As I approach my 40th birthday next week, I’ve been reflecting on the experiences that shape the foundation of my value system and understanding of the world around me. In this episode, I delve into lessons 21 to 30 of my “40 Lessons in 40 Years” series, exploring topics like reciprocity, embodiment, and identity.
When it comes to my relationships, health, career – honestly, everything in my life – I’m committed to trusting my embodied awareness. I’m all about meeting people where they are, but I’ve also realized that I need to be okay with where I am and let my inner-knowing guide the way. I hope this series sparks something in you to think about your innate wisdom and what lessons you’ve picked up along the way. If anything resonates with you (or doesn’t), I’d love to hear from you!
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In episode 439 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:
(1:28) Lesson #21: Reciprocity is great to integrate into your value system to just ensure that you’re not constantly burning yourself out and over-giving.
(4:20) Lesson #22: Be discerning about marketing versus information.
(9:22) Lesson #23: Differentiate between healthcare and illness scare (h/t to Anita Moorjani)
(10:25) Lesson #24: Be careful what you identify with and hold on to all your identities with a flexible grip.
(12:42) Lesson #25: Practice less armchair diagnosing and more discernment around what kind of behavior, treatment, and communication works best for you.
(13:50) Lesson #26: We do not need to understand things or how and why they happen in order to heal, grow, and learn from them.
(14:39) Lesson #27: People let attachment to (and weird definitions of) morality interfere with good decision making.
(15:06) Lesson #28: Here on Earth where love is extremely powerful and potent, but we also have free will with our truth, integrity, compassion, and forgiveness, love is just not enough sometimes.
(15:35) Lesson #29: Expressive arts are so important because sometimes we need stories in order to feel and acknowledge what we’re actually going through.
(17:50) Lesson #30: It’s really important to create levels in my work and be clear about who is meant for each offering.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
- This is Marketing by Seth Godin
- Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani
- Ep 181. Anita Moorjani on Living after Dying and Lessons from the “Other Side”
- Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
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Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:
- Embodiment is not just important, but crucial and invaluable for navigating our modern, technologically advanced times. Despite any information or marketing, we can tune into ourselves, we can ask ourselves if we really need something, and we can get an honest answer.
- The intense need to know why and understand things with the mind often blocks understanding that can only happen at the level of the heart and soul, which frees us from so many attachments.
- Sometimes, we need help feeling what we can’t or seeing what we don’t through characters that we know are fictional. Sometimes the impersonalization of it, the separation between ourselves and the circumstances, or the lesson or the thing that’s happening is what allows us to accept and feel and acknowledge what we are actually going through.
- It’s a great kindness to meet people where they are rather than trying to sell them things they’re not ready for.
- Reciprocity is when we give and receive. It doesn’t have to be equal or even, but it should be enough to justify the investment of time, energy, attention, or other resources.
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 discussions on Instagram here.
Transcript for Episode 439 “40 Lessons in 40 Years Part 3“:
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:00
TV, movies, books, stories, plays poetry, and other expressive arts are so important because we need stories. We need impersonal reflections and eliminations, we need to be moved. We need to be moved on the cellular level without even really knowing why we’re being moved. Sometimes, we need help sometimes feeling what we can’t or seeing what we don’t few characters that we know are fictional and made up.
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:25
What’s up everybody? Welcome to episode number 439 of The Embodied Podcast. Today is part three of a four part series. And they’re not sequential. Like if you’re just stumbling upon this episode, it does not matter if you listened last week or the week before, I’m just going through 40 lessons in 40 years, I’m coming up on my 40th birthday on September 14th. I’m so excited to be 40. I know some of you can relate this, some of you really can’t. But I love getting older. I’m so excited to be entering into a new decade. And the last two episodes I kind of just like wrote down the two things and then just rift on him. But this episode, and next week’s actually, like sat down and like, wrote them out filled it in. It’s so funny how sometimes I just want to like go off the cuff and other times, I really want to put more thought into it. So you’re getting a little more get a little more nuance in today’s episode.
