Episode 62 – Patricia Hernandez Stalder

Margaret: [00:00:00] There we go. Let’s see. Okay, and let me just pull this up Oh kill me Make this as big as possible. All right. Let’s see. All right. Welcome, welcome everyone to the Yin-care® Podcast. I’m your host, Margaret Jacobson, The Mother Rising, and I’m so happy to see you here today. We have an excellent episode for you.

If you’ve ever been through an identity crisis or if you feel like you’re going through one, this episode is speaking directly to you. When I went through my divorce in 2010, everything completely collapsed around me. It was a highly contentious divorce, and throughout the process, I was gaslit, [00:01:00] manipulated by attorneys, my ex’s family, all along the way.

I had so heavily invested myself in the identity of being happily married, that even though I hadn’t actually been happy for many years, I just felt like that was who I was and who I was supposed to be. I lost many friends and family members. I was incredibly fortunate, though, at that time, to have had a wonderful guide that walked me through.

She was a clairvoyant astrologist who really helped me see the bigger picture, and helped me to build my inner resources to help me navigate the many years that happened to be ahead of me where I was dealing still with the repercussions of the divorce. But it helped me lay the foundation for creating the new and absolutely truly beautiful life that I have.

My guest today specializes in helping women transition [00:02:00] from chaos to chrysalis to clarity, and she is a wonderful returning guest. Please welcome back Patricia Hernandez Stalder from episode 43. When Patricia was last on the show, she shared her powerful journey of tapping her own intuitive wisdom to heal herself and trust her own inner voice.

Since then, her work has evolved beautifully. As a self-mastery coach, she now guides women through the raw experience of identity collapse and helps them transition into their true next chapters. Patricia’s own path is a rich tapestry of transformation. She’s a mother of two adult children, a former Montessori school teacher, and an entrepreneur who was a prominent influencer for zero waste and sustainability.

She’s half Spanish and half Swiss, and she was raised in the UK, went through a d- divorce after nearly 30 years of [00:03:00] marriage, and currently lives in the Canary Islands. Today, she balances her coaching practice with ongoing deep study. Every twist and turn of Patricia’s life has led her to develop what she calls- Original intelligence, the belief that we all possess innate organic mastery tools that we simply need to reactivate, remember, and train.

Now that she’s back on the show, we are going to be diving deep into the engine that drives this entire transformation. Today we’re discussing why courage is an essential mastery tool for navigating identity loss, and exactly how that courage is cultivated. And so with that, welcome in Patricia. I’m so happy to have you with us today.

Hi, Margaret. So good to be back. Lovely to be back with you.

Absolutely. So this is really such a near and dear to my heart topic because [00:04:00] of, you know, the personal experience that I had with my own identity collapse. And interestingly at the time I too used the same chrysalis description of what was going on, and I’m pretty sure because we’ve had a couple of conversations before we decided to do this episode, but that when you’re in that chrysalis really…

Or when a caterpillar is basically in the chrysalis, they, everything dissolves into this gooey, mucky, messy, you know, gel basically. And then somehow has the intelligence to configure itself into this beautiful butterfly, which is amazing. So I think it’s wonderful that you’re using that.

Yeah. I love that imagery, and it’s just so precisely what happens because it…

And it, it’s not that the caterpillar comes out on the other side being [00:05:00] a, becoming a better caterpillar. It just completely transforms. Mm-hmm. And that requires a complete dissolution of the state that it was in when it entered that chrysalis.

Yeah.

And that’s essentially what happens when after big trauma or big life changes, we no longer feel like we can carry on that identity into our new phase.

So I think what, what happens, why it’s called a crisis or a collapse, is that all of the foundations that helped to sustain and keep this identity, this persona, this, um- , character alive is no longer valid. You cannot move that person forward into the next stage. So essentially, the person that took you up to this moment can no longer [00:06:00] continue, and that’s why most women describe, , this phase as a complete collapse, which involves grief, anger, a lot of fear, uncertainty, lack-

Yeah

And so on and so forth. So yeah, that was a great description.

It’s, it’s a death. It’s a true death. It’s, it is walking through a death portal in, in so many ways.

Exactly, yeah. It’s one of … I think it’s one of the most potent thresholds that we cross because it’s during that messy in-between part where a part of us makes that decision to stay and repeat the same cycle because we’re too scared to move on, and it’s, mm, feels more comfortable to stay with the familiar than to go somewhere unfamiliar or to awaken.

So it’s kind of the [00:07:00] path splits into two there when you’re in that chrysalis. Mm-hmm. And you have to make that choice, and this is where courage comes in. Mm-hmm. Because when you are letting go of everything that you were but you’re still not sure what you’re becoming, all of this uncertainty and lack of clarity and inner conflict and chaos and tension, all of these come under that umbrella of fear.

Mm-hmm.

And fear, what it does is it interrupts the natural evolution, your natural identity evolution, i- if you will, that has to take place for you to move into your next season or your next phase. And the reason courage is so important is, mm-

It’s the only

Actually I’m gonna… There, there’s a, a, a beautiful definition by May- [00:08:00] Maya Angelou, and she says- Oh, yes … yeah, she says, “Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage you cannot practice all the other virtues consistently.” Mm-hmm. And we’re talking about self-trust, self-love, compassion, all the things that are gonna get you through that.

You can’t do that without courage. The setting of boundaries, discernment, and ultimately, , transformation and change. You cannot do that without the courage. Mm-hmm. So there’s another really beautiful, definition. I can’t remember if it’s Mark Twain, and he says, Courage is not a lack of fear, it is the resistance to fear and the mastery of fear. So it, it essentially it’s that kind of willingness to-

Yeah …

be true to yourself even though you [00:09:00] still don’t have any certainty, right? So you, you, you, you make this commitment to be true- Mm-hmm … even though you don’t have any answers. Exactly. That is courage.

Yeah.

It’s like a bridge to creating the coherent frequency you need to attune to the next, the, the, the person that you’re becoming. Like, you need to, you need to get your y- your vibrational frequency, you know, tuned in to receive who that new person is. But you literally cannot do that if you’re blocked by the, the incoherence of fear.

