listen to this also, you know, Johnny, that first course that we did together with coaching, like the way I felt, even though I wasn’t coaching very well, just the space of ease and the happiness and the excitement that I felt in that space that was now looking back, that was posts saying, pay attention. This might be the way forward.
Speaker 1 00:11:46 The idea that you had these symptoms, migraines that coincided with your lack of enthusiasm. I think this is fascinating. How did you come to the conclusion that they were related and that this pointed to a different career?
Speaker 2 00:12:05 I wished I could tell you that I was mindful of it. And I, and I recognize that as it was happening. And I said, I didn’t do any of that. It really kind of knocked me over the head in a way, like the universe was talking to me and I wasn’t listening.
Speaker 1 00:12:20 So it took me a while to
Speaker 2 00:12:23 Put the pieces together. Um, and, and, you know, once I got sort of the pole to, to go into coaching, now that I’m there, I can look back and my migraines, I haven’t had a migraine in eight, eight and a half months.
Speaker 1 00:12:43 Okay. Which is a very interesting coincidence of timeline.
Speaker 2 00:12:48 Like not one, um, my energy level is completely the way it was before. I mean, I, there are days I get tired, but like normal, I have high energy end. Yeah. Mine’s easy as hasn’t for what I do the love of what I do. And so, yes, I think it was, um, really in it sort of really being taken to a standstill and saying, why am I not functioning so well? And then after the change of looking back and going, okay, wow.
Speaker 1 00:13:20 So, you know, I talked to my clients and I say that it is possible to have a career that energizes you. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have exhausting days, but there it is possible to go to work every day and feel vibrant and to feel excited. There are so many people who come home from work every day, who know that 10 years ago, they were very passionate about what they were doing, but they know that every day they come home and they feel just a little bit dead inside, they feel a little bit, they just feel drained. They’re exhausted. I think that that’s a really unfortunate way to go through life. And so what I hear you saying, Karen, is that if you are feeling this consistent drainage of your energy, of your passion, it’s assigned to look inside and at least start asking questions where it comes from and nothing is off the table.
Speaker 2 00:14:19 Oh, I couldn’t agree more. And I think a key word there is the consistency with which this feeling shows up. We all have a bad day here and there, or even a bad week, or, you know, but it’s really the question of it’s persistent. It was for me. And I waited maybe even longer than I could add it, but I waited a few years before I really acted on this. The other thing I just want to mention is so that the shirts that come up like, Oh, I should, you know, this is an incredible, I have, I’ve spent, I should be feeling happy. I should be engaged in everybody else. They’re loving it. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I, and those sorts of shirts, just to look at that and say, what am I really telling myself? That’s really a critical piece to this.
Speaker 1 00:15:12 I agree with that. I think that there is, um, there are very few situations where should, is in loving term. You know, I really do. So let’s say we have been experiencing this consistent at best boredom and at worst, a sense of being drained every day from our vital forces. How do you know if it is time to look at an entire new career or if it’s just where you’re working every day,
Speaker 2 00:15:49 Kara, the things that I work with with my clients and that I did for myself as well. And one of the first things is really reconnecting with our life purpose. Um, what we think we’re here to do, and also reconnecting with your values or your principles in life, ask yourself what really matters to me. What do I want to be in the world? What kind of contribution do I want to make is contribution even important to me, maybe what’s important to me is caring for and providing for my family and my current job that may not be great, but it brings in the money for me to honor the value of providing for my family, or it might be significance in my job. I might, you know, I’m a leader and I’ve had a significant role. That’s important to me. That’s a high value and look at what makes you come alive and explore that sun and see where in your life are you honoring those values that are important and where maybe have you neglected them or stepped over them.
