Conscious Communication

Welcome to the mindful musings of two spiritual mamas.
We are two women walking a path of conscious awareness, mostly gentle, but sometimes fierce. For 22 years, our life paths have been winding and weaving a fabric of sisterhood and spiritual security. through storytelling and laughter, we share our wisdom, our follies, and our empowered perspectives.
infused with love and intention, our episodes will inspire those who are ready to shift their soul path into alignment with its divine purpose. You are not alone on this journey. Welcome, everyone to episode seven, season two of two spiritual mamas. I'm Alicia.
And I'm Shelby. And today we will chat about supporting each other through compassion, compassion, and mirroring. And these are in contrast to judgment, reactions, defensiveness, or even jealousy. So sometimes these things can be pretty subtle. And Alicia and I are asking you to bring some awareness forward, so you can bring more intention to your relationships.
Speaking of relationships Yes, darling. We're gonna have a little check in how are you doing? My dear?
I'm pretty tired. Wonderful, Alicia, thanks for asking. Yeah, there's a lot of flow in life right now. And I'm feeling supported by my staff. I'm feeling supported by those in my heart, including you. And really just a conscious connection to my own self. So I am really working. I mean, I am clearing and cleansing and doing all these things to clear the clutter in my soul, you know, and my house too, because it's, you know, your house is your body. So? Yeah, in these dark, dark hours that we're in the middle of winter here.
Yes. Oh, I love hearing that you are feeling so much support in your life. I love being one of your support people, and that you have so much flow and ease, especially just this time of year when Yeah, it feels like it can be kind of dark, and challenging.
Maybe. Yeah. And how about you, my friend? How are you doing?
I've been struggling honestly, I have had some big life changes. And I have had to reach out to my support network a lot. And I have brought in people that have teenagers to be like, reflecting to me how they're doing it, where they're feeling success. I'm really challenged by this initiation phase of parenting and my son going through his that, that initiation he's going through so 1415 Man, those are some hard, hard years and lots of things in my life have changed. So I'm just taking lots of deep breaths, I am leaning into trust and surrender and, you know, asking for help. And I took a bath the other night and had a one to one of my few epiphanies. I love bathtime epiphanies years, probably not 70s or so. But I realized that I hadn't meditated much in this last week. And gosh, things feel really, really hard right now. And so I remembered that when I meditate regularly, things feel easier. And it's just leaning into, like I said, those friends that support and leaning into spirit. That is where I know that I will feel supported. And like clear and things will be easier because I'll have more resources and more energy and more support.
Alicia, it sounds like you're using your toolbox grow into the toolbox, right? Like I'm open in the back drawer. Bottom I
gotta remember all the tools. Yeah, totally.
And you will find the flow. There's flow even in chaos. We got to get through it to find the the pure stuff, right? Transformations. Yes, I've
been remembering that some of the hardest times in my life were amazing pivot points for the next amazing thing. And so that was actually a couple of weeks ago, I had a bath epiphany that was that same thought of I can I can look at this moment. But right now and how hard it is and say, this is going to be the best thing that's could happen to me even though it's really hard it could be, it could be that next best thing that I needed to propel me into my next level.
It makes me want to cry. Thinking about the good man like you do you got to push through sometimes and trust yourself. Yeah, and believe that you are on the right path. And you have the tools that you need to do it. So congratulations.
Thank you. Same to you. Congratulations, you were going through your Hard Times a couple years ago. And I remember. Oh, yeah. Pretty much the same stuff to you. So
yeah, my boys are older now. And there's such gems. So
I trust
Well, let's, let's get into some of this great stuff about support and mirroring. I know you have some wisdom here and technical knowledge on mirror neurons, will you share that with us?
Yes, neuroscience discoveries back in the 80s showed us a new kind of neuron that we had no idea. And so we've only been working with this concept for the last 40 something years. So mirror neurons are in your frontal cortex. And they are how one of the things that we do with our children is how we learn and how our kids mimic us when we're cleaning and doing adult things. And kids are learning how to do those things when they're little they are using their mirror neurons. And when we realize as adults, we have really good nourishing friendships around us. And that we pick up some little nuances or little catchphrases or things that our friends say that's our mirror neurons. And those of us that have a more heightened sense or more mirror neurons, there actually can be people that don't have as many mirror neuron capabilities. And those people are the ones that actually have a hard time recognizing social cues. And they don't see some of that. And there's not a lot of ease in that. So just with that little bit of awareness, talking about the five closest people in your life and how you are most similar to those people, because your mirror neurons start to grow more towards what those people are like, right? So if you have, like right now, I will share my son has some bad influence friends around him right now. And that's one of the struggles. So I know that he's growing in that direction and going to continue to grow in that direction. If I can't help him see that or maybe support him to have some other good friends around and get some more face time with him, which is hard as a teen, right, he doesn't wanna hang out with his mom. So definitely, there's lots of ways we can talk about this. So.