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:31
We’re beginning with lesson number 21. And this lesson is about reciprocity. Because we live in such an individualistic culture, especially in the Western world, influenced largely by things like capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Self sacrifice, especially for women, is deeply programmed into a lot of us from a very young age. We see it in the women who raise and rear us. And this is not exclusive to women, everyone is capable of self sacrifice. It’s just extra insidious for women as being nurturers and caregivers is an expectation placed on just about all of us. This is why I really encourage people to look at where and how they spend their time. And stay present to if those investments give back nourish, satisfy, and feed them.
Elizabeth DiAlto 02:12
Reciprocity is that when we give and receive doesn’t have to be equal or even. But it should be enough to justify the investment of time, energy attention or other resources, as well, it should be an aim to experience more of the time than not things that are reciprocal, as it’s not possible to experience all the time. And in a lot of cases, it’s much easier said than done. But standing up for these things is important, and often has ripple effects. We can’t even imagine that benefit others to not just us, you know, the younger people in our life, whether it’s your own kids or nieces, nephews, your friends, kids, like maybe you work with young people, you know, we’re all leaders in the capacity that if you have to interact with other human beings at all, Your behavior is setting some kind of example, right? You’re either inspiring people or compelling people sparking people’s curiosity, showing them you know, new or different ways of doing things in they thought about, which could be good or bad, right or just interesting.
Elizabeth DiAlto 03:12
So we really have the ability to shift our family systems, community systems, in even a whole cultures function, when again, we’re just devoted to living from a place that is aligned with our values. And reciprocity is something that is just great to integrate into your value system, to just ensure that you’re not constantly burning yourself out and over giving. It doesn’t mean that you won’t go through periods of your life where you’re maybe doing more than you would like. But when you do that consciously and with choice, when it’s balanced out by periods of not doing that, then overall, you know, your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health get to be much better.
Elizabeth DiAlto 03:57
This is why I like to place emphasis on doing our part, because too many of us are conditioned to do way more than our parts. And in staying in that conditioning, we not only act in ways that are detrimental to our well being, we really don’t give others the opportunity to step up step in contribute or do their part as well. And not just in relationship to us, but like in the world.
Elizabeth DiAlto 04:20
Lesson number 22. I think I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before is about marketing versus information. I was listening to a book many months ago, by Seth Godin called this is marketing. And it opened my eyes on a deeper level to see and questioning more often. How much information things that I’ve learned over the years and take to be true, especially for me personally in the realms of health and fitness and psychology are actually marketing. How much information is really marketing designed to get us to believe certain things or see things certain ways. So we’ll think we The things that we don’t even studies and this kills me, this is a really big challenge of the Internet age is that you can find things that conclusively prove opposing theories all over the place. I find that very mind fucking maybe you don’t.
Elizabeth DiAlto 05:15
And this is why my opinion embodiment is not just important but crucial and invaluable for navigating our modern, technologically advanced times. Despite any information in marketing, we can tune into ourselves, we can ask ourselves if we really need something, and we get an honest answer. The marketing and information stopped mattering as much when we can get like clear like yeses and noes when we know what resonance and resistance or fear or intuition feel like to us and how they operate and work for us, with us and through us. So we become less coercive will, or influenceable. And more solid and our own inner knowing, understanding and trust within our own system.
Elizabeth DiAlto 06:00
And it’s a funny thing, because I was talking to a friend of mine, over the weekend, I’m recording this on a Monday, I recently finally watched that inventing Ana series on Netflix about that woman and Adele V, the fake German heiress. And it’s the first time in my life I ever hate watched something, I didn’t even understand what hate watch meant until I watched the series, because I was hating like every second of it. But I needed to finish because I was so fascinating, by the inner workings of like a subset of culture that is just not my world, right, like, extremely wealthy rich, we’re talking about like the billionaires, the multi, multi, multi millionaires, you know, like, in my world, I know a lot of people who are millionaires, I know how to like internet millionaires. Which I’m laughing because one of the things my friend and I were talking about is how, like, in this online world, you know, there’s all these people who make like, seven figures, or multiple, seven figures, and they really think they’re the shit.
