Elevate Your Life - Ascension Formula

KATHLEEN: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV Network. The purpose of the show is to help you realize that you are not alone, that you are in control of your life. It doesn't matter where you came from or what your circumstances are.

KATHLEEN: We've all experienced pain, suffering, hurt, abandonment. Loneliness, and hopelessness. This show is here to help you turn those dark moments around and create a whole new you. Despite your success, have you felt lonely, angry, frustrated, or even suicidal? Do you long to be supported, recognized, and supported for who you are, not just the awards and accolades on your walls?

KATHLEEN: You don't want to be known, identified, or remembered in a way that feels fraudulent because you achieve things out of obligation. And not passion? Do you find yourself sitting quietly at lunch listening to what lights you up only to feel shame, fear, frustration, and resentment?

KATHLEEN: Your inner turmoil and limiting beliefs surface, making you feel not good enough and afraid of doing something different. You've read the books, attended the seminars, and practiced new concepts and principles, yet you still find yourself in the same rut. The lies you tell yourself perpetuate a cycle of disappointment.

KATHLEEN: You say you'll change, but your self-limiting beliefs keep running the show, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a certified coach, I empower you to become your authentic self. My Soul Journey program aligns with your true self and guides you to find your soul vision, helping you to discover your purpose in life. I provide tools to help.

KATHLEEN: To step you into your true magnificence and remember who you are. If you're interested in learning more, contact me at BraveTV at KathleenMFlanagan. Com. Each week we start the show with Sound of the Tuning Forks, bringing in love, happiness, and balance to set the tone for the show, and it brings out the best in both myself and my guests. So let's begin.

KATHLEEN: Subtitles by the Amara. Org community Stacey Shiflet, co-author of a forthcoming book, Mindset Matters with Jack Canfield, to be released in August of 2024. Stacey is an entrepreneur, writer, and proficient student of life blessed with the gifts of insight, grit, and optimism. She is also a practicalist. What is that?

KATHLEEN: It's a person who is devoted to or advocates for what is practical as opposed to what is theoretical. In other words, a pragmatist. That means that she deals with problems and situations, including those of my guests, in a way that focuses on sensible approaches and meaningful solutions. Stacey had to make a choice after her 28 marriage imploded.

KATHLEEN: Continue living her life and... On autopilot and leave her future up to chance or deliberately create a future she desired. She chose the latter. Stacey embarked on a journey to study with many people on a wide range of topics from traditional coaching to energetic healing, from neuroscience to spirituality.

KATHLEEN: This journey ignited a desire within her to create a better world, one person at a time, and through a series of what she calls divine guidance and synchronicities. Her company, Modern Consciousness, was born. What does this mean for my guest?

KATHLEEN: It means that she can help them gain an understanding of what they are creating and experience in their lives and help them reclaim balance, joy, and most importantly, peace of mind. Deep reflection and honesty evaluating our inner worlds may not be easy, but the rewards are enormous. And there are practical steps people can implement into their lives to achieve just that. Welcome, Stacey.

KATHLEEN: Can you hear me?

KATHLEEN: Hi everyone. We had a little glitch on the other end apparently, so like I said, anything can happen on this show. So we have Stacey and welcome Stacey.

STACIE: Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I'm, I've been displaced from my home. So I'm actually in another home that I own, but we're having internet issues here. So I'm generally in Florida with the best internet ever, not here in Virginia so much.

KATHLEEN: Well, when you get hit with the hurricane and I've known a lot of people on the East Coast that have been displaced and they have been on my show on top of it. So I understand what's going on. And for some reason, that's a learning lesson. And after reading your bio, it sounds like this is just part of what we have to do some days.

STACIE: It is, yes. A mindset matters, right? Like the most recent book that came out this year with Jack Canfield, and mindset really matters. And things are not always bright. Right. So we have to be able to nurture ourselves through those things that we experience.

STACIE: Right. We have to honor the emotions that go along with it. And we also have to kind of pick ourselves up and brush ourselves off and be grateful about the things that we can be grateful about. And it is true. It's all mindset.

KATHLEEN: Totally. 100% agree with that. But what I want to do is I want you to tell our audience a little bit about your journey of becoming an awakening spirit.

