39 Lessons in 39 Years

It’s a season of beginnings: a new season of the podcast, a new year of living (I’ll be 39 in a few days), a new way of looking at the intimate relationships in my life, new lessons learned, and more.

As I move into this new season, I want to take a moment to reflect back on my 39 years of life and some of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way.

In this episode, I’m letting myself flow and bringing you insights and lessons as I feel them. It’s an exploration of personal evolution and self-discovery.

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I’m diving into self-love, emotional intelligence, the sacred, humility, relationships, love, and letting these lessons flow through intuitively.

All of these little lessons have led me toward liberation and healing. They’ve allowed me to architect and embrace the peaceful, joyful life that I have.

And while each of these lessons might not be immediately relevant to you, I hope you’ll be able to filter each one through your own unique lens and your own intuition to find the bits of truth that resonate with you.

Listen to episode 398 now!

In episode 398 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:

[01:03] Reflections as I enter my 39th year
[04:58] How letting go of perfectionism is an act of self-love
[09:30] Discovering your relationship with yourself and developing your inner loving voice
[15:33] How embracing humility lets us release self-importance
[20:01] How I’m rethinking my intimate relationships
[25:20] Self-acceptance and not getting stuck on the “healing hamster wheel”
[30:03] The difference between judgment and discernment
[31:21] How the soul is the bridge to the Divine
[34:15] Why I don’t believe in being “single”
[37:42] The difference between compassion and tolerance
[40:01] How curiosity allows to stay open for growth and learning
[44:08] How shifting our context can expand our options
[48:05] Finding liberation in whatever context you need
[51:57] Don’t be afraid of shit
[54:43] Holding on to your integrity and telling the truth as you grow and change
[55:46] Responding in love to yourself and others

Resources mentioned by Elizabeth in episode 398 “39 Lessons in 39 Years”:

Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:

[00:04:37] I don’t have to make people wrong. I don’t have to feel inferior or superior about how I’m built. But I could just be like, listen, some shit works for me and some shit doesn’t.
[00:07:03] Sometimes we might not know how we feel, but we can tell by how we’re reacting and responding to people, what we’re eating, whether we’re moving our bodies or not, whether we’re able to like show up and do the things that we need to do, our energy levels. There’s so many different ways to tell how we’re feeling, even if we can’t necessarily articulate it.
[00:17:59] This lesson is to never say never and be careful when you do. I have found in my life a lot of the things that I said never about, it’s almost like promising that it’s going to happen.
[00:25:57] My parents being exactly who they are and whatever trauma that created in my childhood made me exactly who I am. And I really love being who I am. It’s set me up to have these experiences and to do this healing and have this understanding and to have these sensitivities that serve me so well in my ability to serve others. So I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
[00:31:22] The soul is the bridge to the Divine. That’s really how I experience my soul. My soul is my intermediary. It’s the unique expression of the divine that I get to express.
[00:35:20] The body is just worthy of so much reverence. I don’t care what your body can do, how your body feels, […] It doesn’t matter how healthy you are by measures of whatever you’re measuring it by. Every single body is worthy of reverence because they’re all miraculous.
[00:40:54] I’m only one person living in a vast universe. I can’t possibly know everything. I’m bound to be learning all the damn time. So staying curious allows us to also stay pliable and malleable and open to learning and growing.
[00:44:12] Sometimes when we shift our context to the things that we want are actually available in spades. […] It’s not that we were limited by choices or options, but the context itself is what was limiting.
[00:55:16] Tell the truth when you change your mind. There’s no need to lie. There’s no need to protect other people’s feelings because things are going to hurt. Things are going to be uncomfortable for all of us. So what do we think we’re protecting people from by being dishonest?

How was this episode for you?

Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!

About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto

Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.

If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussion on Instagram here.

Transcript for Episode 398 “39 Lessons in 39 Years“:

-Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode number 398 of the “Embodied Podcast.” I’m excited to be back from summer break. I’m your host, Elizabeth DiAlto, in case you are new around here. And we are getting into this episode on September 12th in real time, which is two days before my 39th birthday. And I don’t do this every year, but this year I wanted to do it because this has been a wildly transformational year.

I think I said this in another podcast episode at some point in the last year, which was that around when I was 33 years old, I had this really deep meditation after a breath work class. And I received this message or whatever the hell you wanna call it, that 38 would be a really monumental year for me. And it really frigging was. Now, I know some people get all technical with the mathematics about it and how like when you’re 38, it’s technically you’re 39th year. But listen, I just go by the number. So, I’m about to go through 39 lessons in 39 years. And lesson number one is gonna be something that in form is actually how I’m doing this episode, which is I really have felt the full permission over the last several years to just let myself flow. In the sense of I have not outlined this podcast episode at all. Recently in the month of August, I ran a workshop on Wild Dreaming. And I think for the first time ever, and I’ve run so many workshops over the years, I didn’t outline that either. I just sat down and I just let whatever wanted to come through, come through. And so one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my 39 years, especially in the last decade plus of developing my body of work here at the School of Sacred Embodiment, is when you reach a certain level of connection to yourself, connection to the divine, and mastery in your craft, it actually really is okay and quite natural, depending on how you’re built but I’m built for this, to just let yourself flow, right? Some people might call it channeling. Call it whatever the hell you want. Some people might say it’s a more indigenous way of teaching. A more natural, like oral tradition way of doing things, which tends to be a more indigenous way because colonialized, patriarchalized things want this like structure and order. And this is right and this is wrong. So allowing the wisdom to flow through really is okay. So that is lesson number one I’m gonna share. And because I’m not outlining this episode, I did write down on a sheet of paper numbers one through 39. So, I could at least keep track of where I am.