Speaker 2 00:16:59 Cause Johnny really, when we live in alignment with our values and our core principles, our life just flows. And that’s my experience. One of the things that I realized, I always thought values were kind of set in stone. You know, you have a set of values and they stick with you. And to certain extent, that’s true. And, but I’d like to think about it a little differently that certain values take a higher priority at different times in our lives. So for example, for me, the value of geographic freedom and the, I came to the us from South Africa. I love traveling, but there was a value of mine, but it wasn’t a top value. And then in the last few years, we wanting to spend more time with my, with my aging parents. And now my dad, my brother, suddenly that value of geographic freedom became really important to me. And, and that’s where, when I looked at life coaching that checked a box that, uh, you know, being a physician needing to be in one place did not meet. Yeah. I’ll just, I’d like to hear your, um, your take on the role of the values and life purpose in helping to directly,
Speaker 1 00:18:23 You know, when I was a kid and people ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up for a long time, my answer was I wanted to be in paranormal fields.
Speaker 2 00:18:36 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:18:42 Yeah. Going back further. I wanted to be the president. I wanted to be an actor. You know, and these are ways of living that as a child, they connected with my primary drivers, they looked fun. They looked interesting. And as I grew up, I ended up in human resources and listen, human resources is a great job. As far as most jobs go, HR is a good deal, okay. Is a good job. But it did not connect with my primary drivers. And every day at work, I felt an intrinsic desire to not do HR. And so to get through it, I changed jobs every two years because at least when you change jobs, you’re overwhelmed by the newness and the learning and that is stimulating. And so as I look back, I can see, I worked for a hotel company where I could easily transfer.
Speaker 1 00:19:52 And every time I transferred into a new role, it got me through for like a year and a half. And then I started to get back into the doldrums and I needed to move again because I did not enjoy what I was doing. And so what I would tell my clients and the listeners is go back to the ideas you had as a child. Maybe today, I’m not going to be a paranormal list. Okay. But what was the, what was the reasoning behind that? Because the reasoning behind your childhood fantasies is a deep connection to your psyche. As a child, we are not constrained by this realism that we’re forced to live in as adults. And so there’s real fertile soil there for understanding what makes you tick, what connects with your heart and what feels good. And if you can align your career with something that feels good inside your heart, you have a life that is energizing, not draining. That’s my thought.
Speaker 2 00:20:55 I so love that story of the, you know, going back to the, to your childhood. Cause you’re absolutely right. That when we children, we don’t have all of these things, societal pressures and expectations, and we’re so much more in tune with that sort of a regional wisdom. That’s excited about.
Speaker 1 00:21:14 You know, I think it goes back to the familiar old saying to thine own self, be true. I think it’s important to acknowledge what makes you tick and you know what, like you said, Karen, maybe today I have a young child and I can’t leave my stable career to go chase a dream today. Maybe that would be harmful to my family, but I can lay down a plan. Okay. I can lay down a plan. I can give myself the love of following my gut guidance to say, I can make this work in a five year plan or a 10 year plan. It’s okay to plan a career change 10 years from now, there are literally no rules. You set the rules, you set the parameters. And if you are being true to yourself, if you know your insides and you’re being true to yourself, you are going to find peace in your daily life, but it takes the courage and the willingness to say, what is true and what is not true, but that I accept as true.
Speaker 1 00:22:27 Is it true that I need to make $125,000 a year as a minimum salary? Is that true? It may be important, but is it, is it a real rule that I’m holding myself to, or is it something that I had accepted based on my imagination that is more aligned with society than what is aligned with what my insides are telling me. And if you can grow peace around your inner truth, your values, your driving principles and your real needs for love your real needs, not your society pressure needs, but your real needs, all of the sudden doors open in your imagination that you have forcefully kept shut to yourself for decades. And that is the key that when I work with my clients, that’s the key to unlocking your peace and your happiness, stop holding your own cage shut because of a set of limiting ideas that you’ve been spoonfed. And you’ve accepted as fact because you get to choose, you decide you make the rules and is not a single person who can hold you back. If you don’t agree to be held back. That’s, that’s my, that’s my feelings around it, you know?
Speaker 2 00:23:57 Oh, absolutely. And I love how passionate you are about that because we all need to hear what you just said in the way that you said, and you showed such fierce courage as you spoke. And that’s what it takes. It just takes a lot of fear, courage, which you just exhibited lovely to see.