STACIE: Certainly I have had a varied life I've done a lot of different things career-wise etc everything from acquiring companies to raising llamas on the farm and I went through a divorce after 28 years of marriage and that kind of knocked me off balance more than a little bit it was not something I ever really expected that I would be experiencing, but I had to make a decision and I did.

STACIE: The first book I ever wrote, one of the quotes in that book is, sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest, and that is true.

STACIE: We have to create our own happiness and joy and do what's best for us, even if it's a difficult decision. So yeah, through that process, I embarked after about two years, I thought I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing and, it really wasn't.

STACIE: I decided that life was not just going to organically reappear magically, that I was going to have to do it myself. I had to remind myself that I have done that my entire life. So I set about on a personal development journey and a spiritual journey and that was back in, I guess the divorce was 2012 so by 2014 I was in it in earnest.

STACIE: And that's what I've been doing ever since and then the company that I have now is a result of that process, it was a divine gift to me, and tried to ignore it for a while and resisted it for quite a while, and finally was like okay fine. Fine, I'll do it. So here I am.

KATHLEEN: Okay, so why don't you just elaborate a little bit more on what that journey entailed for you? I mean, you had to overcome the resistance. How did it come about? How did you face your resistance? And then you meet Jack Canfield and write a book, co-author a book with Jack Canfield. I mean, come on. Who does that?

STACIE: I do. Apparently.

STACIE: I'm also a co-producer in a Broadway show that's premiering on December 9th with Lisa Nichols. I had an opportunity to co-produce that show. And it's going to be fantastic. So how do you do it? I don't know. When I was much younger, I acquired a $50 million company without a personal financial investment. So sometimes... You wake up, you have an epiphany.

STACIE: That's how buying that software company came about. This came about, I woke up one morning and said, you know what, my life is not working for me right now. I'm not making any progress. I actually had adopted some habits that weren't, my social life was great.

STACIE: I actually had adopted some habits that, were not healthy. And, My mantra through my divorce had been that I lost my first child, my first son died. And so I kept telling myself, if I could get through that, I can get through this. And, I finally just said, had enough of my own BS, right? Said, that's it, Stace. You're going to have to step up. You know how to do this.

STACIE: You've done it before. And, that's what I did. So I started studying. I reached out for help. I have studied with a number of people. I have taken all kinds of courses and classes and certifications. And I experimented, with a lot of different things, right? As many people do, and you probably have done so as well. And all of that sort of congealed within me with Modern Consciousness and the program that I created.

KATHLEEN: So tell people a little bit more about how that birthed itself since it showed up and I don't want to do this. I understand what that means. I've done that many times.

KATHLEEN: And it's futile to do it.

STACIE: Yes, yes. Well, I had the idea for the company. Modern Consciousness, the name came to me.

STACIE: My theory of Modern Consciousness came to me. And I realized that it was important information. And I started, I've never been much of a journaler, but I'm a keyboard warrior, right? And I started. Capturing everything and trying to make sense of it.

STACIE: And I had a vision to create this company. And then I was like, I don't want to do this. First of all, I'm 67 now. So I was probably what, 65 at the time, well, a little bit younger than that. But I resisted it a while. And I was like, no, I don't want to start a new company at this age.

STACIE: I was closing a construction company that I had in DC. And I'm not your girl. I'm just not your girl. And that's what I kept telling spirit. And, it just wouldn't leave me alone. I actually was rather obsessed with it.

STACIE: You know, it comes into your brain every single day. And so I was meditating one day in my home in Florida and I was like, okay, fine, If you're not going to leave me alone, tell me what to do. What is my next best step? And the word came to me to write. I said, all right, I've written everything down that I've been hearing, for lack of a better word.

STACIE: And I said, all right, I will. I don't know what you want me to write, but I will write. And I surrender. And I get goosebumps when I repeat this story. So within an hour, I had a text message from him. A friend of mine in Canada that said, Hey, I've got a friend that's a publisher and she's doing a compilation book with Les Brown. She has a chapter available. Would you like to join that project?

STACIE: At which point I rolled my eyes to the sky and said, okay. I mean, you can't say no, right? You can't say no. So I made the investment and joined the project. And that's when I realized during writing that story and the process of publishing that book that I could launch a company along with the book. So that's what I said about doing. And it is my, yeah.

