True personal growth ultimately will lead to fulfillment, and it's my intention with these podcasts to connect more deeply with you. Thank you for joining me, Anne Corbin, and my guests, and welcome to this episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. And today I'd like to introduce you to Kayla Francis, who is the head coach and mentor at the Kayflower. And this is a place dedicated to helping young adults, that's aged between 21 30, who feel lost and disconnected on their traditional paths.
So let's be honest, that's a little bit younger than my normal audience, but I'm sure that many of you will know people or maybe such people are in your family so it's all good. So Kayla has a passion for guiding individuals towards meaningful lives and careers and she combines her personal journey of rediscovery with practical strategies for overcoming self doubt and embracing change. And we're all having to do that no matter what age we are these days.
So Kayla was navigating her own trials and tribulations and now she empowers her clients to reconnect with their aspirations and cultivate a sense of purpose. And I think it's fabulous that you're telling young people about purpose because I was into middle age before anybody even told me about purpose or that I should have one.
In in my school it was never mentioned and we just got on with life and we got a career and whatever and we just bumbled through without ever even giving purpose a second thought or a first thought. So first question, Kayla, you told me that you were heading towards a safe life until you got fed up handling your internal suffering. So tell me more about that. Yeah. So like you mentioned this is something that's not usually taught in schools or even just having conversations with your parents.
Most people are told about the traditional path, the safe path. You go to school, graduate high school, you go to college, you get a good job, and then that's kind of the way that most people their paths go when you're taking the traditional path. For me, I was the good girl, always getting good grades. That's kind of what I did. I felt like that was the right thing to do. And so I did that, and I realized that I was extremely miserable, and the misery was not going away.
So I scored an internship right after college, started a job. I tried to stick it out because I was like, okay. I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing. Why do I still feel out of it? Why do I still feel like there's something missing? It just it didn't feel right in my spirit, in my soul. At the time, I didn't realize that it was my inner or, like, my North Star speaking to me, telling me this is not the right path for you.
So I went on a journey from there of trying to figure out why is it that I have this good job. I'm making money from the degree that I went to school for, yet I'm still feeling super unhappy and miserable. And that's kinda what started my journey of figuring it all out and, a journey of self discovery. And I was about 21, 22 at the time. I think that's amazing.
You were so young to find yourself on this journey of discovery, and I think I'm right in saying a lot more young people are being guided in this direction these days. Would you agree? Yes. Definitely agree. I think, the generations now and the upcoming generations are more open minded about taking different paths and not always being so traditional. And there's more talk about it. It just simply Yeah. Discussed 20, 30 years ago. Not enough people knew about it.
So tell me, what spiritual practices have you found most helpful when you're reconnecting with your purpose? Yeah. So, it's a little bit cliche, but I definitely practice meditation, journaling, and just really tuning into myself. So even though that's something that people usually recommend, a lot of people, they find it hard to do these things. Like, I can't just sit there. It's like meditation is not just sitting there.
You could go for a walk, you could go sit outside, watch the birds, whatever that means to you, where you can actually take some rest time and be more mindful and just tune into what it is that actually feels good to you. I also participate in energy work.
I'm huge into making sure that I match how my body is feeling and embodying how I wanna feel and connecting with my essence, if you wanna call it, or, just my inner self and really focusing on that to I don't wanna get too, like, too woo woo in the way I'm explaining this, but I usually I'll sit down and I'll really take in the energy and try to visualize myself as my future self. So I kinda do all of the things and I try out different modalities when it comes to spirituality.
The meditation, the energy healing, the mindfulness techniques. I try to try to incorporate a little bit of all of it. Okay. That's great. So tell us about your own spiritual journey and about the trials and the errors that you faced as you were working through things, and ultimately how you were guided back to your original purpose? Yeah. So I one of I guess one of my trials and tribulations was flip flopping.
For me, in order to really figure out my purpose, I had to explore, which there's nothing wrong with that, but it's a journey. I had to try out different things. I had to speak about different things to people. I had to make some mistakes or what some people would call mistakes, like spending money on certain things, going after certain courses and certifications just to figure out what it is that I really enjoy doing.
So I would say that is really the journey is me having to explore what it is that I really love, what I really love to talk about, and kind of combining all of that knowledge together to really come to my true core purpose, which for me, it's teaching and spreading wisdom. That's what I figured out is something that I really love to do.
And I was able to figure that out from working with coaches, from the meditation and the journaling that I talked about, from taking my own courses and certifications, and really figuring out what the core thing is that I always come back to. And I I think that's why I've I've flip flopped and kind of gone all over the place just because I was figuring out what I was trying to do.
And at the end of the day, it all came back to, I wanna spread the idea and the message that everyone should be living in alignment with their purpose. And so that's what it all comes back to, which is what I started with before, went through a journey of trying to do other things, and I ended up back doing this. And what's the best advice that you can give to others who are just starting out and wanting to incorporate some of these practices into their lives?
