Hello, welcome to another episode of the genius podcast . My name

is Karen Doyle, your host and founder of the genius project.

And initiative for Catholic women designed to support and equip them

towards growth in all areas of their life.

Physical, spiritual, and personal on today's podcast have invited

the very beautiful Rachel fleurant from the missionaries of God's

love sisters here in Canberra.

She's going to be talking.

mainly around this idea of transition and the transitions that we go through in our

life as women more recently, we had Laura Rowlands on the podcast talking about

the seasons in our life, but Rachel and I today are going to talk about transitions

and that's space that exists between an old chapter and a new chapter of our life

and how sometimes we don't actually want to enter that space, but what we can do.

To enter that space and the gift and the graces that are present there.

So sit back, relax and enjoy this interview with Rachel.

Well, Rachel, welcome to the genius podcast.

I'm laughing because I've just welcomed you.

We started our podcast and I realized that I hadn't pitched Rick.

So officially welcome to the genius podcast.

It's great to have you with us this week and you're joining us from Canberra.

I mean, Canberra as well.

And it's a bit of a miserable day here today.

I know it's like back and forth going back into winter for a few days.

Can I get too comfortable?

No,

that's it.

Now, Rachel you're with the missionaries of God's love sisters

here in Canberra, and I know that the missionaries of God's love order of

priests and the sisters have been a huge part of my life, my family's life.

And now my children's life, such a blessing and legacy through your ministry

and the orders, um, that in the blessing that you are and your vocation, I was

wondering if you can share a little bit about your background and your

story and how you came to be with.

Sure.

I'd love to share my story with you.

Um, so I grew up in Sydney and, um, I have a beautiful family.

My family come from Maricia.

So originally that's why my surname is very French and, um, flavorful.

And, um, for me, it was very much through going to a summer school.

So I went to summer school in Sydney, run together with missionaries of

God's love sisters and brothers.

And also the disciples of Jesus community.

And I was invited to that camp thinking, you know, I'm going to have a really

great time meet a lot of young people.

And I came in contact with the MGL sisters there and was really amazed

and inspired by their dedication to the way of life of being consecrated.

Um, and also just their mission.

So for me, The fact that they work with young people and their heart is really to

evangelize the church and to bring people back into a relationship with Jesus.

So for me, I went to that summer school, really not knowing

what, what, what I was in for.

Did you get a surprise?

Cause they're pretty spectacular.

I got big surprises.

I think.

I didn't realize how many young people were searching.

Longing looking for answers around faith questions.

There was about 150 young people at that summer school.

And I thought my little church parish was, you know, like really dead and

not really growing with young people, so we can't get it to their face.

So for me, it just opened my eyes to the bigger church and.

Um, what was really unique about the summer school was, and part of our

spirituality is that we're charismatic.

So, you know, really experiencing something of making a big commitment to

Jesus is part of our spirituality, but also seeing the power of the holy spirit

at work through invitation and seeing myself from a very shy young person that.

Um, confident young woman and really just stepping out in my

faith in ways I'd never done before.

Um, so I got involved in youth ministry, not long after having been to that

first summer school at that stage, I didn't have a sense of vocation or call.

I wanted to married really.

That was at that summer school, looking for a husband.

That's pretty young women to like my dream.

Yep.

Married, have a beautiful big wedding and raise the Catholic family.

Um, but what I think what really happened was that my heart was really

open and really looking for answers.

So I'm really grateful that the MDL sisters helped me to actually

discern and to come to a place where.

Listen and hear.

And what guy was really saying to me through, through the prayer,

through the community life.

Yes.

I was very deliberate about knowing that God wanted me to live in a sisterhood

that I wasn't going to be on my own living as a religious sister, but I wanted it

to be, um, challenging, hard place where I could have accountability for my.

And also living with other women that just are really vulnerable and

real and solid women that I can be inspired by in their own faith journey.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And they, are, they such a beautiful group of women?

I just love the sisters then Melbourne Sydney Canberra now, is that right?

Yeah.