KATHLEEN: I know it's an adventure. Last night spirit started dictating, okay, I'm supposed to write five more books. Okay. They told me that. And I just hung my head down going, oh. You know, it's just one of those. I mean, the first three were challenging enough and now they want me to write five more. This is going to be a different set. And I get that.

KATHLEEN: So I wrote the first chapter of what I thought was going to be the next book. And last night they dictated the actual next book. Now I told myself to remember, but it was one of those crazy mornings. So, but I remember a lot of where we were going with it. I hate when they start talking to you right as you're on the cusp of. Falling into a deep sleep.

KATHLEEN: And the next thing I knew it was 5.30 in the morning. So I went out for the count. But anyways, so they started to tell me, so I know what the next book is. And it's going to be what I don't want to talk about really, but it's what's in critical is what's it like to come back after 50 years of being disassociated from your body.

KATHLEEN: I love that. And last week when I was on the show, I was talking to my guests and they're telling me, okay, you're going to put this in the book and you're going to put this in the book and you're going to put, and I'm writing, I'm like, excuse me, I have to take a note now, because when it comes in, it comes in.

KATHLEEN: And I know that if I'm like sitting here on the show with somebody, I'm going to forget it because it's so critical. That I remember, but I just get such a kick out of it because they're tenacious. Spirit is tenacious.

KATHLEEN: When they want something, they want it and they're not going to give up until you deliver it. So I, I know that I ask them, just give me the time, give me the space, give me the money, give me whatever I need to make this happen. Cause I'll do it. I've learned to surrender.

STACIE: Yeah. Surrender is a big word. And when you say that you really have to surrender. To it. You have to kind of be all in and say, okay, there, here we go, show me the way. And then there's a lot of figuring out things on your own as well, right?

STACIE: You get pieces and parts and tidbits and information. And like you, I try to capture things when they come in. I use Otter, right? I'll record, I'll send myself emails because you're right.

KATHLEEN: Stuff comes in at the oddest times and sometimes it's just too much it's just like it's the whoa just slow slow down here a little bit don't stop when they were dictating the first chapter of the book because it was so beautifully written right because that's what spirit does and I'm like oh my god why can't i have like a tape recorder recording this in my brain and then when I wake up in the morning I can play it back and do the dictation on it.

STACIE: No that's not how they work It's okay.

KATHLEEN: I know, I've done what you've done. I pick up my phone and it's like, okay, I'm driving. And it's like, okay, open the phone, do a voice note. So I have it because there's nothing worse when you were getting a gem coming in and you can't do anything about it.

STACIE: Yes. It's also a lot of fun. I don't mean to interrupt you. It's also a lot of fun when you talk to them and say, well, could you just give me a little bit more? And they go, nah, you can figure it out.

STACIE: You've got the mind.

KATHLEEN: I know, right? You've got the mind.

STACIE: And some of that is what they're delving into, right, is my gifts and my talents. And they're like, you've got it. You'll figure it out. Right. It's like, okay. But it takes a little longer sometimes. But, yeah, the result is.

KATHLEEN: Patience. I mean, that's the co-creation of spirit. That's the working together. That's the baby steps going as far as you can and let spirit come in. And then you take the next step. I mean, that's how I've looked at how I've learned to surrender because that was, that word was such an enigma to me my whole life.

KATHLEEN: I could not grasp that meaning of that word to save my life. And I remember one day Oprah had talked about what surrender was and it was perfect. But could I remember it? No, because it wasn't for me. I had to learn what surrender meant to me.

STACIE: Yeah. And that's the thing. We have to learn what it means to us. We have to align. One thing I learned in all the Theta Healing classes that I did is to align your definition with God's definition of a word. And we have so many beliefs wrapped up in things.

STACIE: Surrendering is not necessarily viewed as a positive thing, right? Waving the white flag and. And you have been conquered. And it's not that at all in this circumstance. So it's interesting. The universe never tires of giving us opportunities to learn more and deepen our learning.

KATHLEEN: That is so very true.

KATHLEEN: And I know that if you ask, and if you're not getting the answers that you're looking for, then reframe the question, because maybe you're not asking the question in the right. Format that spirit can understand, or you're not clear enough.