That is something else I’ve learned in my 39 years. We’re all built so differently. That’s gonna be lesson than number two. We are all built so differently. And it’s really, really important to honor our differences and how we’re all built. And this is one of the reasons why I love systems, like human design or astrology, all these personality, typology, archetypes, stuff like that, because it really helps us to see how we’re so different from everybody else, how everyone is so different from us. And what that does for me personally, is it allows me to just be more generous and compassionate with folks. And really just decide what’s for me and what’s not for me based on who and how I’m built and how other people are built. I don’t have to make people wrong. I don’t have to feel inferior or superior about how I’m built. But I could just be like, listen, some shit works for me and some shit doesn’t based on how we’re built. So, that’s lesson number two. We’re all built so, so differently and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Lesson number three, this really pertains to self-love. And this is a great example. Whether you’re listening or watching, my phone just rang, my ringer was on. We really live in a culture and a society where perfectionism is just rampant. And as somebody who’s a Virgo who has never identified as a perfectionist, I’m very discerning. I have very high standards for things, but none of it is about perfectionism, ’cause I don’t actually believe in perfect for anything. So, that’s lesson number three. I really don’t believe in perfection. There’s no need to be perfect, because what even is that? It’s gonna mean something different to everybody. And so, allowing yourself to be whether you wanna relate to it as messy or just like real. Like I could have like stopped, re-recorded the whole damn thing, made a note for my editor to be like, ah, the phone rang at minute whatever. But instead I’m just like, ah, I’m gonna turn the phone off. I’m gonna get back to what I was saying and we’re all gonna live. So, lesson number four that really segues into from I don’t believe in perfectionism to allowing ourselves to be human. And the full range of what that means to each of us, allow there to be little mistakes, little snafus, and to not hide that from people. To just let it be is actually so frigging liberating and it’s also very self-loving, because it’s such a waste of time to beat ourselves up over that, or be like I shouldn’t have let that happen, or all the things that people do when they perceive that something wasn’t okay, or right, or wrong, or good enough or whatever.

So, let’s go to lesson number five. The heart is just a source of so much wisdom for all of us. How we feel emotionally is such a big, important thing to be paying attention to. And our emotions are gonna always be expressing in different ways. So sometimes, we might not know how we feel, but we could tell by how we’re reacting and responding to people, what we’re eating, whether we’re moving our bodies or not, whether we’re able to like show up and do the things that we need to do, our energy levels. There’s so many different ways to tell how we’re feeling, even if we can’t necessarily articulate it. And so, the heart is a source of so much great emotional intel. And to take the time to really check in with that and be tuning into that, and allowing ourselves to fully feel is so freaking important. So, lesson number six. Beyond the heart, the sensations of the body, noticing what we feel and where we feel it and consistently paying attention to that. So, we can map and track what sensations and what parts of our body mean what for us specifically and individually. I have tons of healing in energy medicine and energy healing and energy work. I have tons of training in those things. And of course, we can go by things like the shockers, and the meridians, and all this stuff. But it’s also really important, as in with dream work, which I’ve learned from friends of mine, like Heather Lindemenn, newer colleague or acquaintance, Dr. Catherine Lawson, both of whom have been on the podcast. When you’re working your dreams, yeah, I mean, you could look up online the symbolism of dreams or what does this mean in my dream, or you can get a dream book. But it’s also really important to look at how did you feel in the dream when that thing was happening. What’s your personal relationship to that symbol? And it’s the same thing with our feelings and our sensations, right? Someone else might be able to tell us what something means when they feel it a certain place in their body, or a certain sensation, or a certain emotion or whatever. But the bottom line is, again, going back to one of the earlier lessons, we’re all so unique. And our unconscious and subconscious minds are made up of such vast and mysterious material that’s fed by our current lifetime, our past lifetimes. That’s fed by our souls. That’s fed by our ancestors. That’s fed by our lived experiences, our programming, our conditioning, all kinds of stuff. And so, to always make sure that we are tapping into what we know and what our associations with things are, super, super important.

So, moving into lesson number seven when it comes to self-love. I wanna talk about self-love a little bit. Being gentle with ourselves is one of the most incredible gifts we could give ourselves. And especially if you’re someone listening to this and you are someone who’s had a history of being hard on yourself or beating yourself up about stuff, developing an inner loving voice. We’ve heard terms inner mean girl or inner critic. So, developing like an inner lover or an inner like divine mother, just this really compassionate, loving voice inside of you. That’s always gonna be gentle and compassionate and accepting and loving with you. That’s not gonna be judgemental. That’s really, really important. Like your self soothing voice. And learning how to talk to yourself like the most beloved loved one in your life is such a valuable tool and a valuable practice. Lesson number eight on that note is to look at things relationally. Like what is our relationship to da, da, da? So what’s my relationship like to myself? What’s my relationship like to others? And not just around people and categories, but things too. What’s my relationship to the patriarchy? What’s my relationship to my body? What’s my relationship to gluten? What’s my relationship to New York City? What’s my relationship to my aunt? Like any person, place, thing, concept, whatever. To be considering what our relationship to stuff is when we’re doing healing and personal discovery or whatever kind of work is really helpful, because it helps us to not be so identified with stuff. So, that’s number eight.

