Have you ever felt the urge to slow down, tune in to the natural rhythms around you, and create something that truly reflects your authentic self?  What if the beauty is in the messy middle of that creation?

In this episode, Nancy and I invite you into our process of launching something new: a monthly behind-the-scenes series within the Deeply Rested podcast. This episode kicks off with our April check-in, where we reflect on how we’re applying the energy of spring to crystallize our vision and clarify our plans for the upcoming months.

While navigating the messiness of the season, Nancy and I chat about the importance of slowing down to reflect on the moment, intentionally deciding what to create, and allowing for the surprises that emerge in the process. We touch on how creating space for these moments of reflection allows us to align our business with life’s rhythms and natural cycles.

By embracing vulnerability and transparency, we walk listeners through:

• The power of slowing down and intentionally stepping into April (03:45)
• Why the creative process doesn’t always have to be polished or planned (08:12)
• How we are channeling spring’s energy into our business with intention (12:37)
• Maintaining boundaries and managing energy while in a creative surge (18:42)
• Using reflection to build a holistic plan that’s aligned with both life and business (25:55)
• Harnessing spring energy within business plans (36:02)
• A call to listeners to co-create with us through a listener survey (48:56)

If you’re feeling the pull of creativity but struggling to find clarity, this episode will remind you that it’s okay to experiment, take it slow, and embrace the process—even when it’s messy. Let this episode serve as a guide to step into your own creative flow this season.

Listener Survey

We’d love to know what you think! Take a moment to fill out our listener survey, and share your thoughts on this behind-the-scenes experiment. We’re so excited to co-create with you.

To watch the video of this conversation, check us out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rkZeyN_ecXw 

Mentioned in this episode:

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[00:00:29] Maegan: And we also wanted to align with our values around transparency and openness that we talked about in our December episode inside our anti-capitalist journey. So we decided today to record ourselves, Nancy and I, talking about our vision for recording monthly episodes that help us do all of these tasks that help us share more behind the scenes with you of what's happening here at Deeply Rested, but also helps all of us align with the seasons and slow down and bring more intentionality to the work that we're doing.

[00:01:49] That's what's about to happen here. It's experimental. I've never done anything like this before and I'm really excited to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it. We are going to put a link to a feedback survey in the show notes because we really want to hear your thoughts about what we're doing and what we're creating.

[00:02:27] Maybe it will even be spectacular. I don't know. I won't know until you listen and tell me what you think. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this deeply rested April, 2025 overview with me and Nancy Guidry.

[00:03:10] Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and join our weekly newsletter@deeplyrested.com slash newsletter. Now it's time for the show.

[00:03:52] Are you watching Severance right now? Did you?

[00:03:56] Maegan: Okay, I'll try not to judge you too hard for being behind, but after the season finale, which was amazing, no spoilers, I immediately was so curious to hear like the behind the scenes discussions from the writers and the director being like, wait, how did you, why did you make that choice?

[00:04:40] And I want to follow that thread because that's interesting to me and it's exciting to me that people are interested in that. Does that make sense?

[00:05:13] Maegan: Yeah, in the spirit of truth and transparency, you just said that. That's why we're doing this because there is power in being more honest. We talked about this in the episode we published in December. Yeah. Inside our anti-capitalist business journey or whatever. But in that episode (which if you haven't listened to that you should go listen to it) it felt so good, to be honest.

[00:05:36] Maegan: And it made me really realize how few places there are to be that honest, even though I know we both value transparency and honesty, but where does one go to share in that way? Obviously, I think this is the perfect platform for that.

[00:05:52] Maegan: Okay, so this feels important. We're naming right now, why are we doing this? Let's talk about that. And what are we doing? What are we doing? So we have this idea to record monthly episodes that get published the first week of the month, and that the episode is like an overview of the month ahead.