KATHLEEN: And I know that I've been asking, because I ask a lot of times for things and help and guidance. But I realized very recently that the more aligned I became with myself, the clearer my questions came and the faster the answers came.

KATHLEEN: But it was just getting really dialed in up here, getting, the body, mind, spirit connection going, getting all of that in alignment. And it was doing all the deep, dark, ugly work that we don't want to do because the monsters live there. But, you got to face those demons and get rid of it.

STACIE: Yeah, you do. At least, for a while. And then, as I said, it's an ongoing process, really.

STACIE: I think that we evolve over time and we continue to evolve. And why not? I mean, what's the alternative to that, right? It's staying stuck where we are. So I think the quality of the questions we ask are very, very important. I think that's one of the things that Tony Robbins used to say when I was a platinum partner with him for a couple of years.

STACIE: It's also letting go of what you think the answer should be, because it may not be the answer that you're expecting or even what you're wanting. And it's just noticing things, synchronicities. I mean, I'm just really big on feelings, right? And I have some of my brightest ideas. I will wake up, like I woke up one morning and said, oh, I need to go buy this software company.

STACIE: I didn't have any money. And it was an interesting turn of events because I did know the company I used to work with. The company and I called one of the owners and I said, Hey, I knew most of them were octogenarians and the gentleman that I called was a little bit younger than the others.

STACIE: And, he said, well, that's really interesting. Cause we just listed the company with a broker. And I thought, oh man, I'm never going to make this happen, but I didn't have any money to buy that company. So the broker was great. It took nine months pushing the rock uphill. People thought I was crazy. And I did enroll a partner in that has some qualifications that I did not.

STACIE: And, he had a little bit of acquisition and experience in an MBA. And I don't even have a college degree. I'm self-taught. And we put a pitch deck together and we rolled that out. And, yeah, they called me a cashless investor. And I can't tell you what all and even the guy that I pulled in.

STACIE: to the deal, he's like, we're never going to do this. And I said, yeah, we are. I mean, I just knew it. And that's the thing when you have those knowings, those deep, deep knowings, even if it seems impossible, it's possible somehow. We managed to get one of the top investment firms in the entire country. I don't know if they have a global presence. They might, to do the deal.

STACIE: And when they flipped that company to another investor in five years, I took my money and got out. It was the same for me moving to Sarasota, Florida. I literally woke up one morning. I was born in Miami. I hadn't lived in Florida for years and years. But I woke up one morning and said, I need to move to Sarasota, Florida. I had to look it up on a map.

STACIE: I'd never been to Sarasota. I needed to see where it was. But you take action. I call it right action, right? We can have it. If we don't take right action and step into these synchronicities and into our knowings. And within a week, I was on a plane down there, had a real estate agent, and I bought a house. I felt that compelled that I was supposed to be there.

STACIE: So you just never know. And I kind of made that happen too. Well, right.

KATHLEEN: It's also moving through that fear because it's the next chapter of your life that you don't even know what it is because we know, our brain knows, our spirit knows where we're going, but we don't know where we're going because we got erased when we were born into the knowingness of why we came down here.

KATHLEEN: So we flounder, so to speak, through our life, but I think the more that you align with yourself and what makes your heart sing and do the things that make you happy, it's a natural progression is what it is to me.

KATHLEEN: And I think about, there were so many synchronicities in my life of when I moved to Florida and living there, and then it was, oh, you're going to move to Colorado and you're going to meet your husband there. And I'm like, okay, he's a mountain man. And then it was like, you're going to meet him in a bar. And I'm like, but I don't drink.

KATHLEEN: And I met him in a bar, it was just so funny because I just trusted a process. And my life has always been that because I've always listened. And I think even if we don't know where we're going, we know where we're going.

KATHLEEN: As long as you trust that silent, still voice in your mind, and you sit there and you can argue with spirit and say, I'm not going to do this. And you're going to do it because one way or another, life is going to dish something out at you that you have no choice, but to make that decision.

KATHLEEN: And we're going to take a break and then we'll come back and hear what you have to say.

STACIE: Sure, sure.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back everyone to the journey of an awakening spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we are streaming on the Bold Brave TV Network. And we have Stacie Shifflett in the room with us today. And right at commercial break, you were getting ready to say something. And I don't know if you've lost your train of thought or if we're just going to pick up from someplace else.