And number nine, let’s talk about identity. How important it is to notice and to learn about ourselves and check in with ourselves at different stages and phases of life what we are currently identifying with, what aspects of our identity are really most important to us and embracing that. And then also, so it’s super important to embrace the things that feel most important about our identities to us at any given time in our lives. And then, I’ll push this into lesson number 10. And then just as important as it is to identify with things and really own and embody and embrace, and let ourselves identify with things, it’s also just as important to let those things go. And afterwards, to disidentify with them. So, we’re never rigid. We’re never getting stuck. And it’s not that we… And disidentify doesn’t mean disown. It doesn’t mean deny. It doesn’t mean reject or whatever. But it’s really just about not being overly identified, not being super attached to being this one thing or this certain way, because it’s really easy to get stuck in our ways and to stop growing or to not be available for change, or transmutation, or alchemy, or letting something go, that’s just ready to go. Or perhaps seeing it in a different way, or from a different angle, or from a different perspective because we’re so overly identified with a thing being how it is. So, this is also kind of leave room. Hold on to your identity with a loose grip and always have room for it to evolve over time.

So lesson number 11. And as I’m sitting here and I’m feeling into what wants to come through next, it’s just remembering to breathe. That might sound like so simple and so ridiculous. But as an embodiment person, all embodiment practice really begins and ends with the breath. Remembering to breathe. And remembering how simple it is to any given moment of any given day just allow yourself , excuse me, to take a breath. And just by intentionally taking a couple of breaths and connecting to the sensations of your breath, you can a really just shift your whole entire energy in a matter of seconds. So just remembering that the breath is the life force and treating it as such is a really big and really important lesson, especially for people who are wanting to be more embodied and more present, and really in their power and their potency. I’m gonna let that segue into lesson number 12 around our power. So, this also kind of relates to what we were saying a couple lessons ago about identity. My friend, Heather, who I’ve also mentioned earlier when I was talking about the dream stuff. Heather reminded me many years ago that none of us are the givers of our gifts. Our gifts, our medicine, our talents, our creations, the things we make and do in the world, the service some of us provide, whatever it is, none of that’s actually ours. We are channels. We are instruments. We are vessels. We are stewards. And so, a lot of people got really caught up in their egos, whether they realize it or not, about being like this is mine. Even when I say my body of work, I’m the steward of all this stuff. Wild Soul Movement, the School of Sacred Embodiment, all these frameworks I’ve created, these methods and practices, all these things that I even train people in now, I’m just a steward of all that stuff, right? It’s like these ideas were floating in the ether, looking for a host, tapped me on the shoulder, and were like, “Hey girl, you wanna do this?” And I was like, yeah, let’s do it. And relating to, again, our tools, our gifts, our talents, our medicine, however it is that you think of your service, whatever you do, whatever you bring to the world, that could be the way you relate to people, it could be parenting, it could be all kinds of things as it’s not mine. I’m not the giver of the gift. This isn’t necessarily coming from me. It’s coming through me. And letting that really humble you.

So lesson number 13, my goodness, speaking of letting things humble you is the absolute exquisiteness of real, genuine humility, like letting things humble you. And when I think about humility, I’m not gonna take the time to look up the formal definition of it. But for me, when I think about when I feel into humility, there’s awe and wonder to it. And it’s related to that not being the giver of the gift. ‘Cause if I’m not the giver of the gift, then who or what is? And that is the great mystery, right? That’s god. That’s the divine. And so to me, it’s so deeply humbling to get to be here on earth at this time, which is quite challenging. And sometimes I resent, but it that’s okay. Even that is humbling, right? Getting to be like damn, I don’t control shit. Or I made a soul contract like there’s so much going on that’s so much bigger than me, so much bigger than us. That’s humbling, right? Like to just remember how tiny we are in, we’re little specs, in this absolute, vast constellation of everything that makes up the whole universe. Because sometimes, we can get so caught up and so self-centered in our own lives and our own world and what’s going on to just remember that we are just a tiny, tiny, tiny little piece of the puzzle. That kind of humbling. And again, it’s not demeaning. It’s not diminishing. It’s this like this awe, like wow, this shit is so much more vast than I’ll ever know. And I’m just a little, little, little tiny particle in all of it. It really helps us to release self-importance. It kind gives us incredible perspective.

Number 14, I’m sure if I’ve done these before, I’ve said this, but feel free to change your mind. God reserve the right to change your mind. That’s how I like to say it. Many years ago, I remember it was 2014, my first time I got a tattoo. And a tattoo is something that I had always said I would never do. There’s something I’m never gonna do is get a tattoo ’cause I’m so afraid of needles. And that little tattoo has now been covered up by a big rose on my right wrist. I now have this big old serpent on my left arm and hand and wrist. I have a tattoo on my left foot, my left and right biceps. There’s probably more tattoos on the way. So, this lesson is to never say never and be careful when you do. I have found in my life a lot of the things that I said never about, it’s almost promising that shit’s gonna happen. So, I really very, very rarely will I say never, unless it’s in the context of like, oh, I’ve never done that before, I’ve never seen. It’s just like a factual never. But I don’t like to invoke never anymore ’cause I feel like life’s gonna come along and be like, “Really? You sure about that?” And I’m not interested in those kind of disruptions anymore. So, I never say never. Lesson number 15 is gonna be about thinking of things, whatever’s going on in your life, your preferences, your values, your boundaries, all kinds of things. All these different distinctions and determinations. I love applying the term right now when I talk about how I’m feeling, or what I’m thinking, or things that I’m letting guide my life at the moment, or things that I’m working on, or whatever. I always like to say right now, because that anchors in for me. That it’s just this is for now. Because if there’s one thing, which we’ll call this lesson number 16, that I’ve learned over the years and I’m sure many of you have had so many experiences with this as well, is that impermanence, right? Change is guaranteed, right? Nothing lasts forever. No matter how hard we cling to it, no matter how much we want it to. And it almost feels sometimes the harder we cling, the easier it is for it to slip away. But also when we waste time holding onto things so tightly or trying to control them, we really don’t get to enjoy them as much as we could possibly enjoy them at times.