Speaker 1 00:24:20 So one of the most formative elements, and it sounds silly to say this, but it’s why I got into podcasting. Okay. So one of the most formative elements of my recent life change has been Oprah’s super soul conversation. So this was a television show on the, on the own network, but it’s also available in podcast format of just the audio. And I listened to most of those episodes because on every episode there is a different person. You might consider a thought leader on some sort of heart or spirit based concept. And there was one episode featuring I think there’s actually two episodes featuring a lady named Caroline Myss. And she, uh, she responded, uh, to a question that Oprah gave and she said something like, well, no, you’re always either moving towards fear or you’re moving towards love. You can’t move towards both at the same time.
Speaker 1 00:25:22 Go ahead and think about it. Try to give me an example. It is not true to accept both fear and love. And this has been a really important concept for me in my growth. It’s unlocked something inside of me. And as I look, what does fear mean? And what does love mean? Fear is any one of a hundred forms of limiting messages? I can’t, I shouldn’t, it won’t be acceptable. That’s not loving. I can’t do that to my family. I can’t do this to myself. I can’t survive on $60,000. I can’t, I can’t, I shouldn’t, I won’t write fear says if I do this, I’m going to fail. Whereas love says, I’m willing to look inside and discern and discernment is really key. Discernment is the idea of putting your thoughts and your feelings through a test. Does this make sense? Does it feel right when I weigh it against reality? Does it still stand? If it doesn’t, maybe I’ll put it away for now, but discerning whether my path I’m on, am I doing HR because of love? I could be, I could love my child so much. I’m willing to do HR. Okay. That could be a love-based decision. Or am I doing HR? Because I don’t think I’m qualified to do anything else. And I, I’m not willing to drop my salary by half to start over that’s fear.
Speaker 2 00:26:59 Oh yeah. Fear will show up predictable hundred percent whenever we want to make a change. And it’s, it’s a very instinctive reaction. And in fact, part of the fear is there to protect that that fear has come along with us and has kept us out of trouble, helped us to survive, helped us in the community, a stain out community and not get kicked out of the tribe. But that fear doesn’t realize that we’ve actually evolved and we’re no longer, you know, creatures roaming around, maybe needing a lot more help from fear. We now have this amazing prefrontal cortex that helps us in our decision making. And if we have weighed the options, fears, not going to go away, it’s going to keep staying there. So are you sure? You sure. You sure. And you know, you can say, thank you for your, I see you.
Speaker 2 00:28:00 And yes, I have done the math. I have discussed. I’ve listened to my body it’s time. And you know, Johnny, Chadwick Bozeman who really left us way too soon was he was an enlightened being. And he said, fearlessness means taking the first step. Even if you don’t know where it will take you. And it gets to that piece of that’s where the courage is. Courage is not that there isn’t fear fears going to be there. It’s going to just get used to it, recognize your fear, recognize its messages. And they’d say, I got this and I’m going to move forward despite of it. And that’s, to me, the definition of courage.
Speaker 1 00:28:44 And so this leads us into, into our next topic, which are the obstacles around making such a shift in life. And I mentioned in the intro, some of these obstacles are very real and a lot of the obstacles have been put there by ourselves and they are as real as we grant them to be. You know? So I’d love to hear your perspective on facing these obstacles when we consider changing our life to following more of our vocation or our guided career, rather than where we happen to have ended up to date.
Speaker 2 00:29:28 Yeah. So these, um, and I love this topic because it’s something I’ve been thinking about and writing about, um, for quite some time now, and that’s, you know, inner voices that it was perceived obstacles that either we make up or we think other people are saying that it’s really these thoughts and voices in our heads. And I call them saboteurs. Um, people have different names, but there’s, you know, there’s a judge separator there’s, um, there’s an avoidance separator. My favorite is you’re not good enough separator being able to recognize them as sort of a little bit like fear where they, there is, there’s a smidgen of truth often to what they’re saying. There’s like a little bit of truth. Um, and we get hooked and he say, see, you can’t do it. So for me, you’re too old. Like, what do you want to go changing careers age of 52?
