In this episode, I elaborate on ways that context and soulful prosperity overlap with each other. We need context for healthy, productive, and joyful interactions, and so much of that relates back to values. I find that when I open myself up to understand the complexity of situations, it’s easier to be who I’m meant to be. When we have context, we have peace, focus, and direction in our lives, and what’s more prosperous than that?
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In episode 430 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:
(2:23) Why I’m really big on context
(6:04) Engaging with context for the sake of competence and connection
(11:13) What the Soulful Prosperity Framework is all about
(14:19) One of the biggest reasons why reasons people struggle to trust themselves and their intuition
(18:34) Why it’s so important to look at prosperity in different contexts
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- Join me on July 22nd for the Soulful Prosperity Workshop
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Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:
- If you want better connections in any area – personal, professional, with your kids, with your family, with all different types of people – get in the habit of creating, asking for, and putting in the effort to know where people are coming from, aka create context.
- You should have an explicit set of values and check in with them regularly to review and edit them when necessary. These are your barometers for deciding whether or not something is worth your time, energy, attention, and effort.
- If you can build a life for yourself where you’re coming from wisdom more often than you’re coming from wounds, that’s a great life.
- Too many people in this world take it personally when they’re lacking something, and in a lot of cases, it’s not actually their fault. Some people literally lay in bed at night wondering what’s wrong with them instead of what’s wrong with the structures and systems in this world.
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 430 “On Context and Soulful Prosperity“:
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:00
Having values will help you determine who to spend the most time with give the most energy and attention too often we’ll hear people talk about having like shared interests. But having shared values is a much better barometer because we can share values with people, even if we don’t share interests with them. So when I talk about things mattering, what I really mean is that things that align with your values. That’s kind of the determination of does this matter? Or does this not matter?
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:33
What’s up everybody, welcome to episode number 430 of The Embodied Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth DiAlto. And today we are getting into two things. I friggin love talking about context, and soulful prosperity. Now I understand that one of those things context probably doesn’t sound super sexy to you. The other thing soulful prosperity might sound sexier. But this is really a weaving episode. And what I mean by weaving is, I’m going to be talking about a few things that overlap and intertwine with each other. In many ways, that might not be glaringly obvious. Some of them are, some of them might also feel a little esoteric, but this is also really a dot connecting episode, where I know I’m going to hear from some of you like, Oh, my goodness, I never thought of it that way before. But that makes a lot of sense. And I love I love when we get to connect some dots together. So you might want to listen to this one more than once and see what pieces are most relevant for you right now.
Elizabeth DiAlto 01:30
This is also one of those episodes, that would be great to treat like a book club, or a conversation piece with friends and loved ones, to see which pieces jump out at them which pieces are significant or important or meaningful or illuminating to them, so that you can learn more about each other. And that in and of itself is a little bit meta because the episode is about context. So one of my goals also with this episode is if you share it with people and you use it for discussion points to create more shared contexts, it can really improve your relationships, your connection, your intimacy, your understanding of the people that you talk to. Also, if you want to geek out with us and talk about it in the wild soul community. Remember, we now have the free wild soul community on mighty networks, which you can join at untie yourself.com forward slash free Dash community.
Elizabeth DiAlto 02:23
So those of you who are either or both longterm podcast listeners or members of my programs and courses, or have done any weekend’s or healing sessions with me and stuff over the years, know that I am really big on context. I’m not obsessive about it, but bordering. And the reason why is because perception and understanding, which are two pretty important things in life are rooted in context, intimacy, also important rooted in context.
Elizabeth DiAlto 02:55
And when people don’t have context for something, or have different contexts than we do, or than other people do, that can do one or two things that can create a divide, or it can create a connection. Either way, context builds, bridges, context builds competence, if you want better connections in your life, in any area, right, personal and professional, with your kids, with your family, with all different types of people get in the habit of creating, asking for and putting in the effort to the best of your ability to know where people are coming from AKA, create context, like get their context, share your contexts.And we need context for healthy, useful, productive and satisfying supportive relationships, interactions experiences just about everything.
Elizabeth DiAlto 03:48
And it’s also important to remember that everything’s just on a spectrum. So if we look at having a desire for correct context on a spectrum, what might be on one extreme end is this hyper vigilance around wanting to know everything, be perfect, understand everything, so you can’t miss up, do harm, or miss perceive things. And that’s on the end of wanting to know the context. And the hyper vigilance on the end of wanting to set context is really this hyper vigilance for wanting to be understood, not wanting to be misunderstood. And we all know that everything you just said about this extreme ends of the spectrum, is that it’s impossible. It’s impossible to do those things.