Exactly. And that, I, I was actually reading or rather listening to Dan Winter. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his work-

Mm-hmm …

on, or his theory of emotion. I am. Yeah. And he was, he actually explained that in, in his work that [00:10:00] fear is the only inorganic emotion. So for example, you have all of the life-affirming or life-giving states or emotions such as love and compassion, they’re all based on the golden ratio, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, what this does is it allows the electrical waves to kind of, , of the body to kind of settle into this beautiful fractal arrangement, right? Mm-hmm. And then from there he explains there’s this kind of wave collapse or implosion which generates life force coherence. And then he explains that fear does the complete opposite of this.

It actually disrupts or it causes a shift of frequency in the biological field. So it prevents that beautiful golden ratio wave collapse implosion thing. And what happens is that the, I think this is, yeah, the, the energy patterns of the body, instead of [00:11:00] coming together, they separate, which is inorganic because it’s, there’s a disconnect or a disassociation from the, coherent whole.

So that explains it beautifully what, when we are looking to heal or to evolve or to remember or to go back to our original state, our original intelligence, our organic human template, we need to move back into coherence. And fear does the complete opposite of that. It keeps us paralyzed and frozen and in this state of incoherence.

Wow.

So the first step is the courage, that willingness to move through even though you don’t know what’s gonna happen.

Mm-hmm.

And something really interesting when I was looking into courage ’cause I like to backward engineer everything to see where this came from- Yeah … ’cause it, I was stuck [00:12:00] in this kind of chicken and egg situation where I was thinking, “Okay, but what do you need before courage?

You need to trust.” But, but trust comes from courage, so which one comes first? So then I thought, “Okay,” To be able to move through fear and uncertainty, you need to trust in yourself. You need to trust that you’re being held. And in order to trust, what is the step before that? You need to surrender, right?

Mm-hmm.

And that requires humility. That requires this being able to say, “I know nothing. I need to be guided,” right? So I, I realize that humility is almost the other side of that coin, the other side of courage, right? So there is a process where when you’re inside that chrysalis and all of this dissolution is happening, the dissolution of self, the dissolution of everything I thought I knew, [00:13:00] the people that I thought were on my side, the, the, the people, places, and things that used to hold me don’t hold me anymore.

There’s this complete dissolution of everything that used to sustain me or everything that was me, right? So that is a very crucial point, ’cause this is either where people completely disconnect or dissociate and say, “Well, you know, I’m, I’m helpless. No one can help me.” Or they say, “Well, you know what?

If all of this is falling apart anyway, and I don’t know who I am anyway, let me just start from zero.” And that’s the most liberating thing you can do, is to say, “I know nothing. And if I know nothing, I can’t fail. I can’t judge myself,” right? Almost as if you, y- you, you’re being reborn, right? You cannot judge a baby who’s one day old and knows nothing.

Yeah.

Right?

Yes. So …

And that’s very liberating. [00:14:00] It’s very liberating for healing to just say, “You know what? I’m just gonna start from scratch.” That stepping into the humility of I’m going to allow myself to move forward even though the path is uncertain. So that’s one of the, the biggest reasons I, mm, urge women to really enjoy almost that dissolution.

Because from there is where this new butterfly’s gonna emerge with a completely different identity. And- It …

Yeah. That’s wonderful. Gosh, I love that so much. I, I talk a lot about establishing trust in ourselves, you know, especially as it relates to, as you know, you know, in the conversations we’ve had before about learning to trust your intuition and [00:15:00] trusting, building the trust muscle.

Like, that’s a big, big piece. But I never drilled down like you just did on that piece about the surrender and humility, you know, allowing for this, this sort of s- beautiful soil foundation for courage to kind of enter in so that you can start to build that trust muscle. It’s-

I love that you just said soil foundation, because do you know the root of the word humility, where it comes from?

No. , well, humus I would think, like, right? So earth.

Yeah. Right?

Wow. I never thought about it, but wow, that’s interesting. Yeah.

That’s

incredibly fascinating.

Yeah. And that’s, it’s, it’s interesting because when you think about it, it is coming right down close to the [00:16:00] earth. You’re not up there in the clouds.

You’re not elevated anymore. You’re just humble. You’re down there with that earth from where you ca- where, where you’ve come from, with that Mother Earth, that nourishing, nurturing rebirth, right? Yeah. So yeah, I love that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Wow. That’s, that’s amazing. That sounds so cool. So, I mean, so cool the way you just w- the way we’ve just had, in this conversation, sort of laid it together.

It feels so good. It feels so good in my heart. Yeah. It just put a lot of pieces close for me. So I’m loving that. So, so let’s just chat about, well, also, I, I do wanna lay one more thing that was, like, passing through my head while we were talking about that, and just honoring the root word of courage, too.

So courage is rooted in cur, which is your heart, right?

Yeah, correct. Yeah. And this is where your organic coherence comes from, right? Mm-hmm. When you go [00:17:00] back to the heart because what fear is, and, and actually when, when I was talking about fear before, when I was talking about Dan Winter, he, when he was talking about fear, he wasn’t talking about organic fear, he was talking about systemic fear.

So kind of like media induced fear or fear that comes from programming from, you know. So that’s really interesting because what we are all searching for essentially is, is sovereignty, right? To, to go back to your essence. Yeah. And the heart is that part of you that hasn’t been programmed, that hasn’t been conditioned.

So it is a very organic experience to go back in there. This is where the courage comes from. This is where your, your virtues and your values are held. So what, what courage does is it creates more coherence between your values and your [00:18:00] actions, right? Because everyone can talk about their values, but fear is what keeps them out of alignment with those values.

So you might have values, but you may not be living that. You not, may not be showing up in that way. So yeah, it’s a top mastery tool, courage.

Definitely. And , , so many things passed through my mind as you were saying that. One was that I was just finishing up one of my medical indoctrination series talks last night and there’s one of the pieces is related to just values and looking at, you know, aligning yourself with value, your values with a practitioner that, you know, like a doctor or a, you know, whoever you choose to work with, and making sure that your values line up.