Speaker 2 00:30:31 And then I really started looking at that. I’m too old and I’m looking around me and people of 80 are writing books for the first time. I actually just read last week. Cause that the, um, the average age of a successful startup founder, Johnny is 45. There you go. So with that new data, I just made a decision to say, no, I’m not going to, I’m choosing not to listen to that voice. Um, and then, you know, the fact that our identities are so wrapped up in career and education and income, we should have all the voices around that. You know, you’re going to next others down. And I heard this, how will you manage financially? This is what about retirement? And so of course I had to look into that, but at the end of the day, I had to really wait these voices and say, okay, we should look at is true.
Speaker 2 00:31:26 And can I overcome that now, maybe with the age thing, Johnny, if I was 75, I, I may not embark on a new career coaching. I didn’t know I made, but maybe that’s not something I’d want to do at the end, but certainly at 52. Oh yeah, I’m going for this. Um, and so something that helped me tease through the voices was looking at what other people have done. And if another human being of more or less, my age had done what I want to do, it’s possible. And therefore I can just end of story. I’m not talking about probability. That’s a different thing. I don’t have control of the way that this is going to work out. I still don’t know whether, you know, we don’t know how life’s going to roll, but I know what I want. And then just connecting with why, why do I want to make this change?
Speaker 2 00:32:18 What’s important about this also helps with sort of those, those blockages and sort of things that come up as we’re thinking about making the change. Yes. Um, I, I do want to say something about the financial income piece because it’s something I hear a lot and I think it’s real, especially now during Covid. I mean, we have folks who have student loans, they have mortgages, they might be the primary breadwinner and sort of totally eating a career might just not be feasible. But I want to just link back to something you said earlier is really looking at that with honesty. For many of us is a little bit like anxiety provoking and so have brutal honesty about your bank statements and where you spend get a financial advisor. If you need to look and to help you to fill up your budget for that future, that might be, you know, three or five years when you,
Speaker 1 00:33:24 You can make the change. Yes, absolutely. It’s about those little, those little steps when it comes time to set a plan down, if you, uh, if our listeners have come to a point where they’re ready to really examine our career shift, and they know that this is not something that’s going to happen today, I’m not going to submit my resignation today. Uh, but this is something that I can do in the midterm. What are some recommendations you might have for planning this type of life change
Speaker 2 00:33:58 In the beginning, embracing not knowing. So if you are ready to make a change and you’re beginning to explore some options, it really takes time to find the right place to make the best decision for you. And it’s, it’s a journey. So I’ll start off with that, just to sort of take some of the pressure off, um, just to understand that it’s going to take time. I also what’s really worked, still works for me. And what I really recommend is that people that we continue to connect to a wisdom that inner wisdom and taking a break from the distractions and the noise of the world and finding some stillness. Um, this can take on a variety of forms. And th the, really the reason for the stillness Johnny is that when our intuition or our inner knowing speaks or touches us with a gut feel, or gives us a heart flatter, or a sensation of tingling, it’s different for different people.
