Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Sue Aspinall : Trust yourself, you know more than you think.
Built on a long career as a teacher, Headteacher and Executive Leader across Asia, Europe and the UK, Sue Aspinall has recently expanded her work to include leadership coaching and training at www.Embracing-Leadership.com
Intent on transforming school systems from the inside out, Sue co-designs equitable, evidence-informed and caring leadership practices that empower leaders. She weaves her extensive experience as a solo traveller into her programmes, writing and talks, using personal stories to share wisdom, inspire connection and provoke action.
Sue cohosts ‘She Leads Because She Can’ a podcast where issues experienced by female school’s leaders are discussed. By building collective knowledge and expertise, this community is changing schools globally.
We explore the profound intelligence and wisdom that lives within our bodies with educator and author Sue Aspinall.
• Understanding body wisdom and listening to our inner voice
• Distinguishing between fear and intuition when making decisions
• Sue's journey as an educational leader advocating for young students
• Creating alternative expressions of "mothering" beyond biological children
• The essential practices for staying safe while solo travelling as a woman
• Navigating personal transitions through listening to body signals
• Balancing inner knowing and intellectual knowledge in leadership
• Ancestral wisdom as a source of guidance at different life stages
• Practical habits that cultivate connection to heart-centered wisdom
Use your voice—journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it, sister.
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say say it, sister, hey, hey, hey. Sisters, welcome back, um. This is the space where we have those heartfelt and real conversations and explore the deep intelligence, the power of intuition and the wisdom that lives within our beautiful bodies. We welcome an amazing woman today who is an educator, but not one of those who just focuses on educating through those standardized books or educating us by telling us what to think and, you know, telling us what we should all be doing in our lives. She comes from a perspective of lived experience, inner truth and understanding.
Speaker 1:So, whether you are tuning in from a quiet moment at home or midway through your travels, this episode is here to inspire, empower and reconnect you to what you've always known deep down. So Sue Aspinall has been leading schools throughout major change and has a mission to really raise the quality of learning and teaching available to students. Having been both a head of an inner London state school and three British international schools based in obviously different countries, sue knows what it is to live a global life and to transition between cultures and across countries. She shares her lifelong learnings in her book Unlock the Power of Solo Backpacking Follow Sue Aspinall's journey to freedom, adventure and transformation. And Sue and I are only recently connected, but, karen Sue, well, you've known each other for years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was 2015 when we first met and I need to put my feet on the ground solidly for this conversation with Sue, because Sue is one of the most grounded female leaders I have ever met. She we met during the CTI leadership training, where we spent 10 months together as part of a tribe of I think there was 26 different leaders from all around the world, held by two amazing teachers who are also leaders, and in the CTI, and we spent, you know, every three months, was it Sue? I'm trying to remember. We went to Sitges, to Barcelona, and we spent almost a week together in a Masia doing training and development and physical training, emotional training, you name it. We did it and Sue was one of the genuine elders in our group and I remember Sue for her ability to hold space, for her ability to take that elder role.
Speaker 2:But she was also one of the most liveliest, most youthful people in the group and I would see her in the morning going out for a run, as I was kind of getting out of bed with my hair all over the place and Sue's just got back from a god knows how many mile run and she's used to think, wow, look at her. She's like holding space. She's running miles and she's so present. And yet, at the same time, you had this magical, almost like silent quality about you, and then, when you spoke, I thought you just went quiet because we were like hanging off every word, wanting to know what you had to say. So thank you for coming here. We we've just spent our 15th retreat together in Spain again, and we had a wonderful conversation about intuition and wisdom and listening to what's happening on the inside of our bodies, and we're going to talk a little bit about that, but I want to bring you in now, sue, what do you want to say about all of?
Speaker 2:that Wow.