And to counter that in a positive way. I just said to my beloved, I think it was yesterday I said, you know, I'm using the words wonderful, and congratulations. And because he uses them a lot too. And I feel wonderful when he uses them in my peripheral space and or when he's talking to me. And I'm like, Well, I don't want to like mimic you. But they're great words and fabulous like these. And I use these positive words all the time to do all that. But it's just as funny like, wow, I'm even more wonder.
Yeah, you're noticing that?
Yeah, it's a great now is this when I think of like right now, I'm leaning into even though we're on a computer here, I'm leaning in toward you Is this what you're talking about when you know people cross their arms while they're talking to or stand in that power stance? You know, I do that. With coaching. I'm like, hands on the hips, feet wide. You know, this authority, Amazon woman stance,
exactly. We actually feel more comfortable when the people around us are showing us that they see our body language or our encouraging our body language. So when you notice yourself having tea or coffee with a friend, and you cross your legs, and then they cross their legs in the same way and you're kind of mirroring each other, or you put your hand on your fist and you're leaning in and they do the same thing. Then that's Yeah, our mirror neurons reflecting back to and it actually makes us feel more comfortable. We feel seen and heard. And we want to share some tips about how to do that with communication, conscious communication with our words. And I actually did it as an example at the beginning when I asked you how you were. Yes. And you shared I reflected back to you what I heard you say
I noticed you did that. I was like that was so nice to feel it. Oh, it was great the way that I'm like, well, she's really sharing that she listened to me. And it felt really good to me.
Yeah, that's the point. One of the things you can do to have better connection and conscious communication is be a really good listener and be open to fully receiving what the person is saying. And mirror back to them what you heard them say, and ask a question. Did I get that right? Does that sound like how you? Did I? Did I hear you correctly? Is there anything more I didn't understand from what you just said, and we feel so seen and heard by our friends and people that we're in relationship with when we are reflected back to in that way, and then it's really a better connection point, then sharing a story about how you feel the same way. Or, you know, noticing, noticing, you're talking about how grounded you are, and me being like, Oh, well, I'm not grounded right now. Or, you know, in responding with something about me instead of really just sitting with you for a second and mirroring that.
And that feels absolutely amazing. I've been there recently, where I've been talking about something that may not be of the subject matter, choice of the other person, you know, it's like my life and it has something to do with work or blah, blah, blah. But that person will say, can you tell me a little bit more? And I'm like, Oh, wow, you know, in the night, I get to hear my own self work it out on my own, you know, instead of having to kind of cut that short and listen to the other person's, Oh, yeah. Well, when that happened to me, it's like, okay, I'm so glad you're compassionate. And you can relate, but I'm still stuck right now. And I can't figure it out my own stuff. So I really have appreciated that about the people in my life lately. It's like, Thank you for asking me to share more. Because there's always more. There's always more, especially with me. I might go on is like I got a question. I have a call Matt. Yeah, yeah. We don't need to talk about that. But that I mean, I think this episode, we're kind of inviting everybody out there who's listening to give it a shot, you know, you've got whatever conversations are coming up, you know, sit back and say, Tell me a little bit more about what you're saying, or, or I'm hearing this is that? Is that what you're trying to say? Like you just said, so yeah,
or maybe you want to feel heard. And you are entering in a conversation with a friend who always does the other thing where they're always talking about themselves, or they bypass you and go on, like, sometimes I have people and there's a couple people that I recognize I tried to avoid talking to sometimes, like, and that's an avoidant thing. We can talk about that, and attachment styles, different. But
right, that data
Conscious Communication thing to do would be to speak to that person before you share and say, Hey, I've got some things that are heavy on my heart or something I want to celebrate. It doesn't matter what it is just pre paving the conversation with a could you just listen and reflect back to me what you hear so that I can hear it from what you heard from your perspective? Or say, You know what, I'm really not looking for advice right now, I actually just need someone to hear me. And you can prompt a conversation with the kind of maybe you do want advice. And I literally this week was reaching out to some parents saying like, hey, what would you do in this situation, I would love some advice. And it's not that I want to feel heard and reflected back to I was really, truly looking for some different kinds of support and support can feel so many different ways, right? And getting clear within yourself to know what that support you are looking for right then is also a big piece of clarity to like, the type of friendships that you want, and who you might call. So you have three different people that you could call right now, when you have something come up that you want to celebrate and share. And are you going to call the person that you know is going to celebrate with you and be we're going to introduce this word again, conversion, be happy for you conversion means to be joyful, that you're joyful, like your beloved and your relationship shall be makes me so happy. I'm so excited for you. And some people might hear that and be a little jealous. Oh, well, she's finally found somebody that she's so in love with. And I wish I had that, you know, like, Yeah, are you gonna call and celebrate with that person? Are you going to call and celebrate with the person that's going to have more compassion for you?