[00:06:31] We talk a lot about this in our work with clients, right? How do we slow down time? Like we slow down time by actually sinking with nature and with what's happening in the world right now, it's like pausing at the beginning of the month to take a deep breath and to say, okay, what's happening in nature right now?

[00:07:12] So we are curious about using a monthly episode as kind of an experiment on the podcast to see if listeners know that there's going to be an episode at the beginning of every month that they can listen to, to really drop in, slow themselves down, think more holistically about their own life and business, and also hear how we are doing that in real time.

[00:08:16] That's my concern about doing this is I don't want to be like a jack off podcast, you know, where I'm just like, listen to me and blah, blah, blah.

[00:08:41] I want it to be really clear, how do I take inspiration from this and apply it to my business in a really specific, personalized way.

[00:08:56] Nancy: Yeah, I hear everything that you're saying and the way that I have been kind of thinking about this, because it feels weird to be like, hey, let's just do this behind-the-scenes episode of what we're doing. You know, like I don't know, the first part of me wants to say well, who cares about that? And then as I think more about it, there's something that you have said before in the past about operating in an anti-capitalist way within a capitalist system and I think the metaphor that you used was we're all on a capitalist playground, but we don't have to engage in their games. We can come over to our own little corner of the playground and start a new game. Nancy: You know? And I think the way that my thinking about these particular episodes has evolved is how we're going to invite people to play with us.

[00:09:52] Nancy: You know, come play on our side of the playground and you get to be here with us while we're still figuring out what the rules are. Like how does this game work? And so that kind of feels to me like what we're doing here. Come with us on this path. We don't know where it's going to go. We are figuring it out in real time, but come with us. Let's do this together and hopefully, yeah, like it will inspire people, or at least start conversations with people about: how can we all play a new game on this playground?

[00:10:52] And I think you and I are both very much: no, that's actually part of the system. If you're following what someone else is doing, like you're still in your own conditioning, capitalism, patriarchy, whatever, like the medicine, the magic is feeling strong enough in yourself that you can create your own rules, but you don't have to create your own rules in isolation.

[00:11:29] Nancy: Yeah, that feels right.

[00:11:37] If I can just get all the way down to the deepest, or maybe not the deepest, but a deeper layer of truth about what's my resistance to this? I'm thinking about social media and why I can't tolerate social media, and even to an extent like personal brands this is started as a personal brand.

[00:12:15] They're selling their life as the success story, or they're selling their business as the success story and then we're all just caught in these relationships where we feel like my next step forward is mimicking something that you are doing, or, the life that I'm trying to create for myself is based on what I saw someone more, quote, more successful than me doing and living in their life.

[00:13:05] Nancy: Right, right.

[00:13:21] It's like, no, no. That's literally not the point. The point is, how can we create a space where we can all listen to ourselves and then do what we are meant to do individually and trust that actually we're all supposed to do something so drastically different. That's what makes the world an interesting and well-balanced ecosystem.

[00:14:06] Nancy: Yeah.

[00:14:08] Nancy: Absolutely, I totally hear you and I feel like it's always a little bit of a red flag to me when I come across somebody who's like, I have all the answers. Nancy: Here's your prescription, here's the, you know, do X, Y, Z and you'll be whatever you'll achieve, whatever it is. because I don't think that any one of us has all of the answers.

[00:15:10] Maegan: It's an illusion that there is a reality in which all questions are answered.

[00:15:16] Maegan: Thank you for reflecting that back much more succinctly than I did, adding one thing onto that. It's like the red flag when people are like, I know the way, or I and that the quote proof that they have all the answers is them showing you a produced version of their life. Maegan: It's so dangerous. Right? On Instagram, they're like doing an Instagram story, like walking down the street and they're like, just getting my coffee and blah, blah, blah, and living my best life. And then you see these curated pictures of their house and these curated pictures of being on the beach with their friends and they're painting this picture that they have this life that we should aspire to have.