Speaker 2 00:35:13 How are you gonna get that sort of nudge of intuition of where to go next? It’s really soft. It’s very, it’s sometimes it’s subtle. And of course, by my story, I kind of missed it along the way until it really hit me over the head, but in the stillness, we can really hear it. It could be anything from going into the days at, for a week, going on a sonnet meditation to standing in the shower, just being in the present moment, feeling the water, running over your body, feel how you’re standing and begin to just tune in to what’s happening in your body as you’re showering, that sort of thing. And it takes practice. You know, we’re just for people who haven’t done this just start small, like five minutes here and there that you can grab some moment just to be with yourself, actually, a client of mine Who’s a runner. She finds that when she really wants an answer to what’s next or how she should do something, she goes for a walk through nature and it’s like, she can just relax and you could meditate. The other thing that helps several people is actually journaling, um, something called, uh, we call it automatic writing and it’s worth a try. And it’s really asked yourself a question. So it might be something like, where should I submit my resume, or what industry should I look at? And just start writing and set a timer for 15 minutes and don’t pick up the pen, just write, even if you’re writing mumble jumble, it doesn’t matter. Just write and see what it is you’ve written because through that automatic writing, you’re sort of bypassing some of the, the cognitive aspects that might block that from coming through. Um, a couple of other interesting things are things like, where are you? What we’re doing is we’re activating the parasympathetic or the thriving nervous system, which really to get out of that sort of hijack stress system and even stroking an animal. Like if you’ve got a cat or a dog and you just sit for a few minutes and just feel the stroke of the hand, that immediately actually calms the animal, and then also calms you. And, you know, you can just sit with, and that’s often when our best ideas come is when we’re not thinking about them. So those are some ideas. I would also encourage of people, and this is what I needed to do. So that’s why I’m bringing it up is I was really only my head. I was, where am I? I had a list. I had done some research. I was on the web. I had strengths, weaknesses. I had all of this stuff in my head and I got a coach and she actually, one of the first session, she said, you know, you’ve done so much external research and you have some ideas, but how about we just go inside and see what your inner wisdom is to say. So getting a coach or any objective trained listener who doesn’t have an agenda for you as a great way, also to begin to work through some of the things and the next steps you need to take.
Speaker 1 00:38:45 You know, one of the tenants of my coaching is you already know you already are. The answer is in the stillness. I truly believe, and not everybody may believe this and that’s okay. But I believe for myself, for my life, that every bit of knowledge and knowing this, which is like a word that I use a lot knowingness, every bit of knowingness that I need is already inside of me. If I’m willing to do the work, to go inside and seek it. Um, because I believe that I was given all of the tools I need to live my best life. The same way a puppy is given all the tools. It needs to live its best life. And that means when it’s time to play, I go inside. Is it time to play yet? It’s time to play. When it’s time to sleep, I go inside. It’s time to sleep. I don’t need to fight and litigate this. If it’s time to sleep, I need to sleep. It’s time to eat. I need to eat. If it’s time to work, I need to work. And surrendering to the wisdom inside is really the key to serenity. It’s when we either believe that our inner wisdom is wrong, or when we choose to disobey our inner wisdom, that we begin to feel pain and dissatisfaction. So I think, uh, I think that dovetails nicely with some of, some of your recommendations there. I’m sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2 00:40:26 No, I was just going to make it to say really that I, so second you are and when to emphasize your point, that it’s all inside and we have everything we need to help us make these decisions. We just need to tune in.
Speaker 1 00:40:45 I started meditating rather recently, and I just, I just, I felt like I could never do it. I felt like every time I sat down to meditate, my mind just went crazy. And all of a sudden I was making grocery lists and I was like imagining conversations I needed to have. And it was very frustrating for me. And so a way that worked for me was I downloaded a meditation app called meditation studio. And they had guided meditations ranging from two minutes to 45 minutes and on all types of different topics. And they were so helpful to me because they trained me there. There were a lot of meditations where I did where it was five minutes and I just couldn’t do anymore. And then there came a where I didn’t want to do a guided meditation. I wanted to sit in silence and I did. And I learned I could. And so for me, it was a gradual process to go inside. And like you said, not everybody needs to, to meditate. There are other ways to go into the stillness. You know, I think journaling is great. I think, you know, speaking with a trusted person and I think your comment on no agenda, I think that’s really important. Cause sometimes our family has an agenda for us.
Speaker 2 00:42:03 Yeah. And it’s, it’s really true that start with, with what works for you so that you can begin to trust what you’re hearing and your interpretation because interpretation often is where we, where we can get caught a little bit. So whatever you feel drawn to, whether it’s the walk or the journal or guided meditation, whatever it is, just start somewhere. And as you begin to listen, you’ll begin to learn how your body speaks to you. And that can then bold your confidence in your own, in your own, knowing it. Cause it took me a long time to actually feel confident. And I still sometimes have, is this a nudge or is this a set of terms speaking? So kind of it just takes time. But the important thing is just to start somewhere because it is ultimately so incredibly valuable.