We have three communities that the house that I live in

is called a formation house.

The part of my role, my job is I'm in the formation.

And, um, my role ranges from everything from spiritually directing these

young women, helping them to listen and to work out whether they're

really called to this way of life and can range from driving lessons to

cooking

Haydn, the whole shebang, the whole shebang, everything

from a to Z, which I imagined.

Mothers would be doing with their children, raising their

kids, but I'm raising adults

at formation and discipleship.

Yeah.

And do you enjoy that, that role?

I love it.

I think the best part of the role is sitting down and hearing

the deep conversations around the spiritual conversations.

I'm just amazed by the aura and wonder of what God does in their lives.

But it's also hard because I'm the person that has to call them to the greatness.

I have to challenge them in love, tough love, but also I've got my own story

and I've got my own background of where I've been there, where I began because

I was a little novice 18 years ago.

Um, and I have a lot of experience, I guess, just in the

emotional healing I've recently.

Um, very much in knowing how to live balance of life really well because our

life is very busy as consecrated women.

And being able, just to know, I think that, you know, as a woman now who's 48.

Yes.

Having the, um, the wisdom and just the beauty of being able to share life

and do life with these women is such a

great, and there is such, I mean, this, you know, all the different ages

and seasons of our life, but there is something nice about this season.

I find where you have a little bit to offer.

You know, I think in my early twenties, I did a lot of work in women's ministry,

but jumping ahead, you know, 20 or so years, you have your life experience

and it's actually such a gift and a joys in it to walk alongside, I guess,

younger people and people who are, I guess, needing answers to some of their

questions and providing that formation.

It's quite a privilege.

I mean, I guess both of us do that in very different ways, but I

share that sense of, um, just that enjoyment and the gift of that.

Yeah,

absolutely.

And I think there's always the surprises of when you're a missionary on mission.

There's never one particular way that you're going to be in mission.

And I guess I sort of say my mission actually begins here at home.

Like it doesn't begin when I go out there in the mission field, but my community,

my fan, this is my family, that my mission begins here because of who I'm

being called to be in the present moment.

And it might be because somebody's sick and I have to attend to them or take

them to the hospital or be alongside them, or might just be celebrating

life and celebrating a birthday.

And we do affirmations around the table and it's very, very counter-cultural to

what we normally do because, you know, I think as a sight society, often we can

be negative or we don't really highlight the beautiful gifts that we see in each.

Absolutely.

As you're talking, I'm thinking, you know, that role in terms of religious

vocation, but then also in the family, like out the point and the words you used,

which I like as my mission begins here.

And I think sometimes in our culture, there's this hustle

culture where we're seeing.

Um, young women caught in this where they feel like they have to be doing, doing,

doing all the time and it takes them away from, I guess, that being, I mean, it's

very cliche, but it's, it really is a discipline and it really is an invitation

isn't it to love and be on mission where you're called to serve first.

And then he's your vocation like your primary vocation, whether

that's religious life, marriage.

You know, the single life, whatever that is.

And then after that comes at individual vocation, where you're

called to serve with your personal gifts outside of that arena.

Yeah.

Well, look, Rachel, today, we're going to have a chat about transitions in life,

and I think, you know, the whole journey of being a woman and a man I'm sure,

but where women are going to do with the women, but he's about transitions.

I know, um, this past, this past month.

Yeah.

Doing PVD education nights, going from a women's ministry to PVD education.

It's hilarious.

So I'm doing live virtual nights for parents.

Like back to back for the last month, because our primary business

choices is obviously around providing resources for schools.

But my kids said to me, can't you get a less, more, less embarrassing job.

They mortified that I'm, I'm doing puberty nights.

That's, it's funny when I'm talking to these kids and their parents and we're

doing them on zoom this year, but it's really about like showing them the way

through that transition of adolescents.

And yes, there's that transition in adolescents or going off to school,

but we forget that as we mature, we still, we are presented with all these

other transitions, but I don't actually think we're prepared very well for

those transitions as we become adults.

