Today on The Grit Show, Stacy Yardley shares her captivating journey from joining the circus fresh out of high school to becoming a transformational life coach and navigating the high wires of life's challenges in between. Along with host Shawna Rodrigues, they explore the metaphorical climbs and falls of chasing dreams, emphasizing resilience and the transformational power of self-acceptance. The discussion delves into the essence of personal dreams, the evolving nature of aspirations, and the so called failures that are often stepping stones to genuine success. This episode is a must listen for anyone feeling stuck or unsure about pursuing their dreams, offering a fresh perspective on risk, failure, and the importance of extending our reach. Join Stacy and Shawna for a journey of self-discovery and a look at bold life choices.

Stacy Yardley is a Certified Life Coach and Transformation Catalyst specializing in guiding women in business to create more joy, self fulfilment, and a satisfied life. Her work includes working with high performance women to create better boundaries, release perfectionism and break through imposter syndrome through self mastery. Drawing from her experience as a former professional circus showgirl, Stacy is passionate about empowering individuals to realize their dreams and unlock their inner potential. Through empathy and intuitive guidance, Stacy helps women harness their personal power to achieve greater well-being and thrive in all aspects of their lives. Based in Vancouver, WA, Stacy enjoys exploring hiking trails, preparing fresh vegan meals, and cherishing moments with loved ones in her free time.   

Connect with Stacy Yardley

Follow Stacy on Facebook: @stacyayardley or Instagram: @iamstacyyardley 

Get the inside scoop directly from Stacy by getting on the Backstage Pass email list: https://bit.ly/PodcastBackstagePass 

Her website: http://lifeisacircuspodcast.com/  

Want Stacy to speak at your event? stacy@stacyyardley.com 

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Do you consider yourself a dreamer? Or maybe you're somebody who used to be a dreamer. When you were a kid, would you think of all the things you wanted to be when you grew up? Would you come up with elaborate projects you wanted to do or accomplish? I mean, a lot of times when I talk to authors, they tell us the first book they wrote was when they were in second grade or kindergarten or some such thing. I know my first book was something about April fools and had a pink cover with lots of drawings that really were not that good a quality. Today we get to talk about being a dreamer and chasing your dreams with someone who has done exciting things to make her dreams come true. And that didn't stop with joining the circus when she was merely a teenager. She's still working on accomplishing those dreams. We have a great conversation in store for you where we talk about important concepts like self mastery as well as chasing your dreams. Welcome to the Grit show, where our focus is growth on purpose.

I am your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I am honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life. It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates the friend that thinks of them, and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections. We have such an exciting treat today. I am excited to introduce you to Stacy Yardley. She is someone who has launched a podcast that you're going to want to check out. Life is a circus, so let's step into self mastery and today we're going to chat with her a little more about both her life in the circus and about self mastery.

She is a certified life coach and transformation catalyst, specializing in guiding women in business to create more joy, self fulfillment and a satisfied life. She is someone who I enjoy her perspective and get so much out of connecting with her and learning more about her exciting stories from her time in the circus, as well as her really valuable perspective on both energy work and self mastery that we're going to talk more about today. She is someone who lives in Vancouver, Washington, not far from Portland. She enjoys being outdoors, exploring hiking trails, and she's especially excited about her newly rescued pup, Elsa, that I'm sure we're going to hear about today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, Stacy thank you for.

Having me, Shawna, I'm so grateful to be here.

I know. I love that you get to be here because I know that everyone listening right now is going to get so much out of learning about your podcast, because I think that obviously people, people listening, people listen to podcasts, and they're gonna love hearing about this unique thing you're doing with your podcast. It's exciting, but I also love that you are a dreamer and chase your dreams, and we're gonna touch on that. But this concept of self mastery is something I don't think people understand what it means. So I'm excited that we get to have your wisdom around self mastery as well.