Elizabeth DiAlto 04:30
On the other end would be more like not giving a shit and allowing yourself to be ignorant or maintain a lot of incompetence, when it comes to the side of getting context. And in some cases, not giving context or not really sharing at all, or keeping a lot of things to yourself, even when people are being curious with you. That could be more about being avoidant, not trusting people, stuff like that. So when we say things exist on a spectrum. Usually the thing at the different ends of the spectrum are going to be these extremes that nobody actually wants, but sometimes find themselves in. And then of course, in the middle there in the spectrum is going to be where the sweet spot is.
Elizabeth DiAlto 05:17
So in this case, were having a healthy relationship with context, lips. And that might look like you know, you put effort towards it, you approach things with curiosity, you keep the awareness, top of mind that, of course, there’s no way to know everything about everything or everyone. And if or when you’re missing some context, that’s great. Like, when you discover things you don’t know, fantastic, now you have an opportunity to learn, doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it doesn’t mean you’re a fool. It just means you just didn’t know that. And you know, there’s a lot of stuff to know. So it’s okay. You can be curious, you can be humble, you can apologize if necessary, if that you were missing context caused you to do something, you know, insensitive or harmful. And also, you can dig in on things that are important to you.
Elizabeth DiAlto 06:04
This is engaging with context for the sake of competence and connection. And I want to elaborate on a couple things here. First of all, the use of the word competence, it does not sound sexy, it does not sound exciting, it might not sound like something really desirable to you, it almost has a connotation of like, an average, like mediocre thing, right? Like simply just being competent at something. So like everything else, competence is going to exist on a spectrum. And you can relate like when you’re first learning something, depending on how difficult it is, you will be in a phase of conscious competence, meaning you’re learning, meaning you have to think about it, you have to pause.
Elizabeth DiAlto 06:45
For me a great example of this right now is the Spanish language, I have a lot of competence, I understand a lot, I could speak fairly well, especially after the two week immersion I just did in Puerto Rico at a language school. However, I still really have to think about it. I speak very slowly, I take a lot of pauses in between sentences, to really think about the next sentence or the words or how I’m going to formulate the words I’m going to choose. So I am currently in the conscious competence phase with my Spanish, right when we get to unconscious competence is when we don’t have to think about it when it just flows when it’s natural when there’s ease. And it feels like second nature. And so again, depending on where you are on the spectrum of competence, I could be a really amazing thing. And it can also just be an honest area where you’re working on it, you’re improving.
Elizabeth DiAlto 07:39
The other thing I want to elaborate on is where I said you can really dig it on things that are important to you. As often as humanly possible. I try not to use the word should, but I am going to use it here. Having values that are clear that you live by, and really use as guideposts in your life makes it easy to be discerning about what and when you put effort towards getting context for things because again, we can’t all always have all the context for all the things. So where I’m going to use the word should here is on that you should have an explicit set of values, you should check in with them regularly, and to review and edit them when necessary. Because these are your barometers for deciding whether or not something is worth your time, energy, attention and effort. And also, it is okay, that not all things matter. In the same way to everyone having values will help you determine who to spend the most time with give the most energy and attention to.
Elizabeth DiAlto 08:40
And the reason why I’m talking about using values as a barometer. And not using something like interest as a barometer. You know, often we’ll hear people talk about having like shared interests, but having shared values is a much better barometer because we can share values with people, even if we don’t share interests with them. So when I talk about things mattering, what I really mean is that things that align with your values, that’s kind of the determination of does this matter? Or does this not matter? And it might also be does this matter right now, whether or not something aligns with your values might also just determine like the urgency of whether or not you want to put time, energy attention or resources towards something.
Elizabeth DiAlto 09:24
And this is important to think about, because sometimes, especially if you’re a person who like cares about a lot of things, it’s hard to admit when things that are important, don’t matter as much to you personally, or just are not something that you either wish to or can currently prioritize. Because obviously, we all only have so much capacity. And this is where often a lot of people’s sense of obligation or a duty will come up and then they’ll spread themselves really thin overextend themselves and putting themselves out and this community and the school sacred and body Have, we always placed the highest value on things that are for collective good on a level, and those are the types of things we prioritize
Elizabeth DiAlto 10:06
Personally, I’m not interested in things that only serve individuals. And one of my least favorite things about the proliferation of the law of attraction in the last few decades, is how skilled people have become at justifying their greed and entitlement as some kind of divine birthright, or even worse, like it’s some evidence of superior vibration or frequency or energetics. If that were true, the richest people on the planet would be the happiest, most generous and most benevolent, and we all know that’s not true. And on the flip side of it, people who have the least would be the saddest, greediest, most negative, worst humans you’ve ever met. And we also know that that is definitely not true either.