So I think, you know, a lot goes into adolescents and preparing

kids from that transition from childhood to being a teenager.

But we actually, from that point from our twenties, there's not

a lot of definitive, I guess, injections of formation or teaching

around how to manage the different transitions that we face as women.

And you know, whether that's single life and engagement and marriage,

there is, there's a bit of an, I guess, formation for religious life.

But after that, I mean, we've got things like menopause.

People who are having children or moving into different roles in religious life,

then there's the empty nest and then there's aging and then there's retirement.

And there's actually not a lot that helps us or equips us to

deal with this, those transitions.

And so our conversation this morning, it's just going to revolve around, I guess,

how we navigate those transitions, how we do that with grace and wisdom, because.

In every transitional, every new chapter of our life, even if that previous chapter

was an unhappy one, it's almost like there's a death that has to happen before

we can enter that new chapter of life.

And there's a letting go of the old and preparing for the new, and I know

that, you know, you're working that job.

At the moment in your relationship with the Lord and you share a little bit,

I know you've got some great pearls.

I really love listening to the sisters.

So I'm going to shoot it to you.

And you've got so much to add here, and I know that you've got some, some real

pearls to give the ladies today in terms of how to manage those transitions.

So going through your own transition at the moment, and some of the

lessons, your, the Lord's, I guess, giving to you, isn't it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, so yeah, I'm really glad that you pointed out it's a new

season and it's a new time and there are transitions happening.

I guess, what I've been pondering a little bit about is that advent

is really round the corner.

It's only in a few weeks.

So the 28th of November is the first week of advent.

Can you believe that the date today I'm like today's the 13th, the 12th.

It's father Dave Tremble's birthday.

So happy birthday,

happy birthday, the

coming too quickly.

Yes.

And it's a time of waiting and a time of expectation.

So I think in the waiting, there's always that sort of long sort

of thing of where I'm impatient.

I just want things to happen straight away.

But what I've been pondering is this questions of what's the new thing that

God wants to do in my life right now.

Yeah.

You know, what is this transition teaching me about who I am as his beloved

daughter and also who is he teaching me, who I'm being called to be as a

consecrated woman in a community and with the ministry that I'm involved in.

So I'm raising spiritual adults in a way and giving life and birthing life to them.

So I think what I wanted to share is a little bit around this

scripture, Isaiah 43 19, which says behold, I'm doing something right.

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, and now it Springs

up and you don't even perceive it.

So it's talking about the Springs of the holy spirit, the life of the holy spirit

that wants to be birthed and to spring out of my heart and into the life of every

person that I'm in relationship with.

But it feels a bit like God is saying, see, I've already begun.

Do you not see what I'm doing?

Um, and that he wants to refresh me and.

Even when we're in the midst of these dry times or the wilderness or the

difficulties, it feels like sometimes when we're going through a transition

or a difficult time of uncertainty and even just not being able to

grasp or hold what that really means, because I think I want answers to

everything and they get around there.

So I really feel that, um, for me, the transition has been around, um,

just letting go of what's comfortable.

A place where I'm being invited to the unknown, a place where I just

experienced myself in a different way that I don't, you know, can't

necessarily put words around.

Um, but I love that.

God's always promising me that he's with me in this.

Like I'm not alone.

I feel very carried.

I feel carried by the presence of the community and the sisterhood

and ministered through them to.

Yeah.

Um, so for me this year, I turned 48 and I've come to realize

that my body shape is changing.

I don't always feel comfortable with the way I look, but I'm starting to get

acne and itchy skin and thinking for goodness sake, that should have happened

when I was 15 or 16, I was seeing like mood swings, a bit of irritability.

And, um, I think I've come in touch with this whole idea that

menopause may be approaching.

So perhaps in this whole cycle of waiting and shedding of

layers, I've noticed there's a restlessness in me or a dis-ease.

And like you said before, Karen, that sort of sense of finding home or,

or being at home with myself is what I've been sort of sitting with in my.