So, this is gonna pop me into lesson number 17, which is question everything. Everything you think about yourself, everything you think is true for you, at least allow yourself to question it from time to time. And my most recent example, which in next week’s podcast episode, which is called “My Sacred Slut Summer,” which I’m hoping nobody in my family listens to. And if they do, I hope they just mind their business. Don’t try to talk to me about it. I’m cracking up just seeing different faces of family members that may or may not listen or probably are not inclined to mind their own business at all. But my whole life, I just assumed I was monogamous. And I dated for monogamy for a really long time. And around 2018 when I started kind of dating for real, some of you remember I’ve referred to 2018, 2019 as my conscious hoe phase. But it actually, without realizing it, that was my first, that was like my unconscious exploration of non-monogamy. And when I say unconscious, I mean I wasn’t aware that I was exploring non-monogamy, but I really was. I was dating a lot of people, sometimes a couple of people at a time. And I really enjoyed it. And at that time, I started saying this thing, like man, I don’t know if I want a partner or a roster. But because partnership and monogamy are so dominant and what’s the word I’m looking for? Like pedestalized in our culture as like some kind of a gold standard. I just always kind of defaulted to wanting a partner. And it wasn’t until just the beginning of the summer of 2022, in June, around the Sagittarius full moon and the summer solstice, that I finally went, man, I’m a couple months from turning 39 and the way I like to do things is consciously and intentionally. And so, I’d like to dedicate 39 to really integrating everything from my thirties, which is so much healing, growth, transformation, so much change, so much stuff. And I was just reflecting on how often I’ve said that thing, like I don’t know if I want a partner or a roster. And I’m like, well, I’ve never actually intentionally sought out the roster. So instead of roster, I’ve started to, I like the term constellation of companions. So, I’ve since been dating to form my constellation of companions. And after a couple months, I have a couple companions and it’s really lovely and I’m really enjoying that. So, this specific lesson was question everything, right? Question everything that you think you know about yourself or you think is true about yourself. And this is not about blowing up your life, but this is about paying attention when something comes up to be questioned. So, let’s piggyback that to lesson number 18, which could be the art of paying attention. This is self-awareness. I have a self-love framework that has five parts. It starts with self-awareness. Then, it goes self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-trust, and self-respect. So the art of self-awareness, the art observing yourself, noticing yourself. So that when something does shift in your energy, when something does shift in your desires, when something does kind of come up to be placed in question, you’re like, “Oh, interesting.” And again, we talked about this identity thing earlier. If I was overly identified as a monogamous person, I wouldn’t be willing to question, am I actually built for that? And I was that way for many years.

So, let’s move into lesson number 19, which is I wanna make a distinction. There is this saying, if you spot it, you got it, which is closely related to everything or everyone is a mirror. And here’s the thing, that’s a yes end. Not everything is a direct reflection or a direct mirror. So for example, if you find yourself in a relationship with a very narcissistic person, does that mean that you’re a very narcissistic person? Maybe. But maybe, it also means that you grew up in an environment with narcissistic people and it’s time for you to really reckon with and reconcile why you continue to pull people like this into your life. Maybe you have some healing to do around codependency or emotional abuse. That was my experience, right. And so, maybe it’s just time to look at the theme of having narcissistic people in your life. So, that’s being reflected to you through that mirror, not necessarily that you are a narcissistic person. So, it’s always worth looking at is it a direct reflection? Is this saying something about me that I need to look at? Or is it reflecting a theme in my life to me or something that would be worthwhile for me to look at? So if you spot it, you got it. I just wanna, let’s put some nuance on that. If you spot it, you got something to deal with around it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you personally haven’t expressed and are embodying that thing. Again, I just wanna go back to that lesson. I forget which number it was, but about we don’t have to over identify and fucking internalize everything. That’s how we get stuck in these damn healing hamster wheels, where we’re constantly just thinking that we need to fix something, or look for something, or excavate, or find something else, right. So, let’s make that lesson number 20. When we get to the part of the self-love framework that is self-acceptance, people have a hard time with self-acceptance. Because there’s a lot of things about people, past, present, or looking into the future, that they feel ashamed of, or they feel embarrassed about, or they’re not proud of. And all that stuff makes you who you are. And that has to do with self-acceptance. But in terms of just overall acceptance, for example, there’s a lot of dysfunction in my family of origin, but I hold, I’ve done a lot of healing work around this, but I hold no resentment for any of it. My parents being exactly who they are and whatever trauma that created in my childhood made me exactly who I am. And I really love being who I am. It set me up to have these experiences, and to do this healing, and have this understanding, and have these sensitivities that served me so well in my ability to serve others. So, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. So, we’ll call lesson number 20 just like the immense power of acceptance. Some people kind of shit on acceptance, like I want love, or I want passion, or like acceptance sounds boring. But acceptance is a very important bridge into a lot of other things. And in the self-love framework, it’s the bridge into self-trust and self-respect, which are ultimately huge expressions and huge practices that contribute to self-love.