[00:15:59] Maegan: And they have the roadmap to have that life. And I'm like, listen, like I, I'm totally down to hear your area of expertise. The skills that you've honed, the methods that you're creating, the ideas that you are cultivating. I want to know those, I'm really interested in learning about that, but don't tell me that I should be interested because you are living an ideal life.

[00:16:43] So it feels good to say that out loud. I don't think I have gotten all the way through this in my own mind yet. Let me say this, for accountability in these monthly episodes, I want to be really mindful, you and I that were not defaulting consciously or unconsciously to telling like a shiny version of the truth.

[00:17:03] Maegan: That doesn't mean we have to air all of our dirty laundry, like we can have boundaries and what we're sharing. We can choose what we share and what we keep private but if we find ourselves every month talking about how awesome things are and that's it, I want someone to call us out on that and to be like, yeah, but what, where's the challenge?

[00:17:42] Nancy: Right. Nancy: Let me complain about the last few weeks for everyone.

[00:17:55] Nancy: I think the first thing that comes to mind is just that they're not alone.

[00:18:33] Nancy: And I think a lot of people get messages that like they're doing it wrong and so I think the other thing that I would like for people to take away from these conversations is that you're not doing it

[00:18:45] Nancy: You know, it doesn't have to be this linear progression straight up on a graph that you're like, the time in equals exactly that much success. That's just not realistic and so I think, for us to be able to show the messiness that happens behind the scenes sometimes, sometimes we're like nailing it and everything's going really smoothly and sometimes things will fall apart for a week or whatever and I just think coming back to that, like bearing the truth of it, will help people to realize that like we're figuring it out. We're not doing it wrong. If we're not following a straight linear trajectory, we're just taking a different meandering path and that's okay.

[00:20:19] And I know you And I share this value about the Deeply Rested podcast overall that we don't want our episodes to give people homework, but if someone listens to a whole hour long conversation, like first of all, you know that there's something really resonating about that topic.

[00:20:54] 'Cause it's like, here's five steps that you need to do next. And I'm like, wait a minute, do I need to do that next? Like I don't even ah, it's just like, I feel assaulted by helpful tips. I don't want that. So I want us, yeah, I want us to find this balance. We're helping people feel seen and understood.

[00:21:39] Nancy: How does that land for you?

[00:21:52] Nancy: Yeah.

[00:22:08] So we're not saying you just throw your hands up and, you know, eat grapes and wait for your life to magically become the way you want it to be. Maybe it just comes back to intention. I want people to listen to these episodes and to feel clearer at the end about what their intention is for their life and their business for that month in a way that really aligns with the season. What is your intention? What do you want to change or do differently or experiment with that really is coming from your spirit and not from an idea someone else told you you should have.

[00:22:45] Maegan: Okay we've outlined here like, why are we doing this? What are we concerned about? What do we not want to do?

[00:22:58] Maegan: Yeah, yeah, same. Let's talk about, maybe when we get to the end of this, it will feel right to share the creative process behind why we are doing these episodes? How are we creating them? I also want to say that I want to get better on this podcast by getting feedback from listeners. That's something that I'm learning from, like some podcast people I'm learning from right now, is to ask your listeners for feedback. It seems so obvious, but I hadn't even thought about it.

[00:23:25] Maegan: I would love for us to create like a really simple listener feedback survey that we can put in the show notes and then get better at every episode asking listeners like, did you love this episode? Did you hate this episode? Are there conversations you really want to hear Nancy and I have? Let us know. We want to co-create this with you. We're not doing this podcast because it makes us feel fancy. We're doing this because we want to co-create, we want to have a collective conversation about how we can do small business through an anti-capitalist lens.

[00:24:26] Nancy: Should we talk about my thoughts about the structure of the episodes?

[00:24:34] Nancy: Yeah, a little bit, but let's hear what you got.

[00:25:32] Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you step into April. Here are some creative experiments we want to offer to you if they feel right and that's it. That's all I got.