Absolutely. Oh, I want to go back to the pre paving because that was a wonderful word. And I love that concept of pre paving. Because there are people in my life that I adore, but they consistently do that. I'm like, oh, yeah, So thank you for that advice friend. And I wanted to just bring up those little hint that when it comes up in these podcasts, I have to say it, I used to be someone who wanted everyone else to feel included. And to raise their power by saying, even though I felt like I could probably solve something, and I should solve something on my own with my own intuition, I would say, What do you think about this? And then it just was like, I was asking for advice when I really didn't need it. And so that was just as a curious place for me of saying Shelby, empower yourself, trust yourself, still communicate with that friend and say, Listen, I think I've got the answers, but I need you to mirror them back. And can we can we do this together so I can really empower myself and walk into the person that I'm trying to become. But I need your help right now.
You know, and help might not be advice help might just be mirrored or listened to. And yeah, that's so much more empowering. And you and I are here to empower others. That's like what we want. You do it through gymnastics and through your medicine circles, and I do it through coaching and through women's circles. I mean, it's just so much dancing. Yes.
Well, absolutely, and I want to go back also to the conversion, because we talk about it a lot. In gymnastics, there's always always, almost every day somebody is getting a skill that somebody else wishes they had for themselves. And we just keep saying, girls, we're stronger. When you share excitement, and you share joy, and we elevate each other versus that innate feeling of jealousy. I want that for myself. Yes, that is so true. But this is what we're talking about today is that little pivot of saying, Oh, I feel a twinge of jealousy. Let me ask, how did you get that skill? What did you do to get to this point, you know, be more curious than jealous, be more inquisitive, you know, figure out what's the groundwork behind the achievement. And that really will, it will empower everybody to celebrate, and then you'll empower yourself. And you'll have a little bit of a mission and go out and say, well, that's how she did it. And this is how I can put it into my hemisphere and my walk every day. And then I would like to achieve it too.
You know? And yeah, maybe you do it differently. Absolutely. But still shine just as brightly you know, we're here to support each other and empowering women and the sisterhood. It's actually huge sister wound, that women are so competitive with each other, and it's definitely a masculine patriarchal quality. But competition and jealousy are a way of the past. And we're hoping to give tools for people like say, You do notice that little twinge of jealousy? What do you do? Be curious, say you are starting to feel like there's a lack mentality, and you have to compete for something that there's not enough for everyone. Then what do you do, Shelby? If you how do you work with the kids around competition? I mean, because officially you do competitions, right? It's not a paradox.
Oh, it's so hard. Like, I love this sport. And I love what the competition brings, because it elevates everybody does this, they get a little bit like, oh, you know, we just keep talking about celebrating. And we, you know, some of these girls are little, they're like 789 years old. And they're just like, do you see all the medals on my neck? And I'm like, Yes, sweetheart. Congratulations. But let's also be compassionate to the girl next to you who doesn't have any? And they know, and I just try in the moment it just keep, keep teaching them the wholeness of the team? Because it is a very individual sport. You know, I don't I don't really know, I have to have more of a direct question. I think because it's such a huge topic.
