Hi, we're Cinthia Varkevisser And Michelle Walters, co hosts of mind power needs mystic. Our weekly show is here to expand your mind to what's possible to uplift your spirits to move forward with competence and joy, and to create a space for your collaboration with the invisible. Welcome to mind power needs mystic. Welcome, everyone to mind power meets mystic I am Michelle Walters with my co host Cinthia Varkevisser, we have decided to take this episode to talk about growth, specifically unintentional growth, followed by intentional growth, because we feel like these are very important distinctions and both have a lot going on. So Cinthia I'm going to put you on the hot seat first. Tell me about some examples of what we mean by unintentional growth. Unintentional growth, for me is anything that happens that's really hard or really big. So death. You know, I think about, we were just talking about deaths of our loved ones like my my mom, and you with your, you know, your beloved Scott. Divorce is a huge one. And huge one, job loss is actually a big one. And it's not always about loss. Right. The big changes can also be a marriage, although that's a little bit tricky. And we can talk about that later. parenthood, especially motherhood, I mean, you got this thing coming out of your body, or things are not things but the evil. Yeah, these beings coming out of your body now like, whoa, what do I do with this now? Yeah, or Wow, that just came out of my body. And then I don't know about you, but I actually had to, like, touch my body. To believe that my my beings were out that they were truly from my body. You know, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm, this is I could feel like, this is all 100% Me and not at a house for, you know, these things. Do to moving very intentional. And it can also be unintentional. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, moving out moving in. So really the what is it? The five the five traumas, which is, you know, death, birth, divorce moving? I think it's jobs, and jobs. Yeah, those are, those are certainly huge. Right are huge, and intangibles, huge on the unintentional. And I mean, I would say that I haven't really liked the growth that has been to me from my potentials. But it certainly has been big. I think a lot of my, my biggest life lessons, my biggest changes in life have really come about because of things I didn't, I didn't plan for I didn't foresee I didn't, I didn't know about. And you know, so for, for the listeners who haven't heard, I had a wonderful partner I met a number of years ago, and he passed away a little over two years ago. And he'd been sick for a year or two. So I mean, it makes sense that you would kind of know that he was going to he had been really quite sick. But when he ultimately passed, it was it was a surprise, which I think often even when you know somebody has been sick death can feel like a surprise. And I had to grow a lot as a result of that. And it it brought up all kinds of feelings because I lost my husband, Bruce, in 2011. Before that, and there is this thing about when you when you are grieving someone that it can touch off, you know, recollections of previous losses related or unrelated, that that really surface in your heart, and can be really hard to really hard to overcome. Right, right. I agree. It's similar for me, where my mom got sick. Well, let me back up. My dad passed when I was 20 years old, and it was sudden it was a heart attack. And he passed away in our backyard. And so I was young, and I didn't really understand but there was a growth because that's actually what touched off my spiritual work. And if you talk to a lot of lightworkers they it's usually the death loss that gets them kickstarted or a near death experience, which is also a loss. And then what happened with my mom is when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, that I knew I had some time. And I had a chance to process and, and be a daughter and in really sit with this illness, and, and and then have loss and it was hard because with my mom, it was loss of family because my brother and I separated. And my mom was the one that kept my extended family and I connected and then that was that was done. So there was a there's a thing about that loss. And although with you and Scott, it there was a year of sickness a year really isn't a whole lot of time, if you think about it, right? No, it wasn't it wasn't a lot of time, and he had actually been sick for more than a year. But the last year he was really sick and on dialysis and had, you know, like it was kind of there were some signs that his life quality had had suffered a lot. But it doesn't change the fact that I mean grief is just super hard to super hard to navigate and go through. And even if even if you're good at grief, even if you're a grief counselor, the grief counselors talk about how they have trouble with grief, like going through it multiple times. Doesn't doesn't upskill you at at a coping with coping with major major loss. And then I've never been through a divorce but you divorced. And that's it. That's a that's a big deal that a lot of people have to go through. Right. Right. The thing about divorce is, again, it's not really fast, and will end our divorce was amicable. So there, the divorce attorney says, you know, there's usually a stopping point. And it's not a stopping point forever. But there's a stopping point, like a pause. And and I thought no, this is amicable, it's it's going to be fine. And sure enough, there was because you're going through loss. And then there's a stop in the stop can be either fear or checking out to see if you're remorseful or so many different things. But it's it's a weird pause, where