[00:26:05] Maegan: Okay. Well, why don't we just dive in and do a truncated version of that for this episode. Total experiment and then listener, we're going to ask you to give us feedback after you listen to this. Do you like this? Do you want us to keep doing these monthly episodes? We want to co-create this with you and we want to create something for you that really feels helpful. Through the podcasting medium. 'cause you and I, we do this with our coaching clients, with our mastermind, the council, with our one-on-one clients. Like we do this work, we know that this work is effective in the way that we envision it to be effective but now we're like, how do we translate this to the podcast medium?

[00:27:07] That's one thing I'm really curious about, like how can we weave into these podcast episodes, the spiritual ritual kind of witchy elements that we bring into our group work? How do we translate that to the podcast medium? I don't know. Let's play, let's see. Let's see what happens. Okay, so we're going to do a shortened version for April just to feel it out. We're going to start by talking about the month, what is happening in nature, and the lessons that we can distill. From that for our lives and our businesses. Then we'll share a little bit about what we're doing, how we are weaving that wisdom into this business, into deeply rested, and then we'll think about some prompts and some invitations we can offer listeners to really integrate the wisdom of the moment into their life and business.

[00:27:59] Maegan: So here we are. We're in April. Winter is done. Spring has arrived, in her full chaotic splendor.

[00:28:18] Maegan: It was great. Yeah. I thought the experience was lovely. I loved the conversation in the workshop about what we can notice in the transition from winter to spring.

[00:28:45] Nancy: Hmm. Yeah. Well, the cherry blossoms have just really bursting, popping this week. Nancy: I went on a walk this morning and I was like, oh, here they are. So yeah, everything is just in bloom. Tulips are about to open up you know, there's all of a sudden like a bunch of green in the patches of my garden that were just brown with dirt and soil before, and things are starting to pop up and flowers are going, there's more bugs in the air and yeah, it's just like some life is coming back to everything.

[00:29:30] Nancy: Yeah, because there's always life happening. and in the winter time it's I think about it as everything's just hibernating, but there's still a lot happening underneath the surface of the soil. Things, animals, they're still alive, but they're kind of holed up in their dens or whatever it is.

[00:30:02] Maegan: Yeah, that's winter,

[00:30:05] Maegan: This is why we take our sabbatical, in the winter. This is why we like to dial back our client work in the winter 'cause we're like, hey, we all need to chill. We need to rest. We need to hibernate. We need to let everything that we've cultivated over the past year work its magic in our subconscious underground, and we need to recharge our batteries. Because like you're saying, stepping into this spring portal, the energy gets ramped way up.

[00:30:40] Maegan: It's a little bit harder to notice that change of energy if you weren't wintering.

[00:31:27] And when you're listening to our monthly episode this time next year, hopefully you'll be feeling really different. You'll have a really different experience of this moment in time. Okay, just wanted to add that in as a disclaimer. I love what you're saying. You're noticing. Popping off flowers, trees, like the birds are singing, it's Woo.

[00:32:09] Like this episode is the embodiment of the messiness of spring. Like we are planting some seeds in our garden. We can see what we want the garden to look like with these episodes in the future. But it starts here. It's messy, it's experimental. We don't know what's going to work and what's not going to work.

[00:32:46] Because if you've ever gardened, or even if you have house plants, you know the one thing that you can guarantee is you have no idea what's going to happen. Like you don't know. You don't know. what's going to like germinate and what's going to sprout and what's going to thrive. And maybe over time you get better at anticipating it, the more time you spend in your garden, but still there's an element of life that just isn't in your control and I think Spring teaches me a lot about that, about releasing my need to be perfect and to have it all figured out. Spring teaches me to be bold, to be experimental, to try a lot of things, and then to allow myself to be really surprised by ending up truly thriving.

[00:33:27] Maegan: Anything else you want to say about Spring?