But so oftentimes, and you, and you see that the fear overrides are the, the courage, the heart coherence [00:19:00] to even just speak-

Yeah …

with, with a, a doctor that there’s this, this fear of being bullied or manipulated or looking bad or, or shame- being shamed or whatever. So the… And these are interesting pieces actually as it relates to big foundational changes in any relationship or life crisis that will lead women through to these spaces where It’s one thing to start to find your courage, you know, in your own space, but then you have to step out into the world, right?

Mm. And be faced with other people, other things, family members. All of that stuff can make it really challenging to … Y- it’s like you have to metamorphose, not totally in a full cocoon, right?

Yeah. Um- [00:20:00] In

some ways.

Yeah.

I mean, for people. You know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. The, the, the … Life doesn’t wait for you to be fully aligned and fully coherent and fully healed.

But this is where these mastery tools really help. Yeah. So for example, mindfulness. Mindfulness is- Mm … is one of the greatest mastery tools, one of the greatest practices, because what it allows you to do is to train yourself to go slow enough. First of all, you, you develop these, um, you develop self-love and self-trust, and, and it allows you s- you to go slow enough to catch yourself between that stimulus and the response, right?

So, another good practice is journaling. Like, what are the things that tend to catch me off guard when I’m out there in the world, when I’m talking to people, when I know that I have to be in a situation, in a place or an environment where I’m not aligned [00:21:00] with these people’s, opinions or values or ideals?

How can I cultivate that patience? How can I cultivate that anchoring, that sovereignty, that integrity, and that, mm, honoring of myself so that I don’t step out of line, so that I don’t, um, become upset or cause tension or conflict in the situation? And so when you are seasoned enough in mindfulness practice, what you find yourself doing is those pauses or those moments between a stimulus, say something somebody says, and your response, they become longer, right?

So that gives you time to choose. It gives you the wisdom to listen and time to choose and discern and select what you’re gonna say, right? So what, what courage [00:22:00] does in this case is that it, it’s, transforms fear from the driver to the messenger, right? Mm-hmm. So when you don’t have, when you haven’t practiced these with these tools or you haven’t been, um, hmm Yeah, when you haven’t been using these mindfulness tools, and you’re still acting out of habit, right?

You have fear, and then you have this contraction that occurs, right, in the body. Whereas when you are in presence and awareness, which is what mindfulness helps you, to do, you have fear, and then you have this wisdom that listens, and then you choose. So the, the fear is the messenger. It’s sending you, a message.

What is this fear telling me? It’s telling me this, that, or the other, right? And you disassociate from that, so you just see it for what it is, [00:23:00] and then you’re able to respond to that. So it, it shifts the, the f- the power that fear has over you, right?

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

That’s beautiful. In the, this kind of practice that I’m going through right now, they

The, the question is, you know, what, what, what beautiful, deep learning can I get from this? What is it here for? What is it showing up for, you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

And it is, they’re little gifts. Even though they’re uncomfortable gifts, they’re gifts. Yeah. And, um, yes, I, i- it’s … I, I’m reflecting back on my own process going through the divorce and, and the

You know, I was like, um … I mean, I was a mess. There was I was literally a mess. Like, you know, there were just, like, piles of, of tissues that had been, you know, my nose blown, and tears, like, all over the [00:24:00] house and, you know. But there were little ways that I just kept, I just kept creating ways that stabilized me, you know, that would, that would help me, you know, that would help keep an environment for me to, to start to come into this coherence.

I mean, every day, and I just wanna emphasize this, like, every day took courage. Yeah. Like, I had to take the kids to school every day and face a community that I felt in my heart did not like me at all. You know? That there were things- Somehow, I, and I, whether or not that’s true, so hard to tell, right? You know what I mean?

But in my mind, I felt judged. I felt less than. I felt like a failure because of my, you know, marriage, you know, all of this stuff. And so just showing up [00:25:00] was, you know, was really big. But there were little things that we would do to create new rituals that made it playful and fun so that my heart would like…

Like, we had to wait. We, I had moved to a town nearby, and we were… It was about 15 minutes from where the kids were going to school. So on the days that I had them, we would have to wait, you know, in this… It, it’s, , um, I know some people may be familiar with Tiburon, California. It was, I called it… It’s a beautiful, like, really gorgeous place to live.

I called it my fancy bus stop. I knew, I knew I wouldn’t get to live there for very long, but it was beautiful. But it’s like, a peninsula out, and so you, there’s only one road in and one road out, so you’re stuck in traffic trying to get where we’d have to go, which was the town over, which was Mill Valley.

And driving, we… So we all had bubbles. So we would just [00:26:00] let bubbles, we had this stream of bubbles going outside the car, and I’m sure like, you know, this was a very pretentious, very uppity, like, area. Like, I’m sure that people were like, “What is going on with that weird minivan in front of us? Why are they…

I don’t know. I just wanted to share that because, you know, there’s just these little things that we have to do. Like, um, I know that was like not totally on, on tangent with being mindful, but in some ways it is. It’s being mindful of the fact that, like, I recognize that I’m feeling not good about going to do this.

I’m gonna shift and make it fun at least.

Yeah. It’s, it’s great that you said that because again, when you think that courage, th- to be, to have courage, you need to first go back to humility. So what humility does is it breaks everything [00:27:00] down to, it strips everything down to this very raw and organic human template, which is essentially the template of the child, right?

It’s like- Mm-hmm.

Yeah …

it’s curious, it’s creative, right? Creative. Mm-hmm. Because, because you know nothing anymore. You’re like, “Well- Right … you know, I, I, I just need to explore now because I’ve stripped away everything that I was.” So it, it opens. There, there, there comes this spaciousness.

Mm-hmm.

And spaciousness, with the spacious, there’s the sense of humor that comes as well, right?

Mm-hmm. These are very, very, very healing. So it’s, it’s very interesting that you mention that resourcefulness or that creativity that you need when you, once you surrender into this new becoming, and you start cultivating that courage. It does indeed come with that creativity and curiosity.

Mm-hmm. So I love that you said that. Yeah.

That’s awesome. That’s so cool. So what [00:28:00] so you’re, I mean, you’re gonna be teaching these mastery tools, right? Or, and you do this, do you do this, you do it as private coaching too, right?

Yeah. I have, I offer one-to-one mentorship, and then there is a six-week program that we’re starting on the 16th of June.