Speaker 3:I mean it's just amazing to to hear you know the the journey that we've had together, karen and obviously Lucy, hearing from you today. And yeah, I mean my, my background is based in education. I'm just passionate about the work that we can do to transform learning for young people and what I know to be true is that relationships are so important in any workspace and really putting value and time to building up those connections, particularly with the staff my perspective, but obviously for the sake of the children it's just really important and bringing that into the work we do in schools is just so needed but also so wonderful when you do it. But, yeah, I'm really pleased to be here today to share, yeah, just some of my life experience and hope that some of this is going to be useful for people who are listening.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Well, I'm going to kick off with my first question because, yeah, I can't wait to get into this conversation, and Karen and I often talk about body wisdom. Wisdom is our thing, so I'd really be interested and curious to know what does it mean to trust your body wisdom? And, I guess, how can women distinguish between the fear or the intuition or any conditioning?
Speaker 3:It's a really interesting question because when I think of body wisdom I just think of like an inner knowing within myself. Wisdom I just think of like an inner knowing within myself and I didn't really become conscious of the fact that it was very integral to the way that I was living my life. Until I was in secondary school, I just thought everybody sort of lived their life in that way and um, and I became aware as I got older that it was something different for me, um, that I was very intuitive. I was a kind of listening to something within me that was, um, enabling me to make decisions. And my mother mother would often say you just seem to know what's right to do. And I could never explain to her what that was all about. I just shrugged my shoulders and thought well, that's what you do.
Speaker 3:And then some things started to happen, like when I was 17,.
Speaker 3:I was very ill and missed a lot of school and spent a lot of time in bed and at home.
Speaker 3:And my mum remembers that one day I just got up and went to school and you know, the doctor hadn't said that I was better or anything, but something inside of me was saying you know, you need to be out there in the world, like what you need is out there, it's not in bed in this room and I just healed myself in that way. So for me it's just been a kind of natural inner voice is maybe the words that I would use, and now that I'm more conscious of it, sometimes the intellect gets in the way and I have to tune really deep to make the distinction. But I'm more conscious now of listening into it and it's a muscle I've had to really listen to and learn over the duration of my life to and learn over the duration of my life, um, particularly around being a woman and the cycles that we go through in our life and, um, just for some context, you know, I I'm single, I don't have children, so I'm. I've not had that part of my life when I've been a mother and then looking after a younger human being. So I it's kind of carving a new way of of being a mother, in the being a woman in this world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's quite fascinating because, um, as you were talking, I'm like I've had so many of those experiences and I think for me it's, um, when you get that inner knowing voice speak to you, it's just, it's so certain, it's so clear that you don't even debate it, it's just like, oh yeah, or OK, now I know what to do, whereas when it comes from a place of, I guess, fear or anxiety, it's is it this or is it that, or should I do this? And you've got this inner narrative weighing everything up. But every time that knowing voice comes in, it's like okay, now I'm listening, now I know what to do, and it, and I guess, unless you've experienced it and you've been able to tune into it, you'll never know. Um, and I'll just share one very small story being a mother, I'd actually been in labour for about 22 hours and had all kinds of drugs and you know you name it to help me get through this pain.
Speaker 1:And then it was that moment where you call it transition, and it's the point where you need to do the pushing to get the baby out, and there was just something that went off in my mind and just said Lucy, get this baby out of you and that was it. I didn't need anything else. I didn't need anybody else in the room as such. I just knew instinctively what to do in that moment. But I've never forgotten it because I've always said it was at that moment where my total heart, body and mind knew exactly what was needed in that moment.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to share that sorry I was just going to add about. You know, there's sometimes, there's something about the crisis point that calls us into such a strong position and both of you were talking about it where it's almost like it's a little bit like life or death. You know, we've got these moments and it's like something just takes over and before we know it we're out the door of somewhere. Or you know, we've got our shoes on and we're like and we're just like hold on.