Elizabeth DiAlto 07:03
Like, they just think that they are the elites, like upper echelon of society. And they don’t even realize that they’re not even scratching the surface, on like, these next levels of, you know, wealth and richness and this crazy shit, and that show, inventing Anna, you know, gives an insight into how people at that level, we’re just operating on a different set of rules than the rest of us. But I bring that up, because I said the word influenceable. And, you know, this is what this age of influence we live it, you know, like, people on social media, people could just pretend, right, because that’s what an Adobe, did she fucking pretend to be an heiress, she pretended to have access to a $67 million Trust Fund, or whatever the amount was, and this girl got herself and I say, girl, because she was like, 2425, at the time, got herself into these rooms, and circles and spheres and places. Seriously, by pretending by creating an image that people bought, they believed it, she played the part and people bought it.
Elizabeth DiAlto 08:16
And this is an area where I have been like, very naive, because I just can’t imagine doing that wanting to do that. Feeling like that’s the way to get anywhere in life. But way more people do shit like that at different levels of scale, right? Like in the annadelle V ROM, it was like, in the millions and billions like trying to secure a $40 million loan that she almost got like unbelievable, right? Whereas, you know, like some of us are like, we apply for like student loans or like a mortgage, it’s like a couple $100,000 or whatever. Some people are really out here in the millions and 10s of millions and hundreds of millions. And it’s just different. It’s just a different atmosphere. But again, to come back to marketing versus information to come back to like this concept and idea of influence. There’s just a lot of shit out there that is not real. And when we’re embodied when we’re connected to ourself, we can really suss out, we could really feel into it. Was this real? Is this aligned for me is this in my values?
Elizabeth DiAlto 09:22
Lesson number 23. Related to this health care, or illness scare. We all have books that change our lives. One of the books in my life that was like, totally reorienting and life changing, is called Dying to be made by Anita Moorjani. I listened to that book in 2014. And it was so moving. She came on the podcast and 2017 By the way, you can go back and find her episode. And I was like beside myself with excitement to speak to her. She’s really like otherworldly to the States. One of my favorite interviews on the show, but something she talks about is healthcare is the healthcare system. And she’s the one that poses that question is this a healthcare system, or is this an illness scare system? Are they always just looking for what’s wrong? And never what’s right? And what does that orientation do to us? How are we ill informed if we’re programmed to only find the issues and treat those, rather than finding what’s good and boosting that, to help address the issues in other ways. It’s an important inquiry that’s influenced a lot of my choices around how we engage with healthcare.
Elizabeth DiAlto 10:25
Lesson number 24. Be careful what you identify with and hold on to hold on to all your identities with a flexible grip. Remember that you are so dynamic and multi dimensional differences in phases of life, require attention and prioritization of different aspects of who you are.
Elizabeth DiAlto 10:46
Hello, everybody quick break in the show. And if you’re hearing this commercial, it is leading up to September 2023, where we are celebrating two things longtime listeners and followers know that every year around my birthday, which is September 14, I always like to do some kind of birthday sale or some kind of birthday offering. This year, we also happen to be celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the School of sacred embodiment. So it is a double exciting celebration this year, coming in September, two things that I am releasing that I am super excited about. Can I say the word exciting. Any more times in this little announcement are the cherish retreat, which is happening in the fall of 2024. This is going to be a retreat about self love and body love and reverence. It will be happening in southern Spain, October 31, and November 6 2024, if you want the details about that retreat, and if you want to receive like the first offer, which is going to include a discount of 10% for the 10 year anniversary of the School of sacred embodiment, get yourself on the retreat interest list by going to untamed yourself.com forward slash retreat dash interest. And as well, I will be launching my body love and reverence course in September, you do not need to get on an interest list for that I will be announcing that far and wide and giving everyone and anyone an opportunity to join that. That’s it, y’all, the birthday anniversary celebrations are coming. Stay tuned, they begin on September 18.