It’s called Journey Back to You. But I’m also offering a master class on the 6th of June, and that’s all on my Instagram, on my Instagram page. But yeah, the, I, I’ve created this kind of compilation of mastery tools and practices to help with these specific transitions and hopefully, I mean, what moved me to do this was that I myself went through a big transition, and I had my guides and my mentors and my coaches and therapists that helped me.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember something very beautiful from all of this because the [00:29:00] people that helped me through my big life transition were people that had gone through something similar. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that I like about what I do is that I would never ask somebody to do something that I haven’t myself done.

So, you know, if I, if I’m talking about practices or different techniques, for example, to apply different dynamics, and sometimes they’re combinations of different dynamics or techniques or I fuse different modalities together. But the reason I know it, it works is because I’ve had that direct first-hand experience of it, right?

Yeah. And I feel like that makes it, that’s very comforting for the person who’s receiving it. Mm-hmm. Because if you are leading someone by the hand they wanna make sure that you’ve walked that path and you’ve come across every single possible obstacle that they might come across. Yeah. So that, yeah, that’s an example of how I [00:30:00] was helped, and that inspired me- Mm-hmm

to cultivate the courage to then help others.

Okay, so I have a good question, I think, here. So in receiving the help that you, that you did, that you did have during all of this, what were some ways in which your helpers maybe, or, or people even, they don’t have to be the ones that you specifically loved, you know, but ways in which they maybe couldn’t help you or didn’t help you or you wanted them to help you?

Like, what I’m trying to get at is how you have created something that is different based on how maybe you weren’t completely held in that experience. You know what I mean?

Hmm. Yeah. Good question. Mm.

I actually had very, very good helpers. But, [00:31:00] um-

Awesome

I’d have to think about that. I think Right. Okay. So I, I remember when I was going through this, the, the people that did help me were people who had very different modalities. So I had an acupuncturist, I had someone who was a coach, then I had someone, then I had therapists who were more holistic, who did Hebrew pendulum or Reiki or, mm. So I decided I would learn all of these modalities so that then I could combine them- Mm

And then that person wouldn’t have to go to three or four different people. But- That’s awesome … I think also what, what What, back then, I remember thinking this is not sustainable, and it’s terribly expensive, right? So what [00:32:00] encouraged me to learn everything that I have learnt until now and, and educate myself- Mm-hmm

was the idea that, wait a minute, this is my life- Mm … my evolution, my journey, my energy, my emotions. I should be able to do this. I shouldn’t have- Yeah … to delegate this to five, six different people. So I thought, well, I’m, I should be master of myself, right? I should be able to have the self-regulation tools, to have the mindfulness tools, the positive psychology, emotional management.

I should have all of these tools, right? Mm-hmm. And then I thought, well, everyone should. So what I’ve, what I’ve done is that I’ve looked at what helped me the most, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What tools you could say are free [00:33:00] in the sense that they, they come from you. They come from your innate wisdom.

They come from your inner knowledge. They come from your gnosis. They come from you being able to turn inward and listen. And all of this became the foundations of School of Original Intelligence. Um, but, –

I love it … yeah, yeah.

And there’s so much that you just layered in there that references back to, if people haven’t heard the episode that we did before, so much of the

Just you give so many concrete examples of how you did turn inward, and developing your own inner tools, and your own intuition, and your own inner guidance. I mean, I, I, I think some of that was happening around the same time that there was, like, an identity crisis related to your physical health too, right?[00:34:00]

Correct. Yeah. And most of these identity collapse or identity crisis, or happen around midlife, right? So in women. And what happens around midlife as well is that you naturally become more intuitive anyway.

Mm-hmm.

You’ve raised your children by this time. You’re kind of moving into a new season of your life, and this is where most women do naturally become more intuitive.

And I, I’ve never been clairvoyant or had these, you know, very developed higher sense perception, but I thought- Okay, so I would probably have to train these, but if I can, if this is something I can train, then I’m going to do it. And then I, I just committed myself to, , meditation practice, mindfulness e- everything that I could get my hands on.

Which in the beginning was a lot, but then I [00:35:00] realized that it’s, it, it all reduces down to your own ability to just sit in stillness and reflect and feel and move through the things that are affecting you, and trust and love and so on and so forth. There’s no magic formula because someone’s not gonna give you that.

You just have to sit there and put in the work, right? Absolutely. And that requires a tremendous amount of, of self-love, so.

And the other thing I’ll just add, though, too, because that can, that I don’t want that to feel overwhelming for people. Yes, it does take work, but it’s really about this persistence and consistency that it, it’s a, I always like to refer to it as it’s a long game.

Yeah. Especially as women, as mothers, as partners, as daughters, sisters, community members. We’re holding space for so much, [00:36:00] and it’s just about, it, we, you can absolutely 100% do this and go through this life transformation while all of that is happening. Like it’s- Yeah … it’s absolutely 100% possible, especially when you have someone like Patricia to hold your hand a little bit and give guidance.

Because we do. We need, we need to hold a, a, you know, a girlfriend’s hand. Like, literally, we need a girlfriend to do it, and sometimes it’s better to have s- i- in fact, it’s almost, almost always better to have someone who’s not in your immediate network. Like, it’s such a sacred space that you don’t want…

Because everybody is from that previous life It’s like you can’t include them in what is [00:37:00] happening to you because they have a construct already about who you are, and you need the space to deconstruct and reconstruct with somebody else. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Correct. And, and what tends to happen as well, Margaret, and this is one of the signs that most women feel when they’re going through this, this, shift in, in identity, is that they’re usually the ones that hold everything together for everyone, right?

Yeah. So to admit that you need help is very difficult for many women at this point. And I, I remember one of my therapists said, “Well, why haven’t you gone to your mother for help or to your sister for help?” And I thought, “No, I couldn’t. It would be … I would be letting them down,” right? And I, I do remember she, she, she said to me, she said, “Well, if they asked you for help, what would you do?”