Um, what God's been showing me is that, you know, very wrapped up in

my work and ministry life, and I can be very busy and not making time for

silence and even in a structured way of life where I have a lot of time to

pray, I can be busy even in my prayer.

So it's been this whole sort of just coming into meditate and allow Jesus to

help me to, I mean, the body, what is the body's saying to me that it needs.

Yeah.

And I think that is so important because, um, like when we're going through

transitions, like, I mean, in our Catholic faith tradition, many faith traditions,

we believe where a unity of body and soul.

So whatever's happening in the body or what's happening in our emotions or

our thought life is going to impact, you know, Negative toxic thinking

can actually translate to physical chronic illness and vice versa.

You know, if we're ill, our bodies are changing and you mentioned menopause

and hormonal changes like that impacts our emotions and our thought life too.

And so.

I think in any transition, it's also understanding just that interplay

between body and soul, body, mind, and soul and how that's going to be

always that feedback loop is happening.

So like you said, understanding what's going on and I guess acknowledging

what's happening in our life, whether.

We might be facing grief and loss and difficulty understanding those

intense emotions of loss can impact our physical bodies and learning how

to process those is really important.

And I love what you said about, I love the word ponder, you know, like Mary

pondered, these things in our heart, like you're pondering these things in prayer.

I think that's a beautiful phrase for women.

Because we do get busy.

We can get caught up in our head right.

At our thinking, but just to sit with the Lord and ponder what's going on,

like acknowledging what's happening.

And then what's the Lord trying to teach me or what's he revealing?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, the other thing I've been loving is I think last time I spoke to you,

we might've talked about exercise.

Something really, really intentional about going for my daily walks.

Um, I love walking in nature and.

Frying, even as I'm walking, it's like, you know, it becomes a prayer

breathing in, you know, the wind, the trees, the smells, the fragrances.

So looking at this does, I'm just saying how creation is

being burning with God's love.

And I was just reminded of St.

John who talks about the plants and the green Meadows has the power to heal.

And that, you know, when we're in nature, our psyches are healed our spirits.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

We've had a few situations over the course of this year, which have been

quite intense, a couple of deaths, people that are close to us and other things.

And I agree with you.

I find if I just get outside, I can just walk on the mountain

behind our house and in nature.

It's therapy for the soul.

I think the Lord really meets you in nature.

Absolutely.

Tip for transitions.

So tell me, what else is the Lord doing in your heart?

What else is he revealing to you during these, this transition in your life?

You're sort of mentioning that DC that you feel like, because we

often get that bubbling sensation.

Like something's not quite right.

Or there's agitation when a season, you know, when we're about to hit a transition

and there's a holding bay between.

The old and the new, where the work happens and it's, it is very sacred

space where we're invited to ponder.

And I do see this in women's lives.

I know I've been guilty of it if we skip over that, because it's uncomfortable

that holding bay it's very uncomfortable.

Um, but we can go into that new transition, that new chapter of life, and

we kind of bringing some baggage into it and it, it can be chaotic emotionally.

So it is really important that.

Into that holding space with the Lord and allow him to, and

to be at ease, to be diseased.

Did she say that?

So how have you done that?

Like, you've obviously feeling these things.

What would advice would you give women?

I guess if they're in that holding bay or between transitions?

Well, one thing I've done is, um, which was really beautiful because

the sisters and I would do ministry on a Friday, we pray with each other.

And one of the sisters had a sense with this whole news new period in my life

that perhaps there's unconscious grief that I wasn't aware of because I'm 48 and.

There's been different stages as a consecrated woman where I've had to

give over to God, my, my desire to have children, my, um, the losses

in not having a relationship, I'm not going to have a husband.

I've never had a husband and not having even, you know, sexual relationship

with someone for the rest of my life.

And there's so many layers to that because I guess as the body moves into,

you know, mid life, I've had to just come in touch with what does that grief.

You know, like really face it, head on and sit with that whole

idea of even what my child could have looked like if I had a baby.