So, the power of acceptance and self-acceptance, which another way to look at that is the power of compassion, the power of I’m gonna call it non-judgment, but let’s call this lesson number 21. Non-judgment doesn’t mean you never fucking judge anything. ‘Cause listen, let me know if you figure that one out, okay? We’re all judgey. So like something you can accept about yourself is you’re gonna judge. But where this lesson, this non-judgment comes in, is what do you do when you judge? When you’re having a judgment, are you really all in, digging your heels, thinking you’re right, needing to be right? Or can you have a judgment and be like, “Huh?” This comes back to self-awareness. Being able to observe yourself and your judgment and be like, “Look at me being real judgey right now,” or “Look at me having this thought,” or “Look at me deciding that this is better than or worse than,” or “That I know better for someone than they do for themself,” or “That my way is the better way.” Or on the other side ’cause sometimes there’s self-judgment like, look at me, making myself small, diminishing myself, assuming everyone knows better than I do or whatever. So non-judgment, we need a better term for that. I wouldn’t even necessarily call this non-judgment, but what could we call it? Perhaps, I guess it’s more like non-attachment to judgment, right? Like don’t be so attached to that you judge. You do right? And ’cause for a while I was saying I don’t judge. I really don’t. I don’t have a lot of judgment for a lot of things it feels like, ’cause I used to have so much judgment for so many things. But the fact is, of course, I still do judge stuff. I just don’t attach to my judgments. I kind of let them go pretty quickly. So, I guess that’s what I wanna call this. Like have this practice, maybe it’s not non-judgment, but be in the practice of like catch and release, right? That’s fishing, that’s a fishing term. But it’s like catch and release. Catch your judgment and let that shit go. See if there’s any information in it for you, but then let that shit go. So, this is the lesson number 21. It’s about really not clinging to your judgments and really not letting them overly inform anything in your life. ‘Cause judgements are usually coming from funky places, programming, and conditioning, right?

Hello, everybody. A quick break in the show here. On Monday, September 12th, 2022, it is time for my annual birthday sale. So make sure you head on over to untameyourself.com/bday39 and see what I’m offering up for the birthday sale. I will just let it be a big surprise for you rather than wasting your time here. So again, go to untameyourself.com/bday39, B-D-A-Y, 39, 3, 9, bday39. See what we’re offering up. From today, Monday, September 12th, till next Monday, September 19th in honor of my 39th birthday. The one thing that I will remind you is that I always do something with the number of my age. So, there’s something exciting that you are able to get a 39% discount on and there’s also something else, a little bundle for you, that you can get for just $39. So again, head on over to untameyourself.com/bday39 and see what we’ve got going on this year.

Lesson number 22. I mean, I talk about this all the time, but I can’t emphasize enough. The difference between judgment and discernment. Judgment again is gonna come from that programming, that conditioning, the shoulds, everything you think supposed to, the things you think you know. Discernment is gonna come from the wisdom of the body, which the wisdom of the body is informed by the wisdom of the divine and the wisdom of your soul. For me, and we’ll call this lesson 23 and we’ll go back to it, the soul is the bridge to the divine. But to finish this thought, which now I’m losing my train of thought. Give me a second to pull it back in. The difference between judgment and discernment. Discernment is just yes or no, right? That’s for me, that’s not for me. I’m with that. I’m not with that. I’m available for that. I’m not. But again, without all the evaluations, the judgements. And here’s why, you need to know why. If you do, that’s great. But again, we don’t have to make things good, bad, right, wrong, less than, more than, whatever. So, discernment is a lot more neutral. It’s just the facts. Yeah, yes or no, right? And that’s valuable to have access to discernment. And so I said lesson 23 was gonna be how the soul is the bridge to the divine. That’s really how I experience my soul. My soul is my intermediary. It’s like the unique expression of the divine that I get to express. I don’t know if I’d call it a saying, but there’s a way of thinking or looking at how God functions, which is that God created all of us to experience their own creation through all of our expressions. So, that’s cool. Like I find that quite exquisite and beautiful to think of it that way. Like imagine, and this is a metaphor. This is not meant to be insensitive to anyone who can’t see or has vision impairment. But imagine the divine, God, whatever you wanna call it, is able to experience the earth and the world and reality and the universe through each one of our eyes or each of our experiences. It doesn’t have to be related to eyes. Like that’s how many different ways the divine gets to experience its creations in itself. And so, that’s what our soul holds.