Elizabeth DiAlto 10:47
So unless people who are out here amassing incredible wealth and resources, are doing way more with it than just advancing the lot of their own families and interests that benefit them personally, I promise you, that is no divine birthright, and they are often peddling entitlement as empowerment. And that doesn’t mean that people should be sacrificing themselves or not enjoying or investing in nice things or experiences. This is really a commentary about excess.
Elizabeth DiAlto 11:13
This is one of the reasons why I created the soulful prosperity framework to help people get in better relationship with work productivity and resources. Now, I first mentioned this framework, which some of you might remember, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time, without naming it back in I think it was November or December of 2021. It was towards the end of 2021. As well, if you tuned in for the real uplevel interview series, you know that we discussed it with most of the guests. So the framework is sufficiency, sustainability, satisfaction and soulfulness. After the real up level, I surveyed participants to see if they’d be interested in a dedicated workshop about what I’m now calling the soulful prosperity framework sufficiency, sustainability, satisfaction and soulfulness. And if people said, yes, that I decided to do it, so I’m really excited for that.
Elizabeth DiAlto 12:02
We’re going to do it on July 22, coming up next month, which is Mary Magdalene Feast Day, which some of you know is a very, very significant and important day of the year to me, which is why I chose that day to do the workshop because it feels like there will be some extra potent energy on that specific day. And if you want to check that out, you can go to untamed yourself.com forward slash soulful, dash prosperity and join the workshop if it sounds like something you’d be interested in that would be useful to you. And what we’re going to be getting into is, you know, it’s easy to broadly define these terms, right sufficiency, sustainability, satisfaction and soulfulness. Everyone could create their own definitions and put those on their own terms.
Elizabeth DiAlto 12:44
And so why I’m excited to do a workshop to gather together is to specifically workshop each of those things together, and have a dedicated space to talk it out and get into relevant to this episode, the context for each one, the nuances, what some people might value that might make up their terms or definitions for those things versus what others might. And we’re also going to get up in the nitty gritty and help people define their terms, and see what changes shifts or adjustments they need to make, perhaps in the short and long term, to have better, more loving and nourishing life experiences overall, with money, career, wealth, productivity, resources work, and as well living in a capitalistic society, when that conflicts with your personal values.
Elizabeth DiAlto 13:35
Because for many of us, having to live in a capitalistic society often puts us in these situations that really feel like double binds. And this is one reason why healing is so important, because it opens up our perspective on things. So we can see things through our wisdom, not our wounding with context and curiosity with competence, rather than incompetence or arrogance, we’re able to see things in a way even if there’s, you know, conflicting things to navigate, we’re able to see things in a way that brings us more peace, more hope, more satisfaction, and in a lot of cases, just less guilt, less tension, less frustration.
Elizabeth DiAlto 14:19
And next thing we’re gonna about to say just want to be clear before I say it, this is not a dig at anybody, because everyone’s path timing and journeys are different. But I do want to give you a barometer for this. People who struggle to trust themselves and their intuition. One of the biggest reason why reasons why is because they’re afraid to be wrong. Fear of being wrong, or messing up is not coming that does not come from wisdom. Because wisdom says it’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to mess up. It’s even okay to fail. This is what healthy communication apologies we’re in repair for. This is where we got some of our life’s biggest lessons. And in some cases, we have to go through those trials and tribulations so that We could see what is the contrast what’s on the other side of them.
Elizabeth DiAlto 15:03
Wisdom also says that being wrong and messing up are inevitable. There’s not a person in the world who doesn’t mess up, make mistakes, who isn’t wrong sometimes, right? No matter how excellent, you might be at not admitting it. Everyone has those experiences. And then on the other end of things, if you’re barreling through life, without concern for your impact, and no consideration of other people’s contexts or experiences, that’s not wisdom, either. That’s arrogance. So needing to be right or know best comes from a different kind of wounds. So again, this is why we focus on healing and liberation in the School of sacred embodiment. Because ultimately, if you can build a life for yourself, where you’re coming from wisdom more often than you’re coming from wounds, that’s a great life.
Elizabeth DiAlto 15:51
And doesn’t mean you need to eradicate or heal every wound, I’m just talking about this is math, this is ratios. If more of your life is coming from wisdom, and less of it is coming from wounds, that’s going to be again, a better, more enjoyable and more satisfying more. There’s another word, more joyful, more joyful existence. And listen, this is why you hear me talk about context and nuance a lot and say things like explains it, but doesn’t excuse it, we can be extremely compassionate with folks who are incompetent in certain areas, and don’t know what they don’t know, even folks who harm us or have abused us. That doesn’t mean we need to stick around and take their abuse, or tolerate their lack of desire or ability to learn and do better, if that’s what they consistently demonstrate.