Elizabeth DiAlto 12:16
Be wary as well of allowing others to identify you or identify with you. And really this lesson is that we are all so much more than our identifiers and identity impacts our lives. So being responsible and aware of how we’re engaging with it, both our own and others really matters.
Elizabeth DiAlto 12:42
Number 25. Less armchair diagnosing of people and more clarity and discernment around what kind of behavior treatment and communication works best for you. With a lot of these lessons, I want to remind you all that I look at things like bell curves all the time. More often than not what I’m sharing falls in the big part of the bell curve. With the understanding that many experiences fall on the wings, they’re outliers and less common, but still relevant in this life. And in this age of being so bombarded with information, where many people are holding and responsible for what is usually more than one individual person should be holding or should be responsible for without proper support or systems in place to sermon and boundaries make a really big difference. And ideally, we would all be in more generous, collective supportive communities, and not need to be as bounded or discerning.
Elizabeth DiAlto 13:32
But that’s just not how it works for a lot of us and some people do you have that. And if you’re someone who has that, I celebrate the shit out of that for you. And for others awareness of a lot of the energetics I’ve spoken about in these lessons so far and through the rest of the series makes a really big difference.
Elizabeth DiAlto 13:50
Number 26 We do not need to understand things or how and why they happen in order to heal, grow or learn from them. I may have mentioned this somewhere else but the intense need to know why. And understand things with the mind often blocks understanding that can only happen at the level of the heart and soul which frees us from so many attachments. This is a mystic thing, a cosmic thing. It’s not a rational thing, but it’s real. And if you have the eyes to see and ears to hear, or as I also like to add on to that little phrase the heart to feel something in you knows this is true. Personally early on in my 30s when I got to this point, it was one of the most liberating things in my life.I got so much energy and power back and as a person with ADHD. It helped me so much to be less distracted and less distractible.
Elizabeth DiAlto 14:37
Number 27. So a lot of these lessons I’m elaborating on the next two. I’m not really elaborating on I’m just going to shoot them out. People let attachment to and weird definitions of morality, interfere with good decision making all the time. Put another way, what people decide is good or bad, makes them or others good or bad, often causes them to To make choices that aren’t in anybody’s highest or best all the time, and it’s a real shame.
Elizabeth DiAlto 15:06
Number 28 Is that love truly is the most powerful force in the universe. And here on Earth, where love is extremely powerful and potent, but we also have freewill choice with our truth, integrity, compassion and forgiveness. Love is just not enough sometimes, because there’s a lot of people out there thinking that they’re being loving, that they’re in love that what they’re doing comes from love. And that’s really not where the ship is coming from.
Elizabeth DiAlto 15:35
Number 29 TV, movies, books, stories, plays, poetry, and other expressive arts are so important because we need stories. We need impersonal reflections and eliminations, we need to be moved, we need to be moved on the cellular level without even really knowing why we’re being moved. Sometimes, we need help sometimes feeling what we can’t or seeing what we don’t through characters that we know are fictional and made up. Sometimes the in personalization of it, the separation between ourselves, and the circumstances, or the lesson or the thing that’s happening, or the experience is what allows us to accept and feel and acknowledge what we are actually going through experiencing.
Elizabeth DiAlto 16:21
This is something I love so much about TV and books. Sometimes I will get the most cathartic cry from reading a book or watching something happens on a TV show, or in a movie. And it’s like I didn’t even know I needed a cry, right? Like consciously. If you were to say to me, hey, hey, dude, over there, you got any like, grief in your system? Do you need to release anything? I’d be like, No, I’m good. But then there I am. I get to a certain part of a story in a book or TV show or movie. And I’m sobbing. And it’s cathartic. And it’s a release. I didn’t know I needed. But something just like sparked happen or touched me in a way that opened up those floodgates that I wouldn’t have consciously known to open up myself. I think that’s miraculous. And I love that so much.