Um, but what's been unique is that God's been showing me all the beautiful, um,

people's lives that I've been able to minister with and journey with and to see

faith birth into their reality, I think has made me realize how I have to relish

the past and even the amazing ways that God's been, um, Ministering into that

place of the loss and the grief and the sadness, but I'm not running away from it.

I'm actually staying with, uh, an allowing the Lord to Redeemer, bringing it to

his healing, love and power and letting him hold me like a little baby, you

know, in that space of vulnerability.

And it's okay to cry and it's okay to be real.

And it's okay to, I think, draw on the women around me

who are like spiritual mother.

The nurse, I feel like I need to be nurtured and cared for too, and be

vulnerable just as much as I give to other, you know, young people or

people that I'm called to minister to.

And the other thing that I felt really prompted it was I called my mom.

I called mom and I, we just had a chat about what I'm going through.

And she had so much with them around what she went through.

She had a six year journey.

Into menopause.

And I was like, whoa, but you know, some of the wisdom that, you know,

she's done, which is exercising, breathing, meditating, really

allowing her prayer life to deepen.

Um, but there's something beautiful and just tips around health.

I said, you know, you should be going on Primrose oil tablets.

And

there's a lot actually that you can do.

And I knew.

I think I shared with you four years ago, we went through, um, a difficult

season and like, there was a lot of stress around and, um, it wasn't in terms

of our marriage or anything, but just something that had external circumstance.

And, and so it actually put me into early menopause, like four

years ago and it was amazing.

So I have an insight into this.

I'm like, it's this flooding in the brain that happens with the hormones and

it really throws your mind in terms of.

Your capacity to think.

And it really impacts the temporal lobe of the brain like physiologically.

And so I totally agree.

A lot of women who are going through that transition phase, mid life start to feel

a little crazy or forgetful or anxious, um, then volatility in terms of emotions,

but that's actually really normal, but it's about learning to manage that.

I guess by talking specifically about this transition for a moment, but, you

know, managing the physical, managing the emotional, managing the spiritual,

managing what you can control them.

Well, yeah,

absolutely.

And I had a moment last week where I felt so like there's one day I just

felt so depressed and I feel so.

Yes, and had no reason.

And I was about to have to give a lecture to the sisters on MGO vision,

around our way of life, which was poverty, chastity, and obedience.

I know

vision means you kind of got to be a little energetic.

I've got to feel it.

I needed to feel it and I wasn't feeling it, but I did.

You want them to play with me before we did the lecture?

And it was really powerful.

I said, Lord, I don't have the energy.

Give me what I don't have right now.

Like, feel like.

The overflowing and lit you'll love just pervade.

And I was Pash.

I ended up doing a great lecture.

They said to me at the end, where did it, where did the passion come from?

So I know grace kicks in and I know that God hears the cry of our deepest,

deepest needs or pain or discomfort.

And maybe it's a space where he can have more room to actually move

because I'm actually, I'm unable to give what I normally have.

My resources are spent

and, you know, that's something, I mean, for myself, like I came

out of that after I did a lot of exercise and sleep, so I'm sure.

That's on its way.

But, um, I do remember the exercise was huge and sleep was huge.

They were really, really important, um, elements and someone said

you can manage that transition really well through exercise.

I haven't got time to share one other thing.

Oh, you've got lots of time, please.

The other thing that I've gotten into, which I'm not very good at

gardening, that's trying to be creative, you know, beyond what

I normally or naturally would do.

And I think that's another thing that, you know, the creativity of the spirit in this

time of generate generativity or the new thing that he wants to do say prince, the

rose bushes quite, you know, quite low.

And we got a lesson in how to do.

And, um, prunings it essential for new growth to come through

for the roses to come through.

But I think in myself, I was really just experiencing something of getting

rid of the dead branches, putting the fertilizer, you know, around the roses and

just, that was the beginning of winter.

And now we're in this new season of spring and the blooms and the

buds have become beautiful roses.

Oh, they're so pretty.

And

I wanted to show them off.