you're dealing with loss. And you're starting to to reconcile. And then you you move forward. I haven't talked with anybody who's decided not to divorce, but there really is that pause point. So yeah, and I know that, you know, we have been perpetually unemployed. I love saying that. I know, you can't stand that, Michelle. Because as a creative, it's really easy to work your way out of a job. Right? Really, really works on your self worth. And that's another place where people grow where they decide that it's not that they're poor employees, but that they were meant to do take a creative step and then become entrepreneurs. Well, I mean, that's, that's a lot of my journey I wrote so much of my journey, I wrote a book about it, write my book, and alignment of spirit finding work you love is really all about my story of sort of finding a job, and then I'm at that job for a year or some period of time, and then the job falls apart. And, you know, once or twice, it was on me, there was something I did or didn't do that was relevant to the end of that employment. But most of my the vast majority of those times when I shifted Jobs was you know, somebody got a promotion, the agency got fired, like it was well outside of anything that had to do with my individual energy. And yet those can be and certainly for me were were times of unintentional growth. Right. Here's the funny part, though. I know that you wrote the book, that you were trying out a depth a couple of different things before you landed on hypnotherapy, right? For me, what happened was, I was getting bored, I couldn't find my I knew it wasn't my calling. And I knew that I had to be really invested in the thing that I wanted to be spiritually invested emotionally invested in order to be physically invested. I mean, that's, that's a Virgo thing. So I'm a Virgo in that way. And I wasn't invested I couldn't find a way to get invested. And so I decided to take a creative route and I became a consultant and took a little piece of my job and and taught to other contract, you know, construction companies to take one little piece of that work. And, you know, fill in a thing that people needed, which is job setup and job close out the part that most contractors hate. Right? So. So I took that piece. And again, I loved it I loved, I'll be honest, I love being around, you know, it was mostly men. And I love being around so many men. And that it still didn't fulfill me because it wasn't my calling so and so it was time to take a leap into the spiritual work. And even then I wouldn't call it a leap, I would call it tiptoeing like tiptoed in, and I am, you know, just starting to make a leap. What about for you? What was that? What was the thing, because you need that, you need that? I don't really call it grief, although it was lost with the you know, with knowing that you're not there for the job that created space to to make that change. So what was it for you? Oh, that's a long and complicated, I think answer any question when it came to, you know, I mean, I've made all those changes, and I had breaks of, you know, anywhere from a month to a year, between my various work that I was doing before this change into hypnotherapy, I had trained on the side, and then made this change, because my company decided to go out of business in the United States. And I don't speak Spanish, there were no jobs for me in Spain. So you know, that was just kind of what, what catalyzed? The last one? If, if we will, so I thought we might take a moment to share any tips we have for handling unintentional growth. Right? You want to go above any tips? Yeah, what would you do? I do, especially, you know, we're in the midst of this great shift. So everybody's going through change, if you have any kind of intuitive sensitivity, you know, that there's this big shift going on. First one is to get in alignment, and alignment, for me means to get your body in sync with your emotions, and your and your intellect or your analytical self. And then the intuition and the spiritual part is going to follow. And we can do that through meditation, your hypnosis is very helpful. Having people around you that vibe with you, so that, you know that if you're out of alignment, you can tell through your people. So those that that's the kind of alignment that I would be talking about. So that's a, that's a really good thing is to make sure that you're aligned emotionally, physically and analytically. And don't worry about spiritually just yet, but about you, I would say, put on your sea legs, you know, feeling like the boat is rocking, and it's going back and forth. And how do you find a way to make it through, you know, that constant rocking motion of feeling a little better, feeling a little worse, remembering your loved one unable to get anything done having a good day, like? And so I mean, I think we're seeing kind of a similar thing, but I just kind of think of it as, as trying to recognize that, you know, for a long time, you're going to be in a period of constant adjustment. And that's, that's, that's the reality of unintended growth. Right? Well, the other one that I would say, is your gratitudes. And to take a look at, even in the, in the most disastrous times, and I'm talking catastrophic, which I've, I'll knock on wood that I haven't, there are moments of beauty, so gratitudes, and to really sit and be present in those moments of beauty. There. Yeah, I'm want to remind all of our listeners that we are Cinthia Varkevisser, and I am Michelle Walters, you are listening to or watching mine power meets mistake, our weekly podcast, where we share what we think, and lots of guests and lots of fun activities and things we have going on. So I'm going to wrap up our