Elizabeth DiAlto 17:05
I recently read a book called light in uncommon stars or light from uncommon stars by a woman named breaker. Aoki, I hope I’m saying that correctly. And one of the characters was an alien. And just didn’t understand why one of the other characters who was a musician, why music was so important. Later on in the book, she gets it. And that’s not really spoiling anything by just keeping it that simple by saying it to you. But it was exactly this point. And I love that because I’d already written this point. And then it was happening in the book. And I’m like, Yes, we just sometimes, we can’t consciously access the things we need to feel, and expressive arts allow us to access those things.
Elizabeth DiAlto 17:50
Lesson number 30, which is the last lesson of the day today is, it’s been really important for me this year to create levels in my work. And to be more clear first with myself, then, of course, with anyone interested in what I offer, right, so membership programs, courses, workshops, or events, retreats, which I’m bringing back next year, that some things are for anyone who identifies as a mystic or spiritual seeker on any level. And other things are for more seasons and advanced people. And I realized both in my personal and professional life this year, especially that people can be working on themselves. For years, even, you know, people could go to therapy, people could read books, people could be doing coaching and stuff like that, and still be operating as more of a beginner, or in the context of embodiment and sacredness, they’re still operating very much from the mind, and not from embodied awareness and understanding.
Elizabeth DiAlto 18:53
And the distinction here is that people who are less embodied and regard themselves life and others with less sacredness, still operating predominantly from their heads, not their hearts, their bodies, or their souls are just going to be functioning in a different way than people who are just operating from those depths, right, from the different perspectives from the different lenses from the different perceptions that are more contextualized embodied reverent. And it’s not that being in one place is better than being in another place. It’s just a totally different operating system, operating experience.
Elizabeth DiAlto 19:42
And, again, like it’s not a knock on anybody for being exactly where they are. It’s just an important distinction that I had to realize, to better communicate, who my offerings are for and what makes them a good fit for people or not. And also what makes people a good fit for me or not. This one The reasons I love training sacred emodiment specialists in the years to come, I look forward to handing off some of the operations and facilitation in my business to people to work with the more beginner slash in their head people, so that I can continue doing the deeper, more mystical, sacred embodiment work with folks who are just beyond the still very much in their head point. I spent the first 10 years of this business, creating these multiple layers and entry points for people to get out of their heads and into their bodies, and then from their bodies more deeply into their souls.
Elizabeth DiAlto 20:32
And what I find is that it’s a great kindness to meet people where they are, rather than trying to sell people things they’re not ready for. And that was a lesson I had to learn in the process of doing all that right. Realizing getting much better at discerning Who’s ready for what, not from a judgment place, just from like, it’s it’s no different than taking a you know, an assessment like a placement exam. For example, this summer I went to Puerto Rico for a couple weeks, I went to a Spanish language school. And before I started, I had to take an assessment to take a speaking assessment. So they could see like, what level where I actually was because the school emphasizes and focuses more on speaking.
Elizabeth DiAlto 21:13
So there was literally and you know, just because I started out in the level, I think it was called like a two. So not beginner, beginner, but certainly not that advanced. And then in my second week, I bumped up to another level. But you know, people who were at higher levels, they’re not like, better, more worthy, or were valuable human beings, because they’re more fluent and conversational Spanish. It’s just where someone is, there’s just nothing wrong.