And I said, [00:38:00] “Well, I’d be honored to help,” right? So it kind of … It, it shifted that for me. She, she actually said, “Well, what makes you think it, it’s not an honor for them to help you?” But I had been so, … Th- that had been such an important part of my role, of my old identity, keeping everything together for everyone- Mm-hmm

that asking someone in my immediate circle to help me was out of the question.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah. So we actually wanted to- I, I, yeah,

I love that, and I, and I wanna honor that, and I feel like that was … That is so true in so many circumstances. That being said, th- there are, there are people that will come into our spheres that they may feel honored to help you, but they have incredible judgments or

You know what I mean? Like, there’s, there … They have an idea as to what you should or shouldn’t do that’s [00:39:00] really not in alignment or coherence with the new frequency of who you’re becoming. So it, the, it does take some discernment to know who you’re gonna invite into that inner world to do that work with you.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely. And the, the space holder or the person that does guide you-

Mm-hmm …

also knows through their own experience that there is not, there is no pattern. There is no blueprint that you are going to give them. You, you’re going to create the steps and the system and the structure for them to walk with you.

But the blueprint is for them to unfold. There’s this … It’s, it’s their, their identity that’s evolving, right? So it’s 100% theirs to unfold and become.

It really is stepping deeper into laying- [00:40:00] I mean, you’re, i- it’s such an evolution, but it really is a foundation for stepping truly into your own sovereignty.

Because generally speaking, when an identity crisis happens, and, and I’d love to hear your perspective on this, but we’re not living in sovereignty. We’re, we are being defined by external sources, or we’ve, we… It’s not that we have chosen to be defined by external sources as to who we are. Like, for example, when I said at the beginning, like, you know, I, I thought I was in a happy marriage.

It was in… I mean, I even remember walking down, this is, like, such a profound moment for me. I remember walking down the aisle to get married, and I was completely out of my body. Like, I felt like I was an actress inside a body walking through these [00:41:00] motions.

Wow.

Like, I, I felt, I saw everybody’s eyes on me, and I, I just started laughing because I felt so weird.

Like, it felt so strange to be walking down this, you know, doing this thing. It was like a joke almost for, like a cosmic joke, in a way.

Mm. And

I don’t mean that in a bad way. Like, I’m, I’m very grateful that I went through the process, that I had this marriage, that I had these amazing kids, you know, that I, they’re s- they’re so amazing.

And I, I mean, becoming a mother was, like, such a huge part of my becoming. But there was probably a piece of me that was like, “Oh, this is gonna be f- this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be a funny little thing we’re gonna try.” Like, “Let’s see how this goes,” you know? And I think there was a part of me that was, like, tapping into that, that was [00:42:00] like, “Joke’s on you.

This isn’t gonna last forever.” Like, you know? Like…

Isn’t that funny? Because that, that, that is, it’s almost like you had this inner knowing that this was not the true you.

And it, and it was something that was so, it was, you know, so blown out of proportion, right? Like, a wedding- Yeah … can be so blown out of proportion, like, the perfect wedding, and I mean, we got married in ’93, I think it was, so- you know, it was like the Martha Stewart, you know, era that was so big and everything had to be perfect.

And I’m not saying it wasn’t like that before, but it, there was, there was the that’s where I was at, you know, is everything had to be… and I had also internalized this piece that was, this was a big moment for my mom, you know? Like my mom really needed this [00:43:00] wedding to be what it was.

Mm.

And, so yeah.

Anyway

It’s, it’s really interesting because when you think about it, every … A- an identity collapses for one reason and one reason alone, because it wasn’t your true identity, otherwise it couldn’t collapse, right?

Right.

So what, what is happening in that chrysalis, the, there’s the dissolution of that old identity which wasn’t really you.

So what you’re doing essentially is you’re taking away those layers, those filters, those shields, those personas that you created as a child to protect you from this hostile world, right? Mm-hmm. That, that you w- that you needed to help you go along with all the programming and the conditioning and so forth.

So that masked, it masked [00:44:00] your authentic self, right? So the process of shifting into a new identity, it almost doesn’t sound correct. Yes, you are becoming, but essentially what you’re doing is remembering. You’re remembering that essence. And based on that remembrance, you can build. You can then start to have fun, right?

You can start to have fun with that. So what you was telling me is it, actually what happens to everybody when they have that identity collapse is that they realize that if they were, if they were being true to their essence, to their soul, to their true selves, if they were authentically themselves, then all of this wouldn’t have happened.

They wouldn’t have found this person. They wouldn’t have gone through these situations. They wouldn’t have reacted and responded in the way that they did.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, [00:45:00] that’s, … Yeah,

interesting. I, but, but I think that there’s something to be said about the- You know, the process of getting there, right?

Yeah. I mean, there’s some- there’s… That’s why we’re here, too. The whole, the whole reasoning is, at least in my perception is, there’s so much great learning in choosing, in having the free will choice, and choosing things that aren’t in alignment. You know, it’s like, “Oh, that, I’m bumping up against that wall.

I’m gonna hit my head on that wall for a while. How does that feel? Oh, it doesn’t feel so good. I think I’ll go over here,” you know? Yeah … it, it, so that you, it’s like this just figuring out where, where is who you truly are. Finding… That, that’s, in my opinion, that’s… And even when you step into the life that [00:46:00] feels like that’s truly who you are, there’s still more that opens.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, the, I mean, to the capacities, the limitless capacities of being in a human body that start to open up, right? Mm-hmm. So that, that, that leads us into, I, I, I believe original intelligence. So why don’t you speak about, about that? Because that is, that has a depth to it that’s not just, you know, tools, the mastery tools that, that, that lead you through this.

Mm-hmm.

It has depth there, right?

Yeah. So when you were talking about this moving into who you really are, this, what happens through this, this collapse really what’s happening is it’s a rite of passage, right? Mm-hmm. And a r- where- wherever there’s a rite of passage, it’s the overcoming of a fear so that then you can step into the next [00:47:00] phase, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, original intelligence is the innate organic wisdom, inner wisdom that we all hold. Is the, is what coherence looks and feels like, right? What we’re all tapped into, not just us as humans, but all of nature, all of the cosmos. Mm-hmm. And the remembrance that happens when we start unpacking all of these layers of programming and conditioning is that we end up in this point where we no longer have, external references to guide us.