I would say notice being more aware of what's happening with your body and what's happening around you. So figure out what is it go ahead and explore and then figure out what is it that I'm doing that makes me feel energized? What makes me feel happy?
Start there and also don't be afraid to go back to what made you feel good when you were a child because our childhood dreams and our aspirations and things we did when we weren't really thinking too much about it is really what we tend to stick to throughout life. It's just that life happens to us and as we get older, we start to think, oh, I can't do that. I can't do this because now I'm an adult. I have to do adult things and we lose that spark.
So I say go back to what you enjoyed as a child and then figure out how you can incorporate doing those things as an adult. You don't always have to make a career or make money from it, but go ahead and figure out what is it that you actually enjoy. Take some time for that. An hour a week. No big deal.
And I think starting there, just being aware of your energy when you do certain things and see what it is that's filling up your cup, what's actually making you happy, and you can do without noticing the time. Maybe I should ask you to share some of your childhood dreams and, some of that have influenced you. Yeah. So like I mentioned, teaching has been a core thing for me. I always wanted to be a teacher when I was younger or a lawyer.
I always loved standing up at the front of the crowd and speaking. I would lay out my teddy bears. I'd have my whiteboard, and we would do class. And that's what I really like to do as a child. Everyone thought I was gonna be a teacher. I didn't wanna be as I got older and realized that in the state, teachers are grossly underpaid and they're not always treated well, I was like, I don't think I wanna be a teacher, but I still wanna teach.
So I found ways to do that in other things that I do now, in my career and as myself as an adult. But always, I liked learning new things and then teaching it to my peers. All the way from elementary school to college, I was a tutor, so I was able to take that, my love for every time I learn something, I wanna spread the wisdom. And so I was able to take that from being a child all the way into where I am now.
And I'd say that's probably the main thing that stuck with me from being young is loving to teach. What you say about teachers pay, I think that applies all over the world. I don't think it matters if you're the states or the UK or Europe, not that I know about everywhere. But I do think that teachers and, yeah, vicars and so forth, they they've completely fallen out of the levels of respect that they used to have. They're not respected.
They're not paid, and I think it's a terrible shame because it's keeping a lot of people out of the teaching profession, and we really want to encourage the best of our youth to become teachers. It's not happening anymore. Yep. I agree. It's really unfortunate. And I feel like teachers, they work very hard. They have to take money out of their own pockets to Yeah. Buy supplies and things like that for the classes. So, obviously, something needs to change.
I don't know how or when that's gonna happen. You're right. I don't know how either. I started off life as a teacher. Didn't last very long because as I walked into my first job, I thought, oh my goodness. I don't want to spend the rest of my life at school. Yeah. That's a good point. I think teachers have a worse time in school than students do. Mhmm. Honest thought. So you you, you pivoted early on, really. Did you train as a teacher? I did.
But did you go through the training or did you pivot before you got there? No. I was a teacher's assistant. So I actually looked into being a teacher after graduating college and kind of figuring out, okay, what else I wanna do? Teaching was on my list of I can potentially go back to school and do this thing. So I said, let me not jump in deep jump in the deep end and just come become a teacher and then figure it out from there. I'm gonna try it out first.
So I became a teacher's assistant, and I was like, no. This is not for me. Because I saw what the teachers were going through, and I was like, it just it didn't feel right. And so I was like, I'm really good at listening to that inner knowing in my gut, and when something doesn't feel right, I'm like, no. It's just a no for me.
Okay. And, so how can other people what what's your best advice for people who've left their childhood so far behind that they can't even remember what these great childhood experiences were? How would you advise them? Yeah. That's a good question. I'd say you have to do a lot of more exploring as a result, which I know is, like, easier said than done. But it's okay if you can't always remember what it is that made you happy as a child because you could always return to that happiness.
So go out and try different things. What do you think? Kind of take from your idea of what you think will make you happy, and then start from there. Just, I don't know. There's so many different things, like, go out for a hike and see if that makes you happy. Start dancing, dance classes, see what's offered in your community, volunteer. There's just so many different ways to figure out how I can find where my community is, what makes me happy, what type of people do I like being around.
There's events that you can find online. It's really just about doing the research, finding what you think may you may enjoy and then starting from there. And if you find out you don't enjoy something after trying it, you don't have to keep doing it. Yeah. I like that approach because I I must say I frequently heard this advice. Oh, you need to connect with your inner child, but nobody explains what that means or how we're supposed to do it.
Mhmm. Yeah. And I know, I'm not a huge expert into inner child work, but I have done it before with someone guiding me, facilitating me where we do, like, inner child and shadow work. But I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to facilitating that or guiding other people on it. But I do agree that there also has to be some action involved as far as you going out and trying different things.