chat on unintentional growth and move on to part two, intentional growth because the unintentional side of things is exactly that a lot of times like, it's really a matter of kind of figuring out how to swim once you've fallen in the pond. But the intentional growth can be a little bit more, I think, a little bit more fun. And is an excellent way to to focus because we all need to have focus and we all need to grow. I mean I I don't know about you Cinthia. But I kind of believe that we are here as humans to experience and play and learn and suffer and conquest and have all of these very vibrant experiences. And I like the idea of being intentional in my growth, and trying to put some of those milestones ahead of me and kind of walk down a path that that is is of my choosing. Right? Well, let's talk about what is intentional growth. Good. So for me, intentional growth is picking a good habit. Right? Meditation, exercise, kindness, you name it. So, for me, it's about having a morning ritual. That's the one I'm working on right now. So what about for you for intentional growth? What did I think about intentional growth? I think about being self aware. And kind of what where do I stand right now versus where do I want to be? And I tend to think about it more, maybe because I'm like, a total school nerd kind of person. But like, what do I need to learn? What, what what, what is it? What is something that I don't know enough about yet, or I haven't had enough experience with, and hence my sort of trying to figure out a little bit more about things like racism, because I'm super White. And so, like, how do I be a better ally, how do I be a better anti racist? So that's one thing, and then, you know, I think, think about it in terms of your work, like, where do you want to be in five years? What is it that you want to be doing? So those are kind of the things that I that I think about when I think about intentional growth. And yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's all really important to have that. That is really important. And I think that I want to bring up here to Michelle is that, if you're feeling stuck in your life, that's usually a cue that you're not growing, that you're not learning. So if you are feeling stuck in, in any particular area, or if there's if there's something about your life that you're just not happy with, that's a good clue, you know, pull on that thread, see what's going on in there. Right. And it's also a clue that you may be resisting growth. So we, there's, there's like a contradiction in our, in our brains and in our souls where we want to grow, we want to get bigger, we want to get better, we want to get stronger. But then there's the self preservation part of us that wants to keep us safe and small and quiet. And so there's this there's this dichotomy, that goes on and you get to choose, you know, am I going to be in resistance to growth? Or am I going to embrace it, and it is absolutely true. I mean, for the, I think for all of us, you know, if we're stuck, there's someplace we're not growing, if we're if we're not, if we're not happy with something, there's someplace we're not growing. And, and growth is difficult, right? I mean, I think about learning Spanish, which is one of the things I'm working on right now. And I'm frustrated with how little progress I've made. But I remind myself that it's, you know, I have an adult brain, I'm not a child, I'm not immersed in the language, it's, it's, it's an exercise in growth, and that is often uncomfortable. I mean, if you think about, like, when your kids, and your your feet are growing, or your legs are growing, like, there's, there's, there's growing pains. And we have those emotional and intellectual growing pains as well. But that's, that's a good thing. Right? Well, it is and it isn't. I mean, the other side of growth is destruction. And so, you know, you think about this child in the womb, and you think about the caterpillar. And I'm sure there's many more that I'm not thinking about, where you're in a place of growth, and then it gets super uncomfortable. And then there's destruction and then it's not until after the destruction that you get to you get to grow into what you've become and even and then it's more destruction. I mean, think about puberty. And then, you know, I look at my my teeth and the wear and tear and the pain of braces. So So yeah, I think, you know, we do have to be careful about that because that can also be part of that that resistance is, well, I don't want to go through that discomfort again. And it's hard. So we, you know, it's, it's, it's a fine line to walk. And I think we can be intentional about our growth without putting ourselves through unnecessary trauma. I mean, I think, you know, in terms of emotional growth, I, I can I've had enough trauma in my life that I don't need to be I don't need to seek it out. Right? Yeah. That makes perfect sense to me. Absolutely. Well, you know, I think we're getting near the end of our time for today. But I wanted to thank you for having this great conversation with me about about growth and particularly about the difference between unintentional and intentional growth. And, you know, I think it's important for us all to remember that we are all growing all the time, whether we want to or not, and that being intentional about that growth can be super helpful. Right? Absolutely. Thank you, Michelle for this great conversation. And I would agree with you, we are all growing all the time. It's just are you in alignment with that growth? Or are you resisting that growth? And if you're resisting, where's that resistance coming from? So until next time, this is Mind Power Meets Mystic. And we thank you for listening.