Speaker 2:The brain's not even. The brain is not even in the emotion of what's happening. It's like an inner fire, or we'll call it life force. It's got so many different words and different, you know different parts of the world, but this fire comes through and it's just like we know and we go, and so I just you know whether you're having a baby. You know you're not actually standing. Well, some people do stand up when they're in a baby, but I'm guessing you were lying down because when we've had all those drugs we can't stand, but you know it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It's like we know what to do and and we just allow it like. It's like a full body takeover, really, in a way full body, mind, um, spirit, soul, everything coming together at the same time to do what's right for us.
Speaker 3:So thank you for sharing that, because I think when we go into the crisis, if we do it from an intellectual perspective, we get very stuck, but if we allow ourselves to be directed from a different place, we get liberated yeah, and I think you know, I think that's just exactly how it is this, this incredible letting go in a way, and the voice comes through, that surrender or that, that space that's created, um, and I love how it happens when you're in a crisis point or a crossroads in your life, and I also have experience of when things have come in a catalogue of situations and I've looked back on it and thought, ah, that was my inner wisdom speaking there.
Speaker 3:So, um, an example would be that, um, when, in a relationship that I was in finished when I was 43, I was just really kind of unsettled because I was still wanting to have children, and this relationship that I had children, and this relationship that I had thought would be the vehicle for that came to an end, and and it was a really important moment for me, really, because I then had this voice that was saying but so if you don't have children, what do you want to do with your life? It was really clear, and six months later, my period stopped. So it's almost like, when I look back at it, there was this combination of factors that were coming together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to make it make sense, yeah, that's really young I mean in terms of body wisdom, that's a very that's really young to start having your period. So clearly there was something happening. You know, I do believe we have a lot of power inside us to direct our bodies as well. Where we can, you know, actually create scenarios to happen, because somewhere along the line it's what's needed to happen. Um, and I hear that you know there's a lot of women in the world that can't have children, that don't have children, and if we go down the line that our job here is to procreate and recreate, I feel like that's a that's not a truth for women. You know, it's something that we can choose to do or not choose to do. And, um, when you talk about your work, I see that mothering element coming through and that power that you have. So, so talk to us about that. Like you know, you you may not have children, but you're still a mother. Talk to us about that.
Speaker 3:Give us some um, yeah, give us some joy here um, yeah, the the very clear message for me was that, um, I needed to step into that more senior role in schools, to make a difference at a more senior level. And so it was about really stepping into leading schools. And the calling was to go internationally. And that's when I moved to Japan. So I'd never been before, I didn't know anybody there, and this job kind of came out of nowhere and my purpose, my really deep-rooted purpose, is around transforming schools. So you know, I just got this real sense that actually my role in that that kind of mother framework was to bring that energy into school. And I work with the youngest students in schools as well. So you know, I'm really passionate about getting that right and doing the best we can to start that journey for young people and actually having a voice to advocate for them at all sorts of levels.
Speaker 3:And it's just been really important I've seen in the system to have someone like me, who is just so coming from that place, that when I'm in a board meeting and the tendency is to lean towards the exam years or the older children or the sixth form or whatever, I will always have a voice there and make sure that our youngest students are represented and that there's advocacy for them.
Speaker 3:So it's interesting how that's shown up in my life. And the other thing is around my nieces and nephews. I've got two brothers and a sister, both got two children and from a generational point of view, what's interesting is the role that I played in providing for my nieces that choice of pathway. So you know one of my well, both of my nieces who are in their 20s are really staying on that pathway of where do they want to make a difference in the world and making choices to be in relationships or not that serve or don't serve that commitment for where they want to go. And you know I'll be the person that they'll come and talk to about that. So I didn't realise that that would have such an impact on that kind of next generation. But I think it's what we all know what you see becomes. You know, if you can see it, then you can.
Speaker 2:You can make sense of it for your own life and I I think I've played a part in where two of my nieces are right now yeah, and it's like being the seer I mean, it's a big word, that is it, but like people call it vision these days when we can hold that bigger vision and align it in a way that comes into values and service which is what you've done so brilliantly and then bring others on the journey, whether they're, you know, little children or 20 year olds it's powerful, because that's the true.