[00:34:11] Maegan: And there are so many variables, right? Thinking about the metaphor of the garden, it's not just the seeds that you plant and it's like the dirt that you use. It's the amount of water that we got in the winter. It's: how sunny is it? What's the temperature like?

[00:34:49] Nancy: What's happening in the world? What's happening in the economy? How's your health? Does your family need you right now? Do your clients, are they interested in the ideas that you are interested in right now? There are so many variables that are going to determine the success of the seeds that you sow.

[00:35:19] So I love that energy in spring and when I'm working with business owners, I love to use this season to say, how many new ideas do you have?

[00:35:45] Nancy: Yeah.

[00:35:50] Nancy: No, I think we've covered it.

[00:35:55] Nancy: Right.

[00:36:37] We are very much in “prep and be creative and emerge from our caves, emerge from hibernation.” So I want to hold that in mind too, that April still is rainy and dark a lot of the time. Let's talk about what you and I are focusing on this month.

[00:36:56] Maegan: What are we focusing on this month, Nancy?

[00:37:21] There's ideas forming, inspiration, you know, strikes and,I think that for me, April has always been a month of like, how can I ramp up my energy? And not in a way that's like, how can I do more or how can I be super productive? That's not what I'm talking about.

[00:38:10] Maegan: Hmm.

[00:38:55] Maegan: I love that so much.

[00:39:10] Maegan: Just that sense of whoa, like my, I'm having so many ideas, you know, and I'm like writing so many things down and I'm, and I am getting clear about so many things, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, I, now I know what the messaging on the website homepage needs to say and now I know that I want to do these monthly episodes for the podcast.

[00:39:35] And it's easy, dangerous, even for me. Sometimes when that energy starts coming through, I interpret that as I need to act right now. I need to take action on all of this right now. Which is the best way to burn out.

[00:40:04] Maegan: It's what I call it. So like creating a Google doc, that is a place you can park all of your brilliant ideas. So you have a place, you know, you can pull up on your phone super fast when an idea comes through and you can write it down every single thing you're thinking about that idea, and then you just leave it in the parking lot because it's not time yet to bring all of these things to life.

[00:40:35] So April for us, is going to be about crystallizing the vision, clarifying the plan. That's what we're going to be doing. I will throw in the mix that I know a couple of projects that we've talked about that feel really important in this moment, is this podcast. Like we really are wanting to work this season, this spring on figuring out how to optimize this podcast, how to make it better, how to get more listeners, how to create a bridge so that people who listen and love this podcast have a way to work with us directly.

[00:41:25] So focusing on the podcast, crystallizing a vision around the podcast. We also know that we want to start a second mastermind group. So we run a mastermind called the council and we've never talked about it publicly because the group that we run now is just full of alumni. People who have worked with us before who wanted to be in community with us again, and it's really beautiful and we spent all of last year honing it in.

[00:42:20] Nancy: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:42] Nancy: Because you already have a bunch of things in your business that you're already doing, that you're going to continue doing, right? No matter what month it is or what season it is. So I always like to take a pause every month, Nancy and I just to be like, okay, what's going on right now? What groups are we running?

[00:43:21] And you already have all of these other things on your plate, don't forget about them. So I think in crystallizing the vision and clarifying the plan, it's really important to zoom out and make sure you're really synthesizing everything you're already doing, all the seeds you want to plant, all the new things you might want to create and see: how do these fit together?

[00:43:55] Nancy: Does that make sense?

[00:44:11] life. 'Cause there are things that you're constantly doing in your life, like the maintenance things in your life that don't stop either and just getting all of that in one place where you can really see laid bare, what do I have going on? And then, you know, we talked a lot about having all of these new ideas and that's great. And rolling with that creative energy. And I think it's also important to not overwhelm your system with too many things.

[00:45:16] How are you managing your energy with all of the ideas that you may or may not be having with all of the things that you're already doing?