We can search deep and find this inside us, right? Mm-hmm. So the, the problem is that we- we’re unfamiliar with this because all of our lives we’ve been taught to look outwards, externally for the, for our answers, [00:48:00] right? Mm-hmm. Not just for our bodies, but for our minds. We’ve always been told that the answers will be outside, and it’s usually given by someone else or- Mm-hmm … has been handed down to us in our books, our systems, our political system, financial system, educational system, and so on and so forth.

But when you reach that point of collapse, which is why these dark nights of the soul are so transformative because this is when you actually admit out loud that none of this has helped you. And you have to start stripping all of these layers away, and then you’re left with a kind of a void.

N- not void in the sense of nothing, but void in the sense of potential, right? Mm-hmm. So y- you have to start feeling what all this potential is again. The way to do that is to be with yourself. You have to explore yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And, and the way to get there a- again, is [00:49:00] through that humility. Through that humility that says, “Okay, because I know nothing, I have nothing to lose. So let me play. Let me be curious. Let me be creative. Let’s see what really, what there really is in here. Let’s see if the answer to this is what I’ve always thought it was, or if there’s something else.

Let me let go of everything I think I know and see if there really is something here.” So it’s, it’s a, it’s It is a remembering, but it’s also a stepping into. Yeah.

I love that. That’s beautiful So let’s talk about your six-week course that you’re offering.

Okay, yeah. So this is- I love it … starting on the 16th of June.

Mm-hmm. And it’s a group program, an online group program, and what we’re gonna do in during these six weeks is we’re gonna be [00:50:00] exploring the, the whole process of the dissolution and the becoming. Mm-hmm. So the steps, what we need for each step. We, we are building that bridge between where we are right now and where we wanna become, exploring what we’ve had to let go of, and then how to step into this, this new place.

And it doesn’t mean that we’re gonna have all the answers, but it means we will have the tools to be able to navigate- Mm-hmm … what is coming with that confidence and clarity and courage. So that’s gonna be really exciting because I’ve already been working on this with my one-to-one clients, with my mentorship clients.

Mm-hmm. But I think I think the group space will be particularly healing because it’s a group of women who’ve all been through very similar experiences. So I’m really looking forward to that. Yeah. [00:51:00] That’s

so cool because I feel like there’s a shedding that’s happening in the fabric of our society, in a sense, for women right now.

I’ve seen in multiple situations with different groups that I’m involved in where women have come together to start sharing some of these deeper life issues that they’re going through. And i- in my circle, it’s more related around health crises, you know? Things that, like, we’re oftentimes uncomfortable sharing.

Like, we, for fear of judgment of what… A- and like we discussed in the last episode that we did together, which was, you know, other people have opinions about how you manage your own health. Like, there’s a lot of stuff, you know? But what I’m finding is that women [00:52:00] are starting to learn to open and support women in their own sovereign health choices, you know?

Which, so I just think it’s beautiful that in this particular scenario where women are going through an identity, you know, collapse and reorientation of, of themselves, that they can come together to support each oth- not just, not just learn together and, but to just be vulnerable together. Like, that’s so big.

Yeah. It’s, it’s huge, and it’s one of the biggest ways you can cultivate compassion. Compassion, what it is ultimately putting yourself in another person’s shoes, right? It’s not about pity. It’s not about… It’s you are experiencing fully, or you, you are able to put yourself in that person’s position and feel what they’re feeling.

And yeah, this is a, [00:53:00] it’s a very vulnerable place to be in. So when you are surrounded by other people who’ve been through something similar, it kind of opens up your lens of- Mm-hmm … you know, well, it’s not just me suffering, it’s other people. I do remember specifically from my own experience, there was, , one particular point where I was in so much pain, in so much emotional pain, that I would be out on the street, say, walking my dogs, and I would, , think to myself, “Wow, how many people must be suffering right now?

And how many times have I walked my dog before and not noticed all these people? But now I do notice them because I’m going through emotional pain.” In the same way that you might go through the street and if you’re, , you might walk, , down the street, and if you’re pregnant, you’ll notice everybody else who’s pregnant, right?

Mm-hmm. If you’re driving a certain car, you’ll notice everybody else. Well, the same thing happens when you’re [00:54:00] experiencing deep suffering. You suddenly open up to the idea that there are many people out there going through the same as you, and that is a big compassion builder.

It’s amazing.

And, yeah. Yeah.

And the other thing that the, from this compassion, there arises this sense of solidarity. Mm-hmm. And from the solidarity, that, that’s the, where the real sisterhood emerges. And you know that when the tide rises, it rises for all the ships, right? Absolutely. So there is this- genuine sisterhood, an authentic sisterhood that happens, not just this kind of, you know, “We’re, we’re all women and we hate men, and we’re gonna do…”

There’s a genuine sisterhood because you have experienced the same kind of pain that they’ve experienced, and that really, , blows your heart wide open.

Mm-hmm.

And it’s just so beautiful to have [00:55:00] someone around you in that moment. It’s like, , you know, like, like we say, we’re walk- just walking each other home.

Mm.

Exactly.

Mm.

It’s so, it’s so, there’s two things that came to my mind when you were saying that. The first was I had a really interesting incident when this was all happening for me, right? And I, I was, like you, in so much pain, , emotional pain, and at, at the, the drop of tears, at, or the tears were coming at the drop of a hat, right?

You know? Mm. Um, and so I decided, “You know what? I’m gonna go buy some really beautiful sunglasses, and then I can just cry behind my sunglasses and let the tears flow,” right? So I go into this nice, like, kind of fancy sunglass shop, and there’s a man that’s sitting there, and he’s picking out sun- I think he was just picking out, you know, reading glasses, like frames [00:56:00] for reading, you know, whatever, for, for life And he says, and he’s picking out some really bright colors, and I’m looking at sunglasses.

And he turns to me, and he’s got, like, a couple… He’s got someone with him maybe, in my mind I’m remembering, and then the people that were working there, you know, that were helping him. And he turns to me and he says, “Do these say I’m gonna die?” You know, and they were, like, yellow, bright yellow framed glasses.

And I said, “No, those look really vibrant. Those look like you’re living.” And he’s like- He’s like, “Great, ’cause I have cancer and everyone thinks I’m gonna die.” You know? Mm-hmm. And,

Mm-hmm … and,

, and I thought, and I… So then I turned to him and I said, “Do these look like I can cry as much as I want behind them?”