Speaker 2:I think that's the true essence of a wise woman leader you know who is, you know in her own power, but not overpowering, but just holding the space for that. And so you know, and when I think about the school system, those who the little ones, are the ones that have almost been set out into the world without their parents or without whoever is their main care caregiver. It's actually quite a scary time for them, and so what they need is that, um, support and nurturing and attention, don't they? So thank you for holding space for that, because I feel like it's such a vital, vital time of life and it's.
Speaker 3:It's like what you say. I mean, you know, parents give a child to a school, really, and it's, you know, please look after my child, do do the best thing you can for them. I really really get that, and so for someone like me, the partnership of working with parents is really it's a really strong part of who I am, and I noticed that because I've lived globally, particularly working in the international field. I have a real empathy with parents who move around the world and need a place where they feel comfortable and safe for themselves as well as their children. So, in a way, we create a family within our school building, and so what I'm doing is holding space for those parents as well as for their children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's let's sashay into something slightly different now and let's talk about your amazing book, which I have here memoirs on the road.
Speaker 2:And you know I really enjoyed reading this book because it is so colorful in the way that you tell the stories. But it's not just about the places, it's about the people and the experiences, and I think it's challenging norms and stereotypes as well, but done such a um, such a wonderful way that it doesn't feel like it's been rammed down your throat. So I wanted to say thank you for writing this book and I do encourage anyone who wants an educational, yet really, really fun and vibrant read, to go buy this book. But talk to me about the staying safe element, because you're a woman who travels on your own in places that most women would not go alone. You know along the silk road, and we've had conversations about inner wisdom and the times when you weren't, you didn't feel like you were safe, and the reasons why. So what can you share with our audience today about staying safe and open to having adventures on the road?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's what people ask me all the time. You know, how do you keep safe? So it is on the top of people's agenda when they hear about the kind of places that I go to agenda, when they hear about the kind of places that I go to. And I think that what I do is I have a real clear purpose for why I travel like I do, and it's it's to seek truths, it's about expanding my own awareness of how people live, and it's to challenge my own assumptions and perspectives as well for the sake of the work that I do in the world. So that's very, very clear for me.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, I have to be responsible, and I am responsible and I'm aware of, like, um, how I need to be in the countries and the spaces that I go to, and staying safe is is not, you know, one of those. It's a very important part of it, and and I sort of think that there's three key areas that I have to watch out for. A is keep staying alive. Number two is not getting robbed and losing all my stuff. And number three is actually not getting sexually assaulted, because that's that's big when you're traveling on your own in some of the countries that I go to, and so I do take measures to mitigate the risk of that. So how I dress where I go, how I am, what I carry with me, um, the stories that I tell people about my life, those kind of things. But at the same time I don't want that to drive me. So I'm very conscious of creating around me a sense of openness, friendliness, smileyness, connection, joy, a kind of delight in being in these places and having the privilege to be there. And what I find happens is you, you get kind of within a system of care if you do that, and people will automatically look out for you in the same way that I would for them, and you become part of this mini system that's traveling smoothly through the places where you are. So it's making sure and being aware that you can create that by your very being and the way that you're entering into a community that you don't necessarily know.
Speaker 3:Little, little simple things like just smiling, connecting with your eyes and saying something, even if you don't share a common language. You're kind of opening up the possibility of connection and showing you're not fearful and that you're curious and open to what's going to happen. And so for me, travelling in the way that I do, it's very easy, it's it's flowing and it's enriching and it's just an incredible way to get tuned into your body wisdom, actually, because it's that that helps me know I'm I'm kind of like on hypersensitivity, you know um, all of my senses, all of who I am is, is connected into the, the relationships that I form, into the fields and spaces around and um, and I can kind of sense if it's not a safe place or there's something that's not quite right, and then I'll just make my way away from it. So, yeah, it's um, it's an extraordinary experience really when you're you're traveling like that, and because I'm not with somebody else, I feel it really intensely because it's it's it's kind of my energy, it's it's my receptivity.