What I'm saying is suddenly this new life and magnificent, magnificent

roses have appeared and we can smell the beauty and the goodness.

They just give so much for.

But, you know, God's goodness.

Absolutely.

And it's such a beautiful metaphor, but it's so nice to have a visual

for what God's doing because so often we can't see what he's doing.

How is it work?

And I think what you touched on when you were talking about

giving that lecture last Friday is just utter dependence like that.

You actually, I do think that during that midlife transition particularly,

and this is one thing I felt that.

Very emotionally resilient.

So I can cope with a lot.

I'm very stable emotionally, but to feel out of control

was really frightening for me.

Like those emotions, that, and they settled down with exercise and, you

know, natural remedies and stuff.

And so that's all good, but I think.

Experience of feeling out of control, or then even with

other situations that happen.

I know walking with people this year, who've lost children and

you know, and other people whose marriages might be in difficulty.

And there's a whole range of situations that we're currently walking through with

people at the moment, and it can feel really out of control and we can feel

completely inadequate that we don't have.

What we normally possess to, to show up for people, but there is

an invitation there that invitation to real dependence on the Lord.

And I think, you know, when we go through any transition in life,

we can fight it a little bit.

I think that's our brains just natural.

We're hardwired to protect ourselves.

That's our instinct, but there is that invitation.

To go into growth to go into what's the law trying to teach me.

And, and I guess you're learning some of those lessons in this

currencies, in you're in and able to share them with others.

Have you got any other, I guess some thoughts around, I guess for the woman

who's really resistant to that, like say going to that place, that holding bay,

because of fear of not wanting to feel.

The grief and loss.

I'm not wanting to feel the intense, emotional face up to what's

actually happening in their life.

What advice would you give to them?

I think really drawing on the strength of otherwise women who have been through

similar things themselves, and I'm hoping and praying that the women that are

listening to this already connected, you know, whether to a community, a faith

community, or even just being mentored or pastorally cared for by other women.

Um, because I think without having essentially vulnerability needs to make

vulnerability and that I really feel that we are carried by the prayers and the

faith of those that were in community.

Um, so I would encourage people.

It's not a journey that you can do alone to really, really seek the wise

counsel of other women who have can pray, can guide, can spiritually nurture.

What you're going through is really important because all the other

health things are really good, whether that's seeing a doctor or,

you know, looking after your personal health, the medicine part of things.

But I think the spiritual nourishment is so important and perhaps.

Finding books, you know, that really help us speak into this whole area

of, um, change of life or midlife.

I think reading a book it's called, um, the Bihar come home by Joyce Rupp and

it's all about midlife spirituality.

And that's where I got some of the images that I'm talking about today.

Cause she talks.

You know how to name your losses, how to grieve your losses.

But I can't do that by myself.

You know, I need people who are actually, um, spiritually in tune with

the spirit to help me to process yes.

Maybe finding a ritual around even the losses and the grieving.

Um, and I think that that would be really important is to find your

own way and my creative ways, very different to the women out there.

So, you know, it might be, um, creating through artwork or through poetry.

Um, or it might be through cooking, you know, I think there's so many

different diverse expression.

To process the transitions in life, but you need to find your own group.

Absolutely.

And I think for women who are raising children in family, there's a sense

that you, you lose a bit of who you are in those early childbearing years.

And I know there's some women that are going through transition where

children, so they're not actually going through life, but it's another

transition where their kids go back to school and they're like, now, Yes.

I agree with the kids being home or they, they, they grieve that they gave

up their career or, you know, like there's all these different transitions,

but I think what you're saying is that rest and, and kind of growing and

rhythms, there's the practical things.

And then there's the prayer and the spirituality, but that creative outlet is

really important because creativity has a way of connecting you to your soul and

who you had been created to be in the.

And then obviously I think once you do that, then he kind of reveals to

you where he's calling you to serve.

And so you come back to service in a new way or a refreshed way with, I guess,

the wisdom from having worked through,

um, the last thing I was just thinking about Karen, as you're talking, man,

because I'm, um, re defining your dreams.