You know? So we just had this exchange. Like, you know, we’re both, like, dealing with these, like, situations and it was just great, you know? So I got these awesome [00:57:00] glasses, and I could cry as much as I wanted, you know? Yeah. But the other thing that came up for me when you were saying that was re- and interestingly, I was listening to our last episode, you know, in preparation for coming back together.

But, and I mentioned this friend of mine in the last episode, and her… I would just honor her again because it, it’s been, it’s, like, been a year- Yeah … since we did this, and she passed away a year ago. Mm-hmm. And her name was Jane Gould. And Jane was my supportive buddy. Like, we were going through this together and supporting each other and holding that space and joking about things.

And so I’ll, I’ll just share one quote that was the Jane quote. I didn’t, I didn’t boldly share this before, but she, she told me at one time, she said… She had a beautiful British accent, and she said, “Remember, Margaret, this is just [00:58:00] an exercise in bullshit-ness.”

I love that.

Aw, yeah. Mm. Yeah. Right? You need that, you need that-

You do …

spaciousness and sense of humor and yeah. Wow. Just walking each other home.

Exactly. That’s really what it is. Walking each other home. Yeah. So profound. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Okay. So everyone, is there anything else that we, that we should’ve said? that we didn’t?

Is there anything that got left out? I mean, there were so many things, and I just kind of went with the flow for this.

Yeah. But- I mean, unless you wanna, you want people to, who want to identify whether they’re going through an identity crisis or not. So for example, what would be the signs- Yeah … that someone- Yeah, that’s a good idea

is going through an identity crisis? If anyone out there is doubting that they may be going through this- ‘

Cause that’s such a good

idea … , yeah. You- What could it be? [00:59:00]

What are the signs?

Yeah.

Do you have some signs?

, yeah. I actually just, , created a little PDF that I, I have. I’m gonna put on my Instagram.

So, , if anyone out there is, you know, kind of thinking, “Well, I feel like I’m going through this,” well, what are the actual signs? The, the first sign, I mean, it’s, it’s quite an obvious one, is that your body will start sending you signals. Mm-hmm. You know, you, there, there, there are things that you may have been ignoring for a long time.

Your body kind of knows before your mind does that something is about to change. And, you might be feeling off. You might be feeling irritable. You might be feeling anxious. You might have maybe some physical symptoms. Mm-hmm. But yeah, that’s one of the, – obvious but not so obvious because we don’t [01:00:00] usually, most people don’t usually listen to their bodies.

Another thing that could happen is that your days start becoming more monotonous. Like one day starts blurring into the next. The things that used to bring you joy no longer bring you joy. , because people think that an identity collapse happens because of one big massive trauma. Not necessarily. It can be a, a whole series of things that lead you to then one day say, “I’ve had enough.”

So there’s, you feel like a kind of a disconnect or there’s a mismatch between being true to yourself-

Mm-hmm …

and trying to keep the stability in your life, right? So this could look like, I actually have a, a friend who this happened to a short while ago. She started becoming very interested in, holistic therapies and healing modalities, and she wanted to learn these things.

And her husband was not into this at [01:01:00] all. So it, not only was he not into it, but he just didn’t like her doing it either, and she had to be true to herself. And she found that the more, the truer she was to herself, the more further apart she became from her husband and the, and people around her, right?

Mm-hmm. So she had to make that choice. Do I keep the stability in my life or do I, , honor what I, I really feel like I have to do and then move away from the people who are not supporting me? And that’s a tough one. That’s a really tough one.

Mm-hmm.

Another one is the tools that once used to help you no longer hit the spot.

So for example, if, , to help you with a little bit of anxiety or a little bit of nervous system regulation, you would use, say, meditation or mindfulness or, or any other modality. That no longer serves you the way you were doing it because [01:02:00] what you’ve evolved to a point where that medicine cannot be administered anymore, at least not the same dosage, right?

Mm-hmm. Because we- just what you’re experiencing is, is expanding, right? Right. So then the medicine needs to change. Mm-hmm. So you find that even friends that used to comfort you, for example, may no longer be able to, or they don’t un- just don’t understand where you’re moving into anymore. So you

It’s a very lonely feeling basically, because you feel like, “, I just, I can’t explain this to th- these people, to my family, to my friends, the people who’ve always held me. They don’t see what I see anymore.” And especially if that transition is going hand-to-hand with an awakening, right?

If you’re already stepping into that awakening and you’re just seeing the reality in a completely different way you no longer feel supported by people who just don’t understand what you’re saying, what you’re doing, what you’re feeling, [01:03:00] what you’re going through. Yes. So it can be terribly lonely.

Yeah.

Definitely. I would just add one more thing maybe or just put it out there for consideration, but one thing that I noticed for me that happened as I started making these sort of baby choices to move myself My, my out- my physical circumstances more into alignment with who I was becoming, which meant making decisions about my relationship, my, my marriage at the time was that the universe started responding in all of these incredibly magical ways.

I had flocks of crows that were circling over our house. I had a white pigeon, which is like, like a, I mean, it would be like a white dove, but there were no doves around that house, so it [01:04:00] came in the form of a literally an albino pigeon showed up at the back door of the house. There was just, like, constants.

And I do have, like, a deep affinity with birds, like, as it turns out. But there were so many different signs in nature that I, that were so bold I couldn’t ignore them. They just kept showing up. So I just wanted to add that

in. That, that’s beautiful, and that’s actually your original intelligence at work.

That’s your body attuning itself to the reality that it’s moving into before your mind is ready to catch up with that, right? Yeah. So it, it’s really interesting, yeah, that, that these synchronicities, they do come up, and, , your body recognizes it, but your mind kind of is still not quite there yet.

Yeah.

So yeah.

The other thing I, I don’t know, I’m trying to think if this falls into some of the [01:05:00] categories, but for me, one of the things that I noticed was I, I was experiencing, mentally I thought things were great, but when I really was started to consciously perceive my emotions and my, that were running through me, there was a constant state of fear running through my body.

Yeah.