Speaker 1:I feel kind of quite porous when I'm traveling these places and um, and very safe actually, when I've turned that up, yeah, I have to say, whenever I've gone traveling, I've had a very similar experience, um where it's about intention, and I've got this firm believer that 99% of the the world's humanity are good people they're not setting out to harm people.
Speaker 1:Um, and I think if you go out with that energy, it just it beams out of you that I trust you, or I choose to trust you, whatever it is, and and also that I'm rubbish at reading google maps. Um, it's okay when I'm on the roads and it tells me to go left or right, but when I'm in a city and I'm walking, for some reason, it just doesn't. My brain doesn't compute it. However, when I put that away, I always find my way to where I'm supposed to be. I have this inner knowing, uh, that it's in this direction or no, don't go down that street. And it might be because it's dangerous. Yeah, but there's something out there that I don't need to go down there, or it's just literally the wrong way.
Speaker 1:So I totally get that. When you're on your own, it does heighten it and you just gotta. Is it this way? Is it that? And the minute where you get that, um, that indecisiveness, you look around and there's usually a person stood there with a smile on their face, willing to help you absolutely, and that's that's completely my experience, lucy as well, is uh, you know, you can even be in a place where I've.
Speaker 3:It happened to me in tokyo, actually, when I was living there. I remember I was with my mother and we'd arranged to meet my neighbors for dinner and we were dropped off by this taxi driver in a part of Tokyo that I didn't know, and my mother reminds me that I just stood in this space, closed my eyes, put my hands on my kind of forehead and almost just tuned in, and then I just right, we need to go this way, because it led to the restaurant and she was going like how did that happen?
Speaker 2:I don't know yeah, yeah, what I love about that is you can go off math, off map, not maths. Go off map and go off grid and still find the point of connection within yourself and still navigate. I mean, I went around the world when I was 25 and there was no like phones or anything, so it was literally guidebooks and you know asking people and all of that and not at any point during that whole experience of six and a half months of traveling around the world did I feel unsafe.
Speaker 2:I never felt unsafe at any point in time. I just knew that we would find our way, and if we got a little bit lost, it's probably part of the journey somehow, and that we would find our way through. And there is like a higher level trust that is required, um, as well as listening on the inside and tuning in and, just you know, picking up on the levels of energies around us as well, because sometimes something can change quite quickly. I do feel this, you know. I find it now more in the UK. If I'm traveling around, my instincts are stronger than they used to be. I'm more attuned. If I get a feeling of something, I'm out of there so quickly. You know, I move fast and I'm not scared to say hello, I need some help or whatever. So, yeah, yeah, I think it's being able to hold the space for, you know, trust and openness, whilst knowing that if something does shift and change, we will listen and respond, and that's what's coming up for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting, you relate that to the UK or to our place of residence, and there would be times when I would be, say, in a pub or in a bar, and I'd kind of get a feeling of I'm not sure, and then I'd rationalize it and say, oh, stay, because your friends are here or you know it's, it's absolutely fine. And whereas now I know that to listen to that and to act on it because it will have an impact on, say, for example, my energy or who comes into that space, so, yeah, it's, it's something that you, you, you learn in all the situations in your life to start trusting and and really digging deep into, to kind of navigate your way.
Speaker 1:yeah, and I think we spoke a lot about that, um, developing that skill as we have more experiences and as we learn to reflect and join the dots in our life pattern.
Speaker 1:And it's always like, actually, when I've trusted myself or gone into my own inner intuition and wisdom, it's never let me down and so that kind of brings me on to another, another direction, I guess. And it's this, this whole bit with inner knowing and intellect. Now I've got to say I've probably always been an inner knowing person, even if I was doing it subconsciously. And, and as I'm starting to get more into this work of wisdom, I'm really starting to understand the difference between having knowledge and having understanding. Because I think I'm in a place now where I'm like, ah, now I get it, now I understand the bit between the surface and the next layer down, um, and I'm just curious, I guess, about your, your personal ability to navigate that tension between that inner knowing and the intellect, where the voice is saying, ah, but you're in the UK and you're in that pub and you're out around friends, how do you manage that tension?