[00:45:26] Maegan: Yes, amen to all of that. In our planning process, we always start with life first, which we haven't talked much about today, but we'll just throw it in because it's so important. We want you to start with your life, what's going on in your life, what's taking energy from you right now, what do you love?

[00:45:54] It's I think for so many of us, they often don't match up, which sucks, but it's just true. Like when I might be like an ideas factory in my business and I feel like so juiced up and ready to go and create a bunch of new things, but it happens to be a season of my life when my health is struggling, or my marriage is really in a challenging place, or my parents are dying, you know?

[00:46:34] Like we want you to live a life that you feel so connected to and that you are so present for, and that your business is this thing that supports your life and adapts to your life. So take some time this month to really zoom out and in the crystallizing of the plan, don't forget to think about your life, what's happening in your life, what's important to you this month in your life?

[00:47:14] Let's use the Mastermind as an example of the council. We want to start a new council, right? Well, that council isn't going to start until summer at the earliest

[00:47:29] Maegan: So we have to plan it now,

[00:47:31] Maegan: But we're holding the vision for the rest of the year.

[00:47:46] Maegan: Like really kind of forecast all the way out so that you can reverse engineer and ask yourself, now I have the vision for what I'm creating, can I create a plan that feels in alignment with my life, that feels synced up with this moment, with this particular month, this season? And that is how we become deeply rested by just slowing everything down and bringing much deeper intention to every single thing that we do in our lives and in our businesses.

[00:48:17] Maegan: That make sense? Maybe

[00:48:33] Maegan: I love that. And again, I love that this episode for us is like the embodiment of the beginning of spring.

[00:48:52] Maegan: Thank you. Thrilled to have you here and we would really like to hear from you. So we're going to put that in the show notes for your feedback and we want to know are you excited about this idea of Nancy and I doing these monthly episodes? What do you want to get from them?

[00:49:31] We don't want you just to see the polished final product. We want you to really see how messy and vulnerable and experimental it is to figure it out together. Cause that's what we're doing. And this does feel really vulnerable for me. I dunno if it feels vulnerable. Like we had no plan coming into today.

[00:50:02] Nancy: Quite the same, like, are we going to turn the recording off and be like, oh God, what have we just done? But I think it's, yeah, I'm trusting that, like you were saying, it'll be fine no matter what.

[00:50:46] Nancy: I don't know. I'll have to talk to my therapist about it after this episode's release.

[00:50:58] Nancy: Yeah. Okay. So I have my card deck here and we'll put the link to this deck in the chat. It's one of my favorite decks. It's called POESIS.

[00:51:20] Just what's our guiding force for April a little bit. Can we get some guidance here for April? Something that we need to be mindful of or pay attention to collectively? Does that feel like a good question? Okay.

[00:51:49] Nancy: Yeah, it's a person's head and kind of in the third eye area, there's just like an open door with a, it looks like a star or something through the open door. and it looks like... are there leaves and plants growing out of

[00:52:24] Nancy: I think we should read the poem.

[00:52:37] So thanks to them because this is our favorite deck and you can find this deck at, poesis, P-O-E-S-I s-oracle.com. Okay, here we go. Open. "No longer do I perceive my being as though it were a project in constant need of self-improvement strategies. I surrender to all that I am as I am with my heart shining forward and my forehead streaming consciousness. These heart lines heated in my hands, these feet rooted in your depths. I am as steady as a mountain. I am as open as the sky having already been shook by you. Nothing can ever quake me having already been shattered by you. Nothing can ever break me. I dwell in your grace and revel in the sunlight that's beaming on my face."

[00:53:29] Maegan: I think we should leave it right there.

[00:53:31] Maegan: May we be open this month. May we bring the intention of letting our creative juices flow freely, but we're going to channel those creative juices into a crystallized vision. What do we want to do? What do we want to create? And when we feel clearer about the vision, we're going to drop in to clarifying a plan.

[00:54:11] Nancy: And intention.

[00:54:21] Nancy: Thank you so much.