STACIE: I didn't. I jotted it down because I know.

STACIE: We were talking about, ignoring the voice. Well, the voice, the way I describe it, it gets louder and louder and louder. Right. It's just like if you have a lesson to learn, it gets harder and harder. You know, the circumstances exponentially grow until it's like, come on, learn that lesson.

STACIE: At least that's what I have found. Excuse me. And another thing that I wanted to mention when we were talking about what I call the foundation of conscious evolution, and I think this is a little bit different than some people. I call automaton is my first level, right?

STACIE: I have an automaton. They're not really levels. They're not linear. They kind of all go. This is my theory of Modern Consciousness. Automaton 2.0 is, just pretty much running on automatic, right? We're not really consciously thinking about what we're doing.

STACIE: We think we're doing everything right, but I really call that the foundation of our conscious evolution because that's what we bring into what I call the awakening soul, which is when we step into actually embracing the possibilities and transformation. You know, it's automaton. We're starting to go, I don't know, man, there's got to be more to life than this.

STACIE: Right. And the other thing that I find, there's two things I find that are really important in that aspect. I call them aspects, right? Because they're not necessarily stages because we can be in multiple stages at once, but it's when the momentum of our lives is what's driving the.

STACIE: our lives, I'm sorry, is driving the momentum of our lives, rather than conscious, intentional decisions and choice of action, we get into trouble.

STACIE: And the other thing, again, we're executing, I find, off of decisions that we made sometimes decades ago, right, to get married, what career to do, have children, so on and so forth. And we kind of miss that what creates peace in our life and what creates our joy, which there are unique formulas for that for everybody, right? It's very unique and individualized.

STACIE: We forget that those change with the seasons of our lives.

STACIE: And I think that that's really, really important.

STACIE: We never sit down and do an assessment. We look at so many things and we measure so many things all the time, right? We go to our annual doctor's appointment, we take the car in to get the oil change, we monitor our bank balances and so on, but we do it all independent of each other. We don't look at it holistically.

STACIE: So the first thing that I always do with my clients is look at everything together, because if something's going on in one area of your life, It's going on in another area. It could just be disguise, but we never really get to the root of what's causing that. And I imagine that that's some of the work that you do with your clients. And that's what I do with mine as well.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, it is. And I know that I remember the first time I heard what you're saying was through Bob Proctor, because he said, if you don't have money, it's because there's something going on up here, because money is the easiest thing in the world to make. But we have put so much stigma on it and you're not looking at the whole piece of who you are, of what could be causing that.

KATHLEEN: And I thought about that for a long time because I really had a lot of money issues because my mother was like, you work to pay your bills, money doesn't come easy, it doesn't grow on trees. I mean, all the negative stuff around money, right? And I remember when I started my business, everything about money just showed up in my face. Everything showed up in my face.

KATHLEEN: And then you get down to the worthiness and the deservingness and who do you think you are and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I think about that and just the process because so many people are hung up on money in ways that I think it's too much. And I know for me, when I started looking at, it's like, Because Bob used to say, I know where you are based on how much money you have, so to speak.

KATHLEEN: And I thought, okay, well, that's a different type of a judgment, but I know where he was going with it. But I also look at it, there was a part of me that spirits, I'm never, even if I don't have a lot of money or shit happens, because it does. And I've always been taken care of and my needs are met.

KATHLEEN: And sometimes that's the greatest gift you can learn to release. Money stuff. And then it starts bringing you back into a focus of, well, what is going on inside? And what am I saying to myself that I don't want to be listening to? Because sometimes that's really hard to do is, the self-talk that's going on, but you never want to admit that self-talk is going on.

KATHLEEN: And you don't realize how much that self-talk keeps perpetuating the existence that you're in at the current moment. And I know when I changed and said, I just want to be happy and learn that happiness isn't outside, it's an inside job and start really understanding. Because I have a partner who laughs at everything. I mean, he just has this joy about him.

KATHLEEN: And I said, how do you do this? He says, I don't know. So he was like teaching me and then I'm teaching him how to be a little bit more serious, how to like manage his life a little differently. And it's a beautiful relationship. Sometimes it's frustrating. Because that's what it is. But, we're growing and we're evolving and we've made a commitment to do that.