Speaker 3:it's more difficult.
Speaker 3:Actually, the more you start to, for me, the the more that I start to read and and understand um, the more I have to manage that getting in the way of my inner wisdom.
Speaker 3:So I'm still learning how to do that.
Speaker 3:I am curious to know more and more and there's really insightful books that are around and there's research coming out and I feel a responsibility to know that stuff and I'm curious about it and at the same time, it's learning how to let it go and let it be so that I can still tune into my own intuition and my own knowing of what is the right way, the right pathway for me and I I'm just so curious to know what's going to happen in the future around AI because a part of me thinks I wonder whether it's the inner wisdom part that never, will never, be replicated.
Speaker 3:Like I, I can't understand how this kind of intuition or inner wisdom that I can't even get my fingers on and I can't describe it, how AI could ever replicate that in an individualistic way. So I'm curious to know how that's going to go into the future and in some ways it empowers me to listen to that even more, because it's that you know and I've been talking to a lot of people about AI in this perspective equally and like, ai is just knowledge.
Speaker 1:It is just you going out there saying how do I do this or create this for me, and it just gives you a structure, but how you then apply that to make sense in your life, or choose and discern which bits are relevant for you and which bits aren't. That's the wisdom and that inner knowing. And you know I've typed in various bits you know to in my work and I'll read like give me a blog outline and it'll give me what I'm like no, it's not that. That's not the message I'm trying to say, because I have to then go into my inner knowing and that's why we're also seeing a lot of bland content out there, because they're literally taking that piece, putting it out there into the world and I always go back and say what is it? I'm trying to say what? Where are the dots that are joining? I think that's the inner wisdom and that's the inner knowledge of what your tone of voice is, what's really trying to surface.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I also think adding to that is that our inner wisdom is generational. You know, as I'm getting older, I'm finding that I'm tapping in much, much more to my parents, my parents energy, but also my grandparents. It's, it's phenomenal how they're coming forwards into my inner wisdom now and and I I don't know why, but um, yeah, that it's. I think it's because, you know, I'm at that life stage and there's something in our ancestral stories that help us and guide us at different stages in our lives. And that's why, obviously, it's kind of coming up for me. But I don't think you can't replicate that and you can't design it and I can't even put that information forwards because I've not necessarily experienced it yet. So it's the new knowledge that I hope will support the generations to come is still working through me isn't there of the sourcing piece, where we start to source information differently?
Speaker 2:of course there is the inner wisdom, and that's happening on the inside of our body, but there's also wisdom around us from that field, or from um, depending on what you believe. But you know, when I do work in Akashic Records, I become a channel and information starts to come through me. And who knows and how knows that works. But I know it does work and I'm not working from within myself. I'm being given information or images or feelings even, and it's relating to somebody else, and this is like, in a way, it's pure magic. I would call it pure magic, but you know that's what you're doing. You have this wisdom that's also around you and there's also something in the family line that lives also inside you and as you connect to that, you're being led, because, quite frankly, we don't want to lose the wisdom of our ancestors and our elders. We want wisdom to become part of our wisdom so that it can be fully embodied and shared down the line.
Speaker 2:Because I studied history at university, so I'm a historian by by trade in a way, and it's so frustrating to me when I look back and I look at you know history and I go. So there was the First World War and then there was a Second World War. What on earth happened? What happened in that period of time that made people think that they would want another world war, and that they, you know now. I know the ins and outs of that from a historical point of view, but there's a part of me that's like this is sheer madness.