So would you say that there are signs and feelings that people need to look out for which will guide them in the direction of returning to true purpose and also finding their true purpose if they feel that they're on the wrong path? Mhmm. So definitely, if you're feeling so kinda like the way that I'm speaking right now, it's almost like I can feel this burst of energy coming through me.
So if you feel that, if you feel on fire, if you feel like, oh my god, like, I'm shaking a little bit because I just I have so much to say. I wanna get it out. Almost like sometimes for me, my words will come out faster than my brain, or I say my brain is going faster than my words when they come out just because I'm so excited.
So if you feel excited about something, if you can talk about it all day, if you wake up feeling excited, if you feel on fire, if it gives you energy, those are definitely signs that you're in alignment with your purpose. And obviously, if you're feeling the opposite, where you're miserable, it's hard to wake up, you don't you feel like you're getting more drained even though you're not doing major physical activity, those are signs that, hey.
There's something off here, and that's just really your body speaking to you. Right. And we do tend to ignore our bodies, don't we? It's just, oh, wish for a pill or, oh, it's just a pain in my back. I'll get through it. I'll soldier on. And it's it's really critical that we listen to our bodies. And, again, that's something that I only learned maybe plus minus 10 years ago.
Most of my life oh, no. It didn't be longer ago than that because I had an accident, And I hurt my back, and it would not heal. And that was what got me into energy medicine. So that's some time ago. But, yeah, that was the beginning of my journey, long before anyone started talking to me about purpose and inner child and so forth. Yeah. But, yeah, it got me thinking about western medicine and all that's wrong with it, and that's a whole another rabbit hole. We don't need to get there now.
But getting back to spirituality, many people find their spiritual journeys confusing. Would you agree? And what advice have you got for them? Yeah. It can be confusing, especially when you're just starting out. There's a lot of people who identify as conscious or woke where once they figure out something, they, they're like, okay. I'm gonna completely run with this. And then they start going down this rabbit hole. They're Googling. They're on Instagram. They're on YouTube.
It's like, that's all great, but at the end of the day, you have to realize spirituality your spirituality journey is so individualized and it's to yourself. So you have to figure out what it is that you really want and what do you want to get out of your spiritual journey. For me, it was finding purpose. I wanted to be able to love the work that I do. So I wanted to take my purpose and express it in the work that I do. So if that's not a new you want to take, you want to focus on that.
If you just want to be able to have more calm in your life, that could be a different avenue. So I feel like it just comes down to first figuring out what your goal is for your your end, of your spiritual journey and what you're trying to get out of it, what you're trying to do, and then start from there. Because there's just so much information out there, and you can always add on layer on more research that you get later on.
But I think starting with one core goal of what you're trying to get out of it is the best idea. That way it's not so confusing and so much information coming at you. I noticed that you used that word woke, which to me has been so discredited because the woke movement is anything but awakened. Mhmm. It's given the whole idea to me a a totally wrong meaning. Yeah. It's I think social media plays a part in that because some people, they'll call themselves woke, but then they're doing the opposite.
And they're kind of they're using the word too much. I feel like it's been overused, which is why I try not to use it, but I know some people identify themselves as that. So I think you just have to kind of be careful with the terms that you use, which I like to use conscious, because I think conscious is still safe, or spiritual people. Or, I mean, awakened is what we're really talking about. Awakened. And to me, it's the complete opposite of woke.
Woke is a crazy movement which maybe it's been infiltrated to, I don't know, give people the wrong idea or lead them down the wrong path. I would have put it past society to be able to do that or like the, I guess, the people behind the scenes to do that. Indeed. So that is that does get me wondering.
So tell me, how can someone determine what kind of work they should switch to if they're stuck in a career that they hate or that they went into to make somebody else happy, which so many of us have done. What's your best advice for them? I think finding community of other people and maybe some type of mentorship could help of people who've been through the journey before and kind of figuring out what path they took to get there. I also think, like I mentioned earlier, volunteering.
So don't completely go all into something, like I did where I spent a lot of money on a lot of courses and certifications. So I'm like, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to do that thing. Start out with things that are cost friendly or budget friendly, low cost first or free, where you can figure out and play around and explore first. Then once you figure out, oh, I really like doing this. I think this is something that I'd like to do more of.
Then you can start investing in other things to get maybe, education and certification that can back you up. But I think the best thing is starting out what with what your interests are, your passions, and kind of running with that, and figuring out ways you can volunteer your time. Or maybe you can shadow someone, you can talk to someone in that potential new career you want to get into, and then, starting from there. Wow. That's great. You are so full of good advice.
So well, you're the head coach and mentor at, at Kayflower. I think that's a lovely name. And, you've given me email to contact you through and you're on Instagram. Right? Correct. Okay. So I'll put those links in the show notes and people can get in touch because I think you have a lot of wisdom to offer. And thank you very much for guesting on the show. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Thanks so much for having me. Excellent. It has been such a pleasure.
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