KATHLEEN: So, it is a whole, it's a synergetic experience being human and dealing with this and then spirit and dealing with what the body might be telling you. Cause there's a consciousness in the body as well that people don't even acknowledge. Maybe you're off because you're getting sick and you don't even know you're sick yet.

STACIE: Yeah, there's a lot going on. You know, back to money, money is such, we have so much social pressure, I think, under money. And I think it's different when you've traveled the world or when you know a diverse, a broad diversity of people and types of people, right?

STACIE: Because sometimes, I mean, I have met the poorest people. Just destitute, but they're happy, by our standards, destitute in their standard of living. But they're very, very happy and joyful people. I think a lot of it starts with gratitude. We have to be grateful for what we have.

STACIE: This whole thing, one of the buzzwords now, manifestation, right? We're going to manifest. You know, it takes, Right being and right action. You can't mantra your way into earning money. It's your frequency. It's your energy. It's your effort. It's what you're doing.

STACIE: It's what you're grateful for. It's what you're listening to and, what you're filling yourself with, right. That will guide that. And It's just very important. A lot of it is awareness, what you're talking about. And we're not really talking about awareness.

STACIE: To be so consciously aware of every single thought. And I think, what is it? We have some 60,000 thoughts a day or something, and like 90% of those are in our subconscious. And then some ridiculous amount of those are negative, and we have that same thought every single day.

STACIE: And we're really not consciously aware of it. Why? Because the activities of our lives are creating the momentum of our lives. We're not stepping outside of ourselves. I personally think that peace of mind is the greatest asset that we have. The prerequisite to that is knowledge.

STACIE: And it's not the accumulation of knowledge. It's the practical application of the knowledge. And until you apply what you're learning in your life in a way that's effective and efficient for you, we don't get very far. How many people have you known that have gone to seminar after seminar after seminar?

STACIE: Everybody's excited and you might have a breakthrough, or even two, and you learn all this awesome information and you're really charged up when you come out and you can get back home and you don't know how to implement it in your life.

STACIE: They've given you this great, great big picture, right? And, that is a great picture and that's a beautiful painting, but the painting is created one brushstroke at a time. So that's, what I do with, with my clients is walk them through a process of the next best step, right?

STACIE: They know, I think we know within ourselves what the problem is. We know within ourselves what would make us happy. We've lost sight of that. We've disconnected from that. And we don't really know how to figure that out. So, for me, I have a very structured process for that.

STACIE: Because I'm a great analyst at heart and good project manager and all of those things. But what I call it, it's the Elevate Your Life program. But what we do is chart your treasure map to joy, your next best step. And then there's a next step after that and the next step after that.

STACIE: And once you start to be keenly aware of these things, that's when the real change starts to happen in your life, and not going, oh man, I'm so stupid. I should have known. No, learn it, apply it, give yourself some grace, approach things with, an open mind and a lot of curiosity about your behavior.

STACIE: And the more you learn about human behavior in general, I think it gives you a lot of perspective. And a lot of us are just lacking perspective, but just because we've never been exposed to it.

STACIE: And I think a lot of it is, is that we don't ever talk about it either. It's we're programmed to be you know you get up you get married you have kids you die go to work and have a job I mean that is I mean that was how I was grown up this is what you're going to do and but that was what we don't want to do yeah.

STACIE: We don't really have a choice about it though if you think about it so we're born into this world absolutely helpless and we have to rely on others and then we learn from our families, we learn from those that are around us, that we're pushed into institutions, schools, churches, whatever.

STACIE: And I don't mean it negatively, but we are pushed into institutions. And all of that learning is put upon us, but we need a lot of that learning, right? We need to accumulate that somehow. So it's a matter of when you start to listen to the little voice in your head that gets louder, that says, oh, there's got to be more to life than this, right? There has to be more than this.

STACIE: But if you've worked up to a place where you've got a successful career, for example, and you do have some money and you're comfortable, that is an easier place to move forward from.

STACIE: But trust me, I know many, many people that have started at the very, very bottom, not with a scarcity mindset, with a mindset that they will create what they want in their life, but they're really struggling. They're unstable, right? They haven't even entered stability, but I've seen them go from that into stability and move forward.