Speaker 2:How do we keep getting in situations where we are? We keep going back to war and we keep losing people and we keep fighting and actually, half the time, people don't really know what they're fighting for anymore. Um, and it's madness. So we want that to live through us and we want to be able to hold spaces and use our voices, and ai doesn't have a heartbeat. So this is the thing that I go back to, where I think AI is a very useful tool, but there's no heart in there, and if we are going to distinguish between different parts of wisdom, or you know what's, what's an anxious feeling versus what's something that we need to respond to, we need to tune into our heart, and our heart is going to give us information, and if our heart's beating fast, then generally there's something we need to be listening to now. Whether we wait or we act, we've got to discern that piece.
Speaker 2:That's where our wisdom comes in, because if we act out of time, it can be more dangerous, and so it's all of that that that comes up for me as I'm listening to you talking and just going back into the heart and into the mind and the simplicity of the body and how it tells us something's changed and it needs our attention in a way. Yeah, that's a lot for me, but where does it take you?
Speaker 3:actually, and I'm very much of the belief that the senses that we have as leaders, if we're tuned into it and we take the time to step away into peacefulness, quietness, solitude, and you can do that in the middle of a very busy school or company or whatever just kind of um, ground yourself and sense what's going on around you, um, in your relationships, in in what's happening in the classrooms, in your, in in the kind of field that's the term you know we're using for the spaces in between it. It's really important to kind of tune into that, because if you just keep doing what you've always done and it's really important to kind of tune into that because if you just keep doing what you've always done and it's focused on planning and outcomes and driving forwards, you can miss the importance of kind of where that system is right now, that that organic kind of thing that's growing and breathing and developing, and you can be completely out of line in terms of the sink of it. And so I'll often ask people you know that I'm working with, if I'm having to communicate about something, I'll say how did that land? Like, did that land with you or not? Be honest with me, just tell me so that you're getting lots and lots of feedback about how things are right now for the people in that system and for the system as a whole, because it is organic and it is developing and changing and there's so much richness in it.
Speaker 3:And if, if you're not tapping into that as a leader, you just miss so much, so many opportunities to pace it and take your time to have the real impact that you want to have. And that's that's what I think in terms of leadership going forwards. If you, if, if you can tap into that, then actually we're going to lead our organizations, our families, our communities in a, like you said, um karen, in a heart way, from the heart, um, but I think it's also from a humanitarian point of view. You know it's, it's it's helping everybody feel included and belonging and feel seen and heard and valued for the betterment of us all. And, um, yeah, that's, that's that's where I see leadership going is definitely, uh, managing the balance between the being and absorbing and taking in everything that's happening and then moving into action from that place.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I don't think you're not going to get any disagreement from either of us. Totally on board.
Speaker 2:What is the one thing that you would say in terms of for you connecting to that heart space? That helps you with your wisdom. What is one practical thing that you could suggest or share with the people listening?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean there's a very practical is that? Um, your health, as in your exercise, moving, the food you eat and your sleep are just absolutely critical. So people feeling disconnected from that inner place, I would say, ok, how are those three things in your life? It's keeping the body really nourished and well, the body really nourished and well, and then it's about some practices that enable you to go into that peaceful, quiet place. And people have busy lives, so there's different ways of doing that. It might be just listening to a podcast in the morning, or walking the dog in the wood, or writing a few lines in your journal.
Speaker 3:Um, for me, when I worked in school, it was I used to set an intention every day on my way into work on the bike and then before I left the building, I'd write down in my journal five great things I'd seen that day. So, whatever was happening, it kept my focus on, kind of the joy of being in that community. Um, so there's practices like that and I think it just keeps you really grounded, it reminds you of why you're here and um, and and, yeah, you know like how you show up, yeah, so it's the habitual practice of it that I think is really important yeah, to be consistent.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining us today. So if today's episode resonated, please share it with a woman you love. Let's keep weaving this web of wisdom, safety and connection until next time. Stay curious, stay grounded and trust yourself.
Speaker 1:You know more than you think so thanks for listening and we can't wait to welcome you next time.
Speaker 2:Until then, use your voice journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it's a stir.