Lesson number 24. Some of you’ve heard me say this before and I really was inspired many years ago by my friend, Rochelle Chi. I think it actually it might have been, she was one of my first podcast interviews back in 2015. And it might have been in that conversation where this came up. But she was saying if at the end of my life, I discovered that all these things I chose to believe in weren’t real, I’m not gonna care. And I’m like, yeah, me either. Because whatever you choose to be your belief system, as long as it’s not harming or oppressing other people, it helps you get through your life, right? It helps you get through hard times. It gives you something to make you feel like you’re not alone, even if you physically might not be around other people or whatever. During the pandemic, when I was most isolated, when I was in California, especially once I got up to the Bay Area at the end of 2020 and into 2021, before I moved to Miami, it was the most isolated time of my life, but I never felt alone. I felt burdened by aloneness, just like being a solo person, running a business, running a household, doing everything for myself and being not around other people really all day, every day for like days and weeks on end. Not having physical touch, all kinds of things like that. That was heavy. But I never felt like alone alone because I had ancestors, divine beings, my own soul, like so many other things to relate to, working in the akashic records. So, we’re never alone. I’m gonna let that be less than number 24. We’re never alone, never fully alone. Lesson 25 is I don’t believe in being single. I just don’t believe in that term. Nobody is single. Nobody is completely on their own. Nobody doesn’t have a single friend or a single family member, regardless of your relationship to them. So I have actually come to really not like the term single ’cause I just find it to be wildly inaccurate. And words matter and words are important. So, if you’re someone who’s unpartnered, I like unpartnered. But some people aren’t in like a committed relationship, but this doesn’t mean you’re not partnered. You might have lovers, friends, affectionate friends that are platonic. Like there’s just so many different ways to be connected to people, so that’s lesson 25. I don’t believe or support or really use the word single anymore. And I know it’s listed on forms. I wish I could just like, I’m constantly wanting to like change the options on forms.

Lesson number 26, the body is just worthy of so much reverence. I don’t care what your body can do, how your body feels, whether you’re healthy is a term I’m always gonna put in air quotes. It doesn’t matter how healthy you are by measures of whoever you’re measuring it by, every single body is worthy of reverence because they’re all miraculous. They all do so much cool, mysterious, amazing shit all day, every day. What is not to be in reverence about related to that? I feel like I don’t need to expound upon this. How do you feel when I say that? Your body is worthy of reverence. You can’t probably feel something whether it’s awe joy, recognition, love, appreciation, the reverence itself, maybe you feel shame or eh, or like resistance, or fear, or something. The fact that you feel anything when I say that is proof that there’s really something there for all of us. So, every single body is worthy of reverence. Lesson number 27 is gonna be how inclusivity. Anything that we could do in our lives, in our worlds to be more inclusive of one another is one of the most liberating practices. Because we all have been highly indoctrinated into separation and divisiveness as a means of survival, right? Forming groups and tribes and factions and alliances that are rooted in excluding others or people or ideas or whatever. And the more we can turn our focus to inclusivity, that means we have to look for reasons to include people, not to exclude them, which means we must be operating with broader perspectives, more curiosity, more compassion. Related to that, lesson 28, which is an oldie but goodie. And I got this originally, I believe, from something that Danielle LaPorte wrote many years ago. And I mention her sometimes. I don’t follow her. I’m not a fan of her work anymore. But certainly, there’s great merit to many things that she has said and created over the years that I really appreciate. And this is one of them. Really thinking about the difference between compassion and tolerance. I can have immense compassion for something, but very low tolerance for it. Like for example, I either can have compassion for the fact that people are very bigoted, or racist, or prejudiced. Because that means there’s an ignorance. There’s a lack of lived experience, lack of connection, lack of relationships with the people that they’re bigoted, prejudiced, or racist against. So, those people are really missing out. I can have a lot of compassion for that. They would be so shortsighted because they just don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know any better. It doesn’t mean I have tolerance for it. It doesn’t mean I need to be like that’s okay. It’s actually not okay, but I can feel compassion for that they are that way because something made them that way. Nobody comes in that way. That’s not innate to anybody. People learn that. So, we can have compassion for things while simultaneously not having tolerance for them. Related to so many of these lessons is literally how I find nuance so liberating. The oversimplification of stuff, the sweeping generalization of things, false dichotomy is false equivalencies. We saw this so much more than ever during the pandemic. People getting hooked into this very shitty logic, very non-critical thinking. So nuance and critical thinking is also so liberatory, ’cause it really just helps us to see that there actually is so much gray area in so many things. That’s really valid and really worthy of walking in and dancing in. But what makes people uncomfortable is people love being right. People love having clear, distinct, black, white, right, wrong, this, that. But then you miss out on the incredible spectrums and ranges of things in between the poles, the imposed poles. So, I love nuance. I love gray area.

And that’s gonna put us into lesson number 30, which is one of the most important things any of us can develop and really commit to keeping a healthy sense of like really devote ourselves to is endless curiosity. Always staying curious. Always staying, this relates to a couple of the earlier lessons. When we’re actually humble, genuine humility comes hand in hand with curiosity. ‘Cause if you’re humble, you’re always gonna be curious because you don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to be an authority in everything. You don’t need to be right about everything when you’re humble. And in fact, you’re kind of always ready to learn something, to realize you didn’t know something, or to be corrected, or to do something better. And again, not from a diminishing way. Not from a I’m so dumb, I’m so stupid, I don’t know. It’s not that. It’s just like I’m only one person living in a vast universe, I can’t possibly know everything. I’m bound to be learning all the times. So, staying curious allows us to also stay pliable and malleable and open to learning, growing, and doing better if and when that’s possible. So, that’s lesson number 30. Lesson number 31 I’m specifically, listen, I’m gonna dive into all this stuff real deep in next week’s episode, “My Sacred Slut Summer,” which will be episode number 399. And here’s what I’m gonna say. When I was dating with monogamy as the goal, I mentioned earlier, I’m a very discerning person. I have very high standards. I have some serious deal makers, some serious deal breakers. And then, everything in between is negotiable. That’s really how I approach dating. But when I was dating for partnership, the deal makers and the deal breakers are like pretty intense. And for me, that’s because I have worked so hard and healed so much to have a really peaceful, joyful life. And so if I’m gonna partner with someone, if I’m actually gonna merge my life with somebody else, they have to be bringing that peace and that joy as well. I’m not gonna partner with someone who’s constantly disrupting the peace and the joy that I’ve worked so hard to have with their chaos. The world itself is chaotic enough. No one’s above chaos. So, it’s not about control. It’s really about like I’m just not, I’m not gonna partner with that. If somebody, for whatever reason, has a lot of chaos, or drama, or shit in their life, I’m not gonna bring that into my life by proxy of someone else is what I’m trying to say. However, as I’ve begun to date for that constellation of companions, what I’ve discovered what’s been like such a pleasant surprise to me, which shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was for whatever reason. So, some of you are gonna hear me say this and be like, “Duh.” When the objective isn’t to merge my life with somebody else’s, just to have companionship and intimacy, there’s just so many wonderful people where so much intimacy and love is available. And I can appreciate that, and I can enjoy that and experience that, in ways that personally for me, I couldn’t if the objective was monogamy or a partnership. And so, that also has been really humbling to me, ’cause it’s shown me again, where were my lines between judgment and discernment around men and partnership and things like that. And so again, there’s just so many beautiful things that I could enjoy about people when I just shifted the objective of the relationship or of the context and that’s been so beautiful. So, the lesson here is sometimes shift your context and see if something that you want, what I wanted was intimacy and companionship. Sometimes when we shift our context, the things that we want are actually available in spades. And we just didn’t realize it because the context was limiting us. It’s not that we were limited by choices or options, but the context itself is what was limiting.