Well, in the SR one, when we talk about competition, and even in the workplace, you're thinking about competition. It's like, we have our personal best. And if we're competing against our own, like, Did I show up for my best today? Yeah. Then if everyone showed up for their best today, and they all got 10 out of 10. Then we're all winners, right? And there is that like, softness that people are saying now like kids from this generation now or like everybody needs to be a winner. Everybody needs a partition participation medal. And I think if you do feel like you did your personal best, then that is a nice thing to acknowledge. It's like in the Four Agreements. That's one of the agreements always do your best. And instead of it being a competition, like your best shall be in your business is different from my best in my business because we are doing different things. But being supportive to one another, through celebrating is probably exactly what we can do. So with the girls, are you able to? How do you speak to that girl that didn't do her best or how or didn't get the metals?
Well, as you're connecting, I was thinking about, what I typically say to them is, as soon as you dismount, and you have not received a score, and you haven't received a placement, that's where I want you to tap into how you felt. And and that is the emotion that I want to be the most primary. Did you feel like you did your best? Or are you immediately going, Oh, dang, that, that dismount felt a little bit weird, or, Oh, that was my best beam routine all week, you know, then celebrate that. And because the judges are humans, and they're different, every, every meet, and that can translate to everything, you know, social media judgments of everyone, that's just, I mean, judges are trained to be pretty pragmatic with it. But still, they're humans. And placements depend on what size of the meat you're at what you know, was like how the pool of the workforce you're in, or whatever, I'm trying to relate to other things. But none of that really matters. What matters is how you felt when you landed. That's just great. How do you feel when you landed from anything? Everyone? thing? Yeah. You. And if you end a job and everything, like that was the best job interview I've ever had, and you don't get the job. Keep holding on to it. That was the best job interview I've ever done. And I can take that to another job interview, you know, like, like, build on your own merits instead of the judgments of others.
Absolutely, yeah. So that goes back to jealousy and judgment. And having conversion and having conversion for yourself having that trust, passion, compassion. Yeah, absolutely.
So fun to support each other. It's been such a wonderful witnessing when we get in circle, and we dance together. And something we've been doing a lot lately is dancing for dancing, instead of dancing for performance, and the joy and the silliness and just the the self expression of expression and non judgement. And, you know, like I see you, you know, a couple of my dancers are like, Well, we haven't danced since before. COVID. I'm like, Yeah, that's like a couple years now. You know? So they're like, why my hips up to get back on straight Aaron. But there's, it's just all joy. And and so
how do you feel the difference between dancing in front of a mirror and dancing without mirrors? It's
so funny. We literally, so Tuesday, we're dancing, which I believe was like, a couple days ago. And I had found a mirror like, oh, ladies, like through a mirror up, you know, because we're in my we're in my family room just being in the winter. And it was totally different.
I noticed some judgment come up around, like, Oh, I like seeing myself in the mirror. And then I'm like, ooh, that doesn't feel good. But does. So isn't that interesting?
I think for me, it did distracted me from the way it felt to the way it looked. Yeah. And I liked the way it looked. You know, I love I also love the way it felt. But I think more so I was like, oh, yeah, that's, you know, it's so it was it was just different. You know, it wasn't a bad experience at all, but it was just different. And I know a lot of women have asked in the past, can we cover the mirrors? Because it's, it's tough, you know, a strategy learning and distracting. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's perception and noticing, what are you focusing on? Are you focusing on the thing outside of you, or what it looks like? So that could be your social media that could be your house could be you know, whatever? am I focusing on what it looks like versus what it feels like to be around a friend or cozy in my living room? Or, you know, like, the the feed that we're taking in how does it feel instead of like those shiny, you know, fancy whatever that it looks like? And I want to talk about what happens when the world is not a mirror to you, like when someone shows up in your life that is super judgmental or screaming at you in anger or, you know, when when something is in your life that you're like, This isn't resonant. I don't like what is this about me? What is this mirroring? About me that I'm, you know, attractiveness in my life or there's so many spiritually, like, bypassing kind of things that people do with, with those situations. And when I noticed that something in my life feels off, and it's not like that That's odd, how did that show up in my life? I look at it as a lesson in boundaries of noticing like, Okay, this isn't necessarily me doing this thing, like, I don't get angry and yell and scream at people. But when I'm allowing people to be in my life and treat me that way, what is the boundary that I need? What is the self? Self now I want to use the word self preservation, but I want to think more of like, self care of how bond you have respect, self respect.
And I think I can speak to that, because I've been learning that recently. I tend to want to what's the word diagnose people? Because I, you know, as a coach, you're like, what's the root cause of this? This, you know, issue going on with the body. And so when it happens with emotions or behaviors, I'm like, Well, I wonder what the root causes and how do I have compassion for this person right now. But sometimes I need to just be like, you're being disrespectful. And that's that, like, your behavior is disrespectful. And I have a firm boundary around that. So if you would like to change that and shift it, so we can talk about things I'm happy to, but the disrespect has to stop.