Elizabeth DiAlto 21:40
And what’s interesting is, I’m realizing, as I’m saying it, this is a really good metaphor for this. Because of my first week of school, there was a man in my class, who he was probably a little below the level, but it raised him up, right to be in that space, where as the following week, the students who came in, because even within the levels, there’s a little variance, the students who came in were like much more beginner and he had stayed at that level. And he felt like everything was stuff here. And you know, it was almost like a waste of a week for him. But he wasn’t quite at the level like to bump up like I did. And so he was kind of stuck, you know, with the class that he was in. So it was more of a review that we didn’t necessarily learning new things.
Elizabeth DiAlto 22:23
But that was better for him than sitting in a class that was going to be moving at a pace, that wouldn’t have worked for him. Right, if he was sitting there basically not understanding a lot of what people were saying, or if it was moving too quickly for him a week, that also wouldn’t have been helpful. So, you know, in an effort to be inclusive over the years, and make things accessible for people over the years, this is one of the areas where I’ve really had to like, go back and kind of reassess, how do I also meet people where they are, and place people into things or offer people things that are really just going to be the best for them, like where they are right now. So if that made sense, made sense, to me.
Elizabeth DiAlto 23:09
Part of this requires some self honesty from people, and an ability to locate themselves, which some folks just aren’t great at. And that’s okay. Because some people are in their ego, right? Like they want to, they want to be more advanced, they want to be better than they are. And Kenick, I just can’t emphasize enough how, okay, it is always to be exactly where you are. And also, this is why I love to look at life categorically. Because you might be super advanced in certain areas and a little bit more of a beginner in other places. I was just chatting with another friend over the weekend, who mutual friend of ours just started going to therapy, or I don’t know how long she’s been in therapy for. But she’s having all these great realizations, which is amazing.
Elizabeth DiAlto 23:50
And we you know, for someone who’s been doing therapy for a very long time, it’s like, oh, great, like, I learned that shit 10 years ago, but not like condescending way. It’s like, it’s so amazing that you’re learning this at any moment in your life, you know, whereas some people would look down on their nose and be like, I learned that 10 years ago, you know, like, catch up. It’s not that like, that’s where she is she she’s just started learning this kind of stuff. And I think that is amazing. Ultimately, this is about the right people always ending up in the exact place they need to be, whether it ends up being because it’s the correct offering for them, or learning a lesson about joining things when they aren’t really ready or equipped to follow through, or something else.
Elizabeth DiAlto 24:29
You know, like I certainly over the years, some of the best learnings of my life came from joining programs or offerings that actually weren’t appropriate for me for whatever reason, and leaving, like exiting, recognizing, locating myself realizing things about like the teacher or the guide or the facilitation or the values of the organization or whatever. I mean, like, this is not for me, but now I know better. And now more clear on what is.
Elizabeth DiAlto 24:55
So those were our 10 lessons for today. We will wrap up next week. I’m going gotten a little bit of a kick out of how episode number 440 will be the final and that will be my 40th birthday week. I love when shit works out like that. So again, hope you’re enjoying these. I know I don’t I do this kind of every year. I don’t know if I’ll keep doing it next year, but just dropping these little nuggets. Maybe it helps you integrate something, maybe it doesn’t maybe gives you things to think about or form your own opinions. Because again, you might hear some of what I’m saying and be like, Yeah, I dig that. But I think it’s a little more nuanced, or I have a different opinion or I think this way about that great. All I ever want this show to do is just help people connect more deeply with themselves show up better for their own lives for the people around them be more loving, caring, generous, people, creating some space for the divine to like work some miracles in your life, to have as much joy as humanly possible in a world that kind of makes Joy a little hard and challenging for people sometimes.
Elizabeth DiAlto 25:56
So shownotes or an untamed yourself.com forward slash podcast, and for any of our offerings that are coming up, you could always go to untamed yourself.com forward slash links. We just always keep that updated. So there’s always one place if you’re ever like I wonder if there’s a retreat or a class or if the memberships open or you know what’s going on in the school is sacred embodiment. If you go to untamed yourself.com, forward slash links, whatever we’ve got coming up will always be right there. All right, y’all. We’ll be back next week for the final installment. Thanks for listening