Lesson number 32 is this, for me, it’s always so, so, so important, especially as a person with a platform and a podcast, as much as I don’t want this, I am an authority figure, right? An authority, like the word author is an authority. I write shit. I say shit. I teach to thousands and thousands of people. And so, it’s always really important to me to remind people that you’re your own authority. Whether you agree with things I say, you learn, you gain insight from things that I say, always apply it to your own lens and to your own filter. And so, that’s really the lesson. Even books I read, teachers I follow, people who’ve been mentors and guides to me, I’m like that’s cool, but I’m always filtering it through my own values, my own priorities, my own beliefs. And so, there’s ways of really integrating and synthesizing anything that we take in, anything that we consume, through our own truth, our own authentic lenses. And that’s just so, so, so, so important, right? I’m not out here ’cause I want anyone to be agreeing with me or thinking I’m their savior or their guru or whatever. I’m out here because I can’t help it. I got all this shit coming through. And when I sit down and I listen for guidance and stuff like that, often it’s like, yo, go share this thing. And I’m like, all right. Again, it’s like, we talked about this earlier, being an instrument, being a channel, being a vessel, I’m super willing to do that and in many ways, devoted my life to that. But part of that is always reminding people that you’re your own best authority. Even when you don’t think you are, even if you have trauma, even if you have things to heal, even if you don’t have your shit together, whatever that means, you’re still the best authority for you than anybody else. You can always trust and believe that. And the more you trust and believe that, the more it will become true in your life.

Lesson number 33, here’s what we’re gonna do with lessons 33. I love me some Jesus. I have not been Christian or Catholic in such a long time. But if you’re willing to consider the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ outside of the context of Christianity, Jesus was just an incredible mystic. Jesus was a feminist. Jesus was incredibly inclusive. Jesus is like the original liberator. And there’s just so much. There’s such good shit there if you’re willing to listen. And there’s a lot of perspectives that don’t come necessarily from Christianity that are available out there. And I love that. That’s actually one of the things that’s brought me the most joy in my spiritual practice and connection, in my life. It has been engaging with Jesus, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene as mystics, as incredible teachers and guides outside of the context of the religion I grew up in which was Catholicism. So, we’ll let lesson number 33 be that like Jesus is just an incredible mystic and a teacher. Not just, Jesus is an incredible mystic and teacher, and there’s so much available for anyone. I’ll use one of the terms from one of my favorite books, “For those with eyes to see and ears to hear,” if you happen to be interested.

And lesson number 34. Um, what do we wanna say for 34? I mentioned liberation. I mentioned Jesus being a liberator. Liberation is about getting free from the programming and conditioning in our lives that’s harmful. That really keeps us from being who we really are. That really keeps us from embodying and living and expressing the gifts, the medicine, the miracles, the love, the compassion, the generosity, the faith in our souls. And so, there’s so much work out here that is liberatory. And some things get, I don’t wanna say hijacked or co-opted ’cause it’s not on purpose because it actually is quite important. But by certain movements, right? And certain words become associated with just certain groups of people or I said already movements or whatever, but liberation is for everybody ’cause we all have shit that we need to get free from. And so lesson number 34 is gonna be about reclaiming, allowing yourself to work on liberation, in whatever context you wanna work on liberation, and own your own liberation. 35, we’re coming up. We’re in the home stretch. What feels really, really important? I wanna say something about being in a larger body. I gained a bunch of weight during the pandemic. Some of you’ve heard me talk about this. I did a whole episode. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes. This episode number 398. So, the show notes will untameyourself.com/398. I did a whole episode earlier this year about self-love after weight gain. And like I’ve been joking, but it’s not really a joke, that like I’m the fattest I’ve ever been and the happiest I’ve ever been. And it feels like coming off of the last lesson, which was about liberation, there’s just been something so liberating about gaining weight and getting happier. Because I mean how much of the programming out there is that it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to anyone, especially a woman. And it has not been the worst thing by any stretch of the imagination. And listen, I also understand that my experience with it and all of it is different from other people.