And that's compassion first, but compassion for yourself.
To me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Okay, this broadcast is now over. We nailed it. Okay. Oh, it's my lesson recently. And so you asked, Why are these things in my life? Why, you know, and that's what I've been getting a lot of lately is I'm like, What is going on? And that's what I've been kind of deducing is I need more compassion for myself. And instead of trying to be the diagnosing, you know, emotional doctor over here. What, I wonder why this person is struggling and suffering and like, first of all, I have to have a little bit of self respect, and boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Did you see me fall off my chair? When you said we're gonna talk about boundaries?
Oh, yes, I do want to get I want to head back, you were talking a little bit about patriarchal model of, you know, women, not supporting each other. And I do want to just speak to the men for a second, you know, I can't speak as a brother, but as your sister, we see you as well. And we see that your emotions and your tears haven't been supported for a very long time. And that competitive edge is what has been appropriate, and you know, to do all the sports, and it's just competition, you know, and through warriors and and I don't know, I can't speak to it too well, but I just want to say to those of you who are going for it, the brothers out there who are tender hearted and compassionate. Thank you, and blessings, and we see you and we appreciate you and I am so gratefully in love with one of them. And maybe we'll have him on Sunday. So he can speak to it a little bit more eloquently than I But
yeah, that's a good mirror of support back at the masculine because yeah, we talk about the patriarchy, and that is not against men, it is against a model that men have been squished into just as much because they've had that feminine squished out of them, they've been being told that those qualities are not masculine. And we're really speaking to balance and coming back into a state of harmony and inner peace with that inner balance of masculine feminine. Yeah.
And when we do that, and we reflect that back to our brothers and sisters, it's just such a reward. It's immediate satisfaction. And as you as you walk into the next few weeks, just try it out. Keep trying it out until it becomes familiar, until you start to say, like, my sweetheart says, Congratulations to everybody for everything, and they look at him and they're like, oh, yeah, that is worth congratulating me on. Yes. And it's hilarious because you're just like, you tend to celebrate life more and you know, we're all about that. But it's it's a vibration, you know, and if we can rise above and stop living inside of this jealous judgement lower vibration mock, you know, I call it like boot camp. Let's get out of boot camp, you know, rise up like an eagle. Yes,
exactly.
Hey, Alicia, congratulations.
Congratulations going through this initiation. Yes.
Oh my gosh, this is my level and an opportunity.
Yes. And that is not spiritually bypassing the fact that it's hard. It's nice to feel seen. You know, one of the things I noticed recently with someone who I think I had met before, this woman was introducing her partner to me and I said, Oh, nice to meet you. And he goes, it's good to see you. And just feeling seen just hearing that language of like, I see you. Good to see you. I just felt amazing. I'm like, Okay, thanks for mirroring that to me. You see me I love being seen. I love feeling there's such a
Leo. Oh my gosh. Over here, the Libra and all over extravagances.
Yeah. So how do our kids feel seen? How can we mirror to them that we see them and what they're going through? Like, I'd celebrate my son, every time he completes chores, even if I want to say, Oh, you missed a spot. Yeah, I say thank you so much. That was so great of you. Like he's been cleaning the toilets and doing the like dirty work around the house. And even though I feel like we've got a disconnect happening, he's still showing up to do all of that, and not complaining as much as he used to. So I like to lead by example, and our kids will mirror us. So going through anything hard times, like look for expanders and ways that you can learn to mirror other behaviors that you want to do for yourself. Do that for your kids, and the whole world will start to mirror you more. And with that consciousness.
Are you taking notes? I'm taking notes on Alisha. Like, this is great advice. Wonderful. I'll listen later, too.
I love that. Yeah, we really literally listened to our own podcast because some of the things that come out, you know, it's that's the best thing about chatting with you like this Shelby is that I love hearing what comes out of you when you're inspired by me. I love what comes out of me when I'm inspired by you. So I celebrate us and I celebrate all of our listeners for taking the time to listen and become more mindful and support your own inner empowerment.
Congratulations, everyone is gonna love to give credit to my sweetheart. I like it. All right. Well, thank you. Enjoy your wonderful day. Yes, blessing