And, and, and that was related to the not so great relationship I was in, you know? Like, but things, like, I always share the story of I was a … he was really very particular about how I washed the dishes, you know? Like, stupid stuff that were, like, so ba- and I started realizing that I was living in a state of fear about how I was doing everything in a house, where I was putting things, if there was cold beer in [01:06:00] the refrigerator when he got home.

You know, the dishes thing was he had this, this thing where I couldn’t use the, the scrubby, scratchy side of the sponge on the silverware when I was washing it. You know? Like, there were all these things that, accommodations that I was making for him in this relationship that were creating fear in how I just lived every day.

So-

Mm. Mm. And, and that, that’s spot on, because remember, fear is the opposite of coherence. Exactly. You’re in, in complete incoherence, which means you’re not free. Mm-hmm. You don’t have freedom.

No.

Right? So you feel trapped, right?

Mm-hmm.

And there is the, like you said, this, this almost a desperation because you, you’re in survival mode.

You … When, when you’re in fear, you’re, you’re trapped. You’re not free. You’re not free. And the body [01:07:00] and the, and the mind and the spirit wants to be free. It’s our original state, right? Mm-hmm. This, this freedom. So yeah, that is a very important sign. You, you, you lose this kind of joy, this freedom, this ability to express yourself without fear, without feeling there’s gonna be a reproach or a reprimand or you’re gonna be judged or criticized.

If you’re living in a space where you fear to talk or you fear to be yourself or you fear to express yourself, there’s no freedom. The, the … You, you, you, , are living in incoherence, and the only thing that causes is more incoherence, more imbalance, more dissonance, , which creates more fear, right? And then you go- get into this resistance, right?

That’s right. Because you know that you have to move. Mm. But you’re fearful. You’re scared of moving. So- One other thing

I just wanna add, [01:08:00] too, that I feel moved to say is I believe that my ex wasn’t living in his coherence either, and I wasn’t helping the situation, you know? And so in many ways, even though it- There’s a perception, right, from the outside that I harmed him or hurt him by initiating the leaving of the relationship.

I … It was an incredible gift because I’m the one who mustered up the courage to go back to the courage to do it.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You know? Yeah. And I d- I don’t know. I mean, it doesn’t really matter. It, it’s his life to live, you know?

Mm-hmm.

But I, I, I did … I, I do know in my heart that I gifted him the opportunity to shift in ways that he may have, you know, shifted him out of what was his comfort [01:09:00] zone.

Yeah. And, , it’s funny how you said it, it was a gift. Because in all of these very explosive, implosive situations, there’s always a huge paradox. And that’s why they’re so transformative, right? That’s why these rites of passage involve having to walk through that fear, having to walk on top of that burning coal, having to

And then get, getting to the other side. And it just reminded me w- you were talking about the synchronicities and things that happened around that time. And I remember around that time this word just came to me, and in the beginning I wasn’t sure what this word meant. I had to … I had an idea, but I had to Google it.

And the word was windfall.

Mm-hmm.

And, I, I … When I looked at this word, it had two very opposite meanings. One was great [01:10:00] grief.

Mm-hmm.

And the other one was this great, , fortune, like winning the lottery or something, right?

Yeah.

So yeah. I, I, I will never forget that because that’s exactly what happened.

In that collapse, something incredible came out of that, and that is what … that’s the beauty of walking through that. ‘Cause when you get to the other side, you-

Feel so incredibly elated and so incredibly grateful that you had the courage to walk through that, even though it took you longer than you thought, even though you went round in circles first forever before deciding to do that. Even though you may not have done it the way you thought you were gonna do it, but you walked through, and that took [01:11:00] courage.

And then that’s where that transformation happens. But you need that, um, that moment of complete dissolution and- Mm-hmm … unpacking to be able to get to the other side. So-

Oh, gosh, I love it so much. I, I wish that, you know, that you had been the one that I had on my team when I was going through it.

Although, I will shout out to Smitty Wormuth, who was my clairvoyant astrologist, who somehow helped me navigate through everything to get where I was. Thank God for Smitty. And she, she didn’t do anything like you’re offering, which is amazing, you know? So I just encourage everybody, so let me pull up your Instagram account so people can check that out and see that.

Let me see if I can put it up here so it’s a little easier. Yeah, it’s, , it’s Instagram. It’s [01:12:00] @school, S-C-H-O-O-L, underscore, of, O-F, underscore, O.I. And it’s School of Original Intelligence. And she has amazing posts. So if you’re not following her, you definitely need to follow Patricia. And y- tell us again the date that it starts, June?

June 16th. June

16th. And what is it? What are you calling it again? So,

June 16th is the online group, , program, Journey Back to You. Journey Back to You. And June 6 is the masterclass, the live masterclass. So that’s like a two, two and a half hour masterclass where I, , walk you through the, the mastery tools.

Yeah.

And, and people can sign up for that off of your Instagram?

Exactly. Oh. Just on the, the link in the bio, yeah.

Nice. Okay, great. Yeah. And that’s gonna be amazing. So the masterclass [01:13:00] is free, is that right?

, no, that has a, a cost. Okay, what is that? And, yeah. But th- there is, , there, I do have some free, , PDFs and resources in that link as well.

Okay. So there’s, yeah, there’s something for everybody.

That’s perfect. That’s great. Wonderful. Well, check out Patricia. It’s, is there, okay, so then just going back one more time, is there anything else that we left out today that- That would be important to talk about before we close

I think, , the final message would probably be that everybody needs everybody needs a Sherpa at some point.

Everybody needs a guide, and there’s … You don’t have to navigate this alone. Yeah.

Agreed. 100%. Yeah. I, I second that. I m- I infinite that. You know? In fact, don’t even try to go it alone. It will

be hard for you. It’s really difficult. I

know. Oh, my [01:14:00] gosh. It was so wonderful having you on today. Thank you so much for your-

It was lovely.

Thank you …

for your presence, for what you’re offering the world. It’s so, so big for women, and yeah, I’m excited to, I’m excited to hear back from all the women that end up joining you because I know you’re gonna shift and help them to change things for themselves, and see who they’re gonna become.

Because we need everyone to come into their true coherence and tap back into their original intelligence. So thank you so much, Patricia.

Thank you, Margaret. Thank you so much. Thanks.

You’re welcome.