And I think that's been another big thing in my life is because

I've transitioned to different communities and different ministries.

I think God's always calling us to re re dream like a re-look at what our dreams

are such as some people in America.

What are your hopes and dreams or your desires for the next five years?

You know, as a married couple, the me it's, you know, really looking

at my community life once again and looking at okay, if I'm dry and tired

in a particular ministry, it's about redefining, what am I passionate about?

What do I love about life?

What gives me joy and meaning and purpose, and where do I get energy?

In ministry or in what I'm doing.

Um, so I have a dream book, beautiful.

And I write the craziest things about what I'd love to do.

Even if I had $10,000, how would I run this ministry?

Because God is a God.

And re re redesigning new things all the time.

Absolutely.

And I think sometimes, well, I see these actually all the time in the

lives of women, that their dreams are the die well, they go underground and

there's the sense of agitation and resentment that builds and frustration.

And when we're not in touch with where that's coming from, then

we can be a bit disheartened.

We can think, oh, we're discontent now, marriage, or we're discontent

here or there, but sometimes.

Really the invitation is about coming home to ourselves, to

discovering who the Lord is in us.

But then once he calling us to do, and like you said, these dreams

change throughout our seasons of life.

And the dreams are actually really good.

I actually worked with one woman and she said, isn't it ungodly to dream?

Like, and I was like, no, like, God is a dreamer like this.

He wants you to dream because that's where new ministries or new ideas of birth.

That's right.

Inspirations come prophetic dreams that actually tell us

about where we're being called.

You know?

The possibilities are

endless.

That's right.

And we should never downplay those little things.

I could conversation in the supermarket or a book that we randomly pick up or assign.

We see sometimes there are little clues that lead us to, I guess, those passions.

And there is an invitation for women, I think in this particular season of life.

Oh, I'm seeing it around the world.

Like we're women are really reconnecting with themselves in a new way, but

not at the expense of their vocation.

Mind you, because I think, you know, previously there was an idea that you had

to be a mom at home and you couldn't work or you had to be full-time in ministry

and you couldn't do other things, but kind of breaking down those barriers.

Mindsets I'm seeing.

And women seem to be more free to really connect with their unique creative

passions and to bring those to life across a whole lot of areas, which is awesome.

Absolutely.

Sorry.

Next year.

It will be 10 years since I made my final vows.

So I'm having the opportunity to go on sabbatical.

Wow.

I'm going to have to think about what is it that, you know, I want to

work on creativity in a creative way.

Like whether that's a bit more education or a particular area,

or perhaps a pilgrimage, you know, having that space to.

And listen to the Lord in a whole nother way.

Maybe my direction of life, of where he's calling me may change, you know?

Yes.

You are a very creative person.

I

am naturally.

Yeah, I've got more creativity than I'd say the, you know, the intellectual desire

to go and study for two months, foliage.

I prefer to go and probably learn about, you know, um, painting, drawing,

dancing, and ministry things to do with, um, Yeah, the soul and also the,

I guess the body working together.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Oh, well, I can't wait to see what you come up with.

We'll have you back in a year and you can tell us the grand three come to life.

Rachel, thank you so much for your time today.

I hope that's been a blessing to the women and yes, we'll be praying for.

Thank you also church and to all of us, because you you're beautiful.

You such a gift.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity and the privilege.

And I really pray for all the women out there who are part of the cohort

that follow this wonderful podcast.

And I pray and hope that they really are blessed and renewed in the spirit.

Amen.

Thank you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Rachel.

If you would like to go deeper with some of this content or if you really need some

help in terms of establishing some rhythms of renewal in your life, then I'd love

to invite you to join us for the Catholic women's masterclass, where we walk.

For rhythms of renewal, rest restoration, connection and creation.

And this very much ties into my conversation with Rachel today.

You can find out more about the Catholic women's master class on the genius project

website, www dot genius, project dot cope.

I hope you have a beautiful week ladies until next week.

God bless you.

And we will see you back on the genius podcast next week.