KATHLEEN: I feel like I'm one of those people. I came from nothing. I wanted to die. I was very suicidal and I didn't even know how to speak or do anything. And I was just determined. There was something so strong inside of me. That just never let up. And they kept saying, you're going to change the world. And I said, you've got the wrong person. What the hell are you thinking? Are you on drugs? Because this is not that girl.

KATHLEEN: And it took a lifetime. I think one of the first thing I needed to get my mental health back because I live with crazy people. I mean, they were literally crazy people. I mean, my father institutionalized and that's how crazy he was. So there's this sanity of neurosis going on inside of my head.

KATHLEEN: And I remember when I was working through all of that, and Mother Mary would be in my bedroom every night, just holding the space for me to process through whatever it was. Like, am I really crazy? I mean, I don't understand because I'm in this situation not knowing. And then what was the next thing? Because then I had all this mind crap. Going on 24-7. And I asked for peace of mind, what did I do?

KATHLEEN: I said the rosary. I mean, thank God for my Catholic background. And thank God I'm a recovering Catholic at the same time, because that was the only thing I knew at that moment was, God, I had to have something higher than me because I didn't think I was worthy of anything.

KATHLEEN: And I got peace of mind and I found out what peace of mind meant because it meant the mind chatter went away. Which then started to allow me to take those next steps. And they were all baby steps. It was an evolutionary process to where I am today that I look back and I've gone, there's only one goal I haven't accomplished yet. And I'm in the middle of achieving that.

KATHLEEN: Because I mean, for someone who didn't think I was going to have anything and I was going to be dead by 30. And when I hit 60 and then 65. And now I'm beyond that. I'm 67 like you. And I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't compute. This is not where I saw my life to be. And I'm like, well, they did say you're going to live to a hundred. I didn't believe them.

KATHLEEN: And I feel like now I have so much more to give and to say, because I went through that process. We're not a 7-11 person. We never were, and the microwave is too slow, but we're not that. We're evolving.

KATHLEEN: And you have to bring all of that synergy in to create that. I know where I want to go, and I'm going to prove that I can go there and still be embodied, because I believe it can happen. I just don't know what that looks like yet, but I'm working towards it.

STACIE: And that's the difference. For being grateful for the experiences rather than feeling victimized right if you get stuck in a victim mentality that's blaming external something right that's it's blaming it on external forces I guess for your situation and we all have the ability to change our situation.

KATHLEEN: I remember years 20 30 years ago people that came from the ghettos and look at where they came and the money that they made. Did they change who they were? No, they just had money now, but they were still the drug addicts and they still did whatever.

KATHLEEN: They didn't change a mindset, but they accomplished something. Then there's others that did change their mindsets and became a better person. So you watch this in my lifetime. I watched a lot of this. I mean, Oprah Winfrey was a big one. Okay. Of where she came from. A lot of your football players and sports players were really big on that too.

KATHLEEN: Look at some of your Hollywood people that came in from someplace in Oklahoma or Kansas and look at where they are today. I mean, to me, you had a dream and you went for it. And I didn't, and I don't think I knew enough about mindset. I just knew there was a lot of garbage inside that I had to get that layer and keep moving through the layers.

KATHLEEN: And just be patient with myself because I used to be a drill sergeant. In my 20s, it was one of these in the mirror. And I realized I'm not getting anywhere by doing that to myself. So why should I do that? Just allow yourself to be human. It's okay. If you feel like crap, it's okay. Just feel it, be with it, and then let it go when it's time to go on.

KATHLEEN: Because I didn't realize I didn't have to make a drama out of it. Whatever an event was. It's just an event. And then when I started realizing I was creating a story around it, well, what was the point? I like not having drama. I like not having stories around every event in my life. It's just an event.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, possibly. I mean, look at your situation. You're in the middle of an event.

KATHLEEN: You could be.

KATHLEEN: Feel sorry for me and I lost my house and I got this and you could be in this really dramatic, horrible place, totally victimized, but you're not, you're making lemonade. And there's a lesson in there for you to learn, whatever that is for you.