So, this lesson is just another piggyback off of the one about question everything. I don’t know. What might bring you joy? What might make you feel so free that you wouldn’t expect And for me, gaining weight, getting fat in my… Fat is a relative term. I know some people don’t like the term. To me, I don’t think it’s derogatory at all. And the thing is I would never call another person fat. I’m calling myself fat. And so, I’m using it as I’m loving thick. I love being thick. There’s another word that I like. I’ve always been thick, but now I’m just thicker. It’s been, it’s like who cares? I was afraid of it in my twenties. It was like was the biggest fear of my life, like teens and twenties. And then, here I am in my thirties and it happened, and I was like, oh, my life didn’t end. I’m not having any less fun. I’m actually having more fun. And I feel free ’cause I went ahead and did this thing And I didn’t die. I’m not worse for the way like I don’t know. I think there’s just some really surprising shit out here you all that nobody tells us is possible. Related to that, I fucking love getting older. My goodness. So I’m gonna call this lesson and it’s related. Don’t be afraid of shit, just because other people say you should be afraid of it. Have your own experience. That’s really what the lesson is. Let yourself have your own frigging experience with everything, with everything. And look at always be, again, that curiosity, that humility. We talked about this earlier. Just let yourself be curious and available to have a different experience than you think you’re supposed to have or you assume you’re gonna have.

Lesson number 37. I wanna say something , I wanna say something about men. Listen, I know some people when we talk about men are having a hard time, men are struggling, people are like, “Oh, pobrecito,” like poor men, right? They’ve had advantages for so long. But listen, when we talk about the patriarchy, when we talk about systems of oppression, nobody, a system works on everyone. So even though there might be people who benefit from the systems more than others, at what cost spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and energetically? And this is one of the things and I’ll talk about this more on next week’s episode on “My Sacred Slut Summer,” spending a lot of time with a lot of men this summer, who I normally wouldn’t have, again, when I was dating for a partner, I was like, man, some of these dudes really are struggling. They have no tools because like they don’t know what they don’t know. They haven’t been allowed. It hasn’t been socially acceptable for them. Most people listen in this podcast are women It’s completely socially acceptable for women to be working on themselves, go into therapy, like broadly socially acceptable. And men who just think that they can’t, like they’re holding things in. They don’t know how to process it. It comes out in shitty ways and then we get so mad at them, which is like, it’s warranted and it’s not the same time. ‘Cause can we really be mad at people for things that they don’t know what they don’t know? Yes end, right? So, I don’t know. I love men and I’ve fallen more in love with men this summer. And listen, some of them were shitty. People lie to me. Someone ghosted me. Some straight up ghosted me in a way I’ve never been ghosted before in my life. And I was like, damn, this poor dude that has no communication skills or enough courage to just say, “Hey, I’m not feeling this.” He just had to disappear. That sucks. Sucks for him. I wasn’t even like hurt or offended. I was just like, damn, this poor motherfucker didn’t have any way to handle that any better and he just disappeared. That’s unfortunate.

Lesson number 38, listen, integrity is everything. That’s gonna be this lesson. Know your values. Tell the truth. I mean it sounds so simple. Know your values, tell the truth. Know what you stand for and stand by it. Feel free to change your mind in like some of the other lessons we had. But being in integrity is like, it’s not just about doing what you said you were gonna do, right? Because sometimes you say you’re gonna do something. And then as you’re doing it, you realize, “Oh, that’s not the right move.” But tell the truth as you go. Tell the truth when you change your mind. There’s no need to lie. There’s no need to protect other people’s feelings. I mean because things are going to hurt. Things are going to be uncomfortable for all of us. So, what do we think we’re protecting people from by being dishonest? So, integrity is everything, lesson number 38.

Number 39, this is a lesson I learned a really long time ago, but it’s always worth repeating. And the first person I heard say this was Latham Thomas. So we’re gonna give credit to Latham and I don’t know where she got it. But I love this so much and it’s that love is always an appropriate response. Whatever love you have access to, whatever love is available to you in any given moment, how can you bring more love to your responses to things? And listen, sometimes being angry and being honest about your anger, that’s the most loving thing you could do. ‘Cause when we’re saying love is the most appropriate response, a lot of my work is about self-love. So, what’s the most loving thing that you could possibly do for yourself? What’s the most loving thing you could possibly do for someone else? And especially, when you know the difference between love and co-dependence, right? Not the most co-dependent thing you could do for somebody else. The most truly genuinely loving. Sometimes, the most loving thing we could do for someone is be like, “I can’t help you with that. You gotta figure that shit out because you can,” right? It’s believing in people. Sometimes it’s believing in ourselves. Sometimes it’s choosing faith, surrender, trust. So love, whatever expression of love is appropriate in the moment. Love is always an appropriate response. The ego gets involved in things and we think we need to be angry. We need to fight. We need to be right. We need to assert ourselves, but there’s always ways to do those things with more love.

So anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed the 39 lessons in my 39 years. Obviously, I have way more than that and I didn’t plan it. It felt good though. I can’t wait to hear from you how you liked it. I’ll be posting these on Instagram too this week. So, we could see them more specifically and keep talking about ’em. I’d love to hear from you. Share it, tag me on social, let me know which lesson really hit for you or which lessons. If you wanna email us at hello@untameyourself.com or send me a note on Instagram at @elizabethdialto you’re more than welcome to. And that’s it. Thanks for listening. We’re back. We’re back on the podcast through December 19th, so September, October, November. Three solid months, we’ll be here every Monday. Hope to see you back.

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