Speaker 1 00:43:04 That’s right. That’s right. Is this, is this inner voice I’m hearing a voice of love of some way, or is it a voice of fear of some way? Can I discern between the two? You mentioned Amanda Blake’s book, your body is your brain. And you mentioned Susan David’s book, emotional agility. As we come to the end of the podcast, I want to mention one more book and I’ll, I’ll put information on all of this in the show notes for anyone who accesses the podcast page. There’s a book that was recommended to me by my friend, Nick. He sent me an audio book and it was called Limitless: How to ignore everybody, carve your own path and live your best life. And the author is named Laura Gassner Otting. And I really recommend this book for anyone who is considering a life change based on your vocation, your calling your career.
Speaker 1 00:44:04 And what she says is your life feels best when you find consonance consonance, when you resonate with what you’re doing and she divides it very conveniently into four CS, your calling, your connection, your contribution and your control. And she says that if you can identify, what is your calling? Like you said earlier, what is your purpose in your life, your connection, how connected do you feel to what you’re doing your contribution, right? Do you need to drive the entire strategy of an organization? Do you need to get your hands dirty on the front lines to feel like you’re contributing? Uh, how is it that you want to contribute and leave your legacy and then control? How much control do you need over your careers? Do you need to telework? Do you need to manage your commute or is that not a primary driver for you?
Speaker 1 00:45:11 Um, you know, how much autonomy do you, do you need to feel happy or do you prefer to leave the big decision making to someone else in your career, in your job? So this is a really strong book. Like I said, I will definitely put the name of it in the show notes, and I want to recommend it to our team of listeners here. Karen, as we come down to the final words of the episode, I want to kind of leave on a high note. I think this is a powerful statement. I’d love to hear your guidance for the listeners on this. When your inner champion speaks, believe it. What is that about?
Speaker 2 00:45:53 Yeah. It’s, it’s about the courage to trust. You have everything you need to move to the next step to live a fulfilled life within you. And as we’ve said, it takes some practice and you might need some help, the risk if you don’t believe and you don’t go, it’s staying in the same place and maybe you don’t.
Speaker 1 00:46:22 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:46:23 It’s an incredibly powerful statement. And you know, I would say, I’ll say that, you know, change is scary. It takes courage, but ultimately it can be very spacious and,
Speaker 1 00:46:38 Yeah, that’s right. Thank you, Karen. I am so happy that you joined us today and that you shared your wisdom and experience with the refractive listeners. I’ll go ahead and wrap.
Speaker 2 00:46:51 Thank you, Johnny. And I so enjoyed chatting with you, learning from you and, uh, it was, it was really a pleasure to be here. Thank you
Speaker 1 00:47:00 Very much. Absolutely. And Karen, can you please let everyone know where the listeners can find you if they have questions about your coaching or if they want to read this blog that uh, that you have?
Speaker 2 00:47:14 Yes. So my website is, uh, dr. Karen barnard.com, which is dr. K a R E N V a R N a R d.com. And if you, you can access the blog from the menu. And if you like, you can
Speaker 1 00:47:30 Subscribe to the weaken use letter. Funny, my email is Karen at dr. Karen barnard.com and I welcome any inquiries or comments or questions about this or coaching with me. Please feel free to contact me any time. Thank you so much. All right, Karen, thank you. This is Johnny G and you’ve been listening to the refractive podcast. I am a personal career and spiritual coach in Washington, DC. You can find me refractivecoaching.com. You can email me at [email protected]. That’s Johnny with a Y. And I work in person and remotely with people who feel they are ready to take some fresh new steps towards a life that feels energizing and good. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please go ahead and click subscribe. And I also ask that we’re ever, you listened to your podcast. Please leave a rating. You don’t have to type a single word just by clicking a star rating. You help to enhance the distribution of this material to other people that you think might benefit from the messages. Thank you so much for tuning in today and never forget, be good to each other and aim your life every day.
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