Elizabeth DiAlto 16:35
As well, in order to do our own part, we need to look at the places and spaces where were the harmful, abusive or incompetent ones, because listen, none of us are above any of that. So going back to context, I got a really, really great learning about context. While I was in Puerto Rico over the last two weeks, I wanted to do a language immersion and I wanted to do it with my own people. I did not learn Spanish from my family growing up any Spanish I learned I learned in school. And something my teacher in school shared with me during the immersion is that a lot of American schools teach Spanish as if it should be a direct translation of English. And I really see this on my previous understanding of the language. Aside from having a lot of vocabulary and a basic knowledge of present and past verb tenses. I had next to no understanding of the nuances and how the language functions.
Elizabeth DiAlto 17:23
This is also why a lot of translation apps like Google Translate or spanishdict aren’t that great because they’re directly translating things. And there are a lot of things that simply don’t translate directly. And you see this also, if you ever look up lyrics to a song and another language, and then hit the Translate button, some of the sentences might make very little sense, because again, they’re just directly translating them. Not to mention that you could say the same exact thing. But depending on the context of the situation, how you say it, your body language the face you make, while you’re saying it can make the meaning totally different. And of course, we have this an English shoe. It’s funny because I was trying to think of like an expression or a word that this applies to.
Elizabeth DiAlto 18:06
And as a New Yorker, the first word that came to my mind is the word Yo, you know, like yo could be a greeting, like, Yo, what’s up, it could be a way to get someone’s attention, like, Yo, right? Often I use the word do when someone tells me something that’s like messed up, I’m like, yo, you know, like, there’s, and of course, there’s phrases like that in Spanish. There’s phrases like that in every language. And again, this is another example of how and why context matters.
Elizabeth DiAlto 18:34
So getting back to soulful prosperity for a second, something else I really love about this framework, and the overall discussion of it is that prosperity also has many contexts. It is not just about money, there are so many ways to be prosperous in our lives. And when I looked up the definition, and the definition of prosperous is just bringing wealth and success. And if we look at those two terms, as well, like we can all put our own definitions on what wealth or being wealthy are, or what success and being successful. And especially there are contexts for these things beyond money and material things, although they might be used most frequently in the context of money and material things.
Elizabeth DiAlto 19:19
And for some both might involve having a certain amount of money. For others money might just be a small piece of it. I’m one of those people for me, when I evaluate like prosperity, wealth or success in my life. Money is a piece and it’s not the primary focus. Which reminds me of another pet peeve I have with New Age spirituality, around wealth, money and prosperity. Any teaching that implies that your self worth is your net worth makes me want to combination vomit, and break things. Anyone who’s ever been an overachiever driven by the need to please improve themselves knows that it is not true. feel that your self worth is your net worth, because there are people out there that only have amassed a lot, because they have surely been driven by a low self worth and a need to prove themselves through accomplishment as well. Anyone with even a mile awareness of social inequities and systemic oppression knows that there are plenty of folks who value themselves and just happen to be facing hurdles to access things, in order to air quote, succeed on the same level as folks who don’t have those hurdles.
Elizabeth DiAlto 20:34
And this is the last thing I’ll say about social prosperity today. shifting into this lens of engaging with prosperity is also a solution to constantly feeling discouraged, disappointed, or turning lack entirely in on yourself, which is what a lot of people do, and is almost never correct. to too many people in this world. Take it personally, when they’re lacking something. And a lot of cases, it’s not actually their faults, right. Some people literally lay in bed at night wondering what’s wrong with them, instead of what’s wrong with the structures and systems in this world. Or for those who think about the structures and systems in this world and constantly feel crushed by them. One of the things I love about this framework is that using the framework can bring a lot of peace, focus and direction to their lives can give them something else to focus on. So they can move forward, regardless of how their measurements of things. Look, again, with just a lot more peace, focus and direction.
Elizabeth DiAlto 21:28
So all of this brings people into better relationships with themselves and with other people. So you can be who you’re here to be, do what you’re here to do without the incessant distraction of thinking that you should want have accomplished and create things in ways that aren’t meant for you. Which ultimately, again, all of this requires contexts. So that’s it today, y’all. I hope you see what I meant in the beginning of the episode, when I said it was going to be a weaving episode. And as well, reminder that the link if you want to join the soulful prosperity workshop on July 22 is untamed yourself.com forward slash soulful dash prosperity.
Elizabeth DiAlto 22:09
And I really, really am looking forward to that. This is one of the reasons why I’m giving you so much time in advance to join is so you can plan ahead and do your best to be there live. That’s also why I chose Mary Magdalene feast day because it’s a Saturday. And just for me in my own work, I noticed that whenever we do things on a weekend, many, many, many more people are able to show up. So that is going to be excellent. If you want to reference the other episode where I talked about this or any of the other links or things that I mentioned that would be in the show notes. You can go to untamed yourself.com forward slash podcast for the show notes and we will see you later