KATHLEEN: And if you just say, okay, whatever it is, it is. There's something bigger and better coming in on the other side of that change. And it was an emotional change because it's a hurricane. There's emotions tied to what happened with you.

STACIE: Two hurricanes.

KATHLEEN: Oh, yeah. Okay, you got a double whammy.

STACIE: Two back-to-back hurricanes. Yeah, it was interesting. It's been interesting, to say the least. But, I'd like to go back to the... What you're saying about unraveling the layers and not staying stuck. And if I might, I don't know, I feel prompted to say this. So when I lost my first son, it was devastating. I have a son now. So when I lost my first child, it was just an absolutely devastating experience.

STACIE: And I didn't have the training or the mentality that I have now by any means. I was much, much younger. And, at this point I call it, you go to hell and you're lucky to come back. But one of the things, this is interesting, and this is why I want to share this, such a dreadful experience for any parent, my heart goes out. So my doctor suggested that I go to a brief counseling group, right.

STACIE: For, people that had lost children. And I went to one, I went to one meeting. So in that meeting, there was a gentleman that shared, and their child had died five years prior, and they were different. I lost my son as an infant. There were people that lost their children a variety of ages and all kinds of circumstances, including murder. It was a really diverse group.

STACIE: But it had been five years since their child had died, and his wife was not there. His wife still couldn't go to the grocery store.

STACIE: And I understood that because I didn't want to leave the house either, right? I understood that. But that resonated so deeply with me because I thought, five years? Do I want to be in this place in five years?

STACIE: And everybody's journey is different. And we all do the best that we can.

STACIE: But that's when I made a decision that, and I was married at the time. My husband was helpful. My parents were helpful. But it was like, I can't do that. I'm not willing to sacrifice the rest of my life to that grief. And it is abominable grief. It's unimaginable grief.

STACIE: And people do different. You know they take different paths they choose to do different things and I have thought of that woman from time to time and I hope that she has come out right but again it's her journey and it's whatever her soul decided to do or spirit or whatever she's doing here is what she's supposed to be doing and it's a lesson she may or may not learn There's lessons that many of us may learn.

STACIE: And then there's others that we're going to be stubborn and we're not going to learn. Right. But, whatever that circumstance is. And I think that's when you broaden your perspective and you start reading things about near death experiences and soul contracts.

STACIE: And, there's so much that's that's going on that we really don't know about. We really don't know. We'll know when when we pass and get back to the other side, I suppose. But, we just have to do the best that we can do here.

KATHLEEN: That's true. And on that note, how can people get a hold of you, Stacie?

STACIE: Oh, gosh. My website is modernconsciousness.com. And I do have a free resource out there. I might mention that. You can find it. It's called Charting Your Treasure Map to Joy. And if there's one piece of advice that I would give anybody. The first place to start is get a hold of your emotional triggers.

KATHLEEN: If you can calm your triggers, you calm your life. So that workbook. Helps you navigate your emotional triggers, unravel them and deal with them in a different way. And if you can just make one change in your life, that's the change I would suggest.

KATHLEEN: I think that's a very powerful change to make. I know I had to get a hold of my emotions because, I could be the Tasmanian devil and my emotions controlled me instead of me controlling them. So that was something that I really worked very hard on. I think that's a beautiful way to start any journey for anyone.

KATHLEEN: I want to thank you for coming on the show today and sharing all of your wisdom and going into some of the depths of what you've been through, because I know my sister passed away and my mother never really got over it. She went on, but she never got over it. She suffered very deeply in silence on that one. So I...

KATHLEEN: I know that's a hard one to go through. And if you liked and got any value out of the show today, please feel free to like and subscribe to the show. If you want to learn more, you can reach me at BraveTV at KathleenMFlanagan. Com, or you can reach out to Stacie. Her contact information will be in the show notes.

KATHLEEN: I think that's everything. I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving. I know I did. It was so much fun, but I rested the whole weekend.

KATHLEEN: I was so tired because it was so much fun and I had a great time making dinner and having good friends over for dinner and the holidays are upon us and I truly hope that you all find joy and happiness and gratitude in this holiday season as it comes up and don't get caught up in all the crazy rat race and Christmas.

KATHLEEN: And I will see all of you next Tuesday at 4 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. And from my heart to yours, I hope you have a fabulous week.