Thank you. I am grateful that I get to speak on this, because I think you're right that a lot of people don't know what it means. And yet, as I see it, it's the doorway into a fulfilled and satisfied life. So I think that people are probably walking around a little less satisfied than they need to be. If they were a little more masterful in their own self awareness and the way they operate, that they could live a much happier, fulfilled and satisfied life. It just is the key, in my opinion, to all of it.

I love the fulfilled and satisfied, too. I love those as terms because we go around with so many different terms that we try to connect with where we want to be in life. And I love that those are just. They make you think of being satiated in a good place. And, like, it doesn't have to all be sunshine or rainbows. It needs to be this middle ground of really connecting and being present in your life and connected to it. So I love that. So, let's start with a definition of what is self mastery.

Well, as I see it, self mastery is the ability to transcend or actually work with your ego and the ability to move through your life in such a way that you have power and personal power and what you're doing, how you're doing it. And, you know, if we're in our ego more than all of it, more than anything, then we're going to be unconscious a lot of the time and moving from a place of unconsciousness, right? Which is typically what we do. 95% of what we do is unconscious, but it gets us in trouble more often than not. And it's not to make the ego the enemy, because it's not. We can't make ourselves the enemy, right? Our ego is a part of us, but it's how are we working with it? How are we working to transcend it? What's our relationship to it. So I would say self mastery really is about our relationship to ourself more than anything, and how we move through life as a result of that.

Ooh, I like that. And so that's what led you to be focused on self mastery as kind of your work and transformational coaching and supporting people?

Yeah, good question. No one's ever asked me that, really. And I think for me, if, as I reflect on that in the moment, it was probably the school I went to for coaching, the way that my whole journey led up to that point and then the training I went through with what they do with energy, consciousness and understanding, the levels of consciousness and understanding, the depth of the self mastery piece and the correlation between living a fulfilled and satisfied life. So it was kind of just my own transformational process that led me into understanding, like, oh, it's about self mastery and my own process of loving myself, learning to love myself, all of that, too. So it kind of just evolved in a way that I never really said, oh, I'm going to do this. It was kind of this journey of even through coaching. I've been coaching now for eight years, and I haven't always just dialed in specifically on self mastery, but that's what I've been doing. And so it was really through just the evolution of my own business and my own marketing and all of that to make me decide, like, okay, this is really what I do, and this is the pinpoint of it, is that it's self mastery.

Do you feel like it's something that your clients understand pretty easily once they start working with you, or do you feel like it's something that people get stuck on a lot? It takes a long time to understand how self mastery plays into things.

I think they start to understand pretty quickly in the, in the realm of, like, once I explain to them how they're working and how their consciousness is operating and then teaching them that relationship with themselves. Right. So it's that whole thing of, like, how they relate to themselves. And when they start to understand that, it's a process, I shouldn't say quickly, it just depends on the person. But it's really about, like, how self aware are they? Once you become self aware, that's when the self mastery can begin. The self awareness has to come first. And a lot of times people aren't self aware. They think they are, but they, they aren't really.

Or they're just aware enough to know that there are certain ways, or like, I'm just this way or this, or that, but they don't know why they're that way or they don't see the triggers that set them off or their patterns. Right. And those kind of things. And so once we can identify that and know more about ourselves, then we can go into, like, taking responsibility and choosing how we want to show up for ourselves. So it's. It's a whole thing. But I think that it just depends on the person when they start to understand through the consciousness model that I use and how they're showing up for themselves. So it's really that relationship again.

It always comes back to their relationship with themselves. And once they start working with me, that's where I always continually point them back to. Like, if people come to me and, like, answer my questions, like, what do I do? How do I do this? It's like, no, you got to answer your own questions. I'm just going to point you in that direction again and again and help you tap into your own inner wisdom and your own potential. Because that's what it's about.

Yes. Why do you think self awareness is so challenging? What do you think about the world, about the way we were raised? Like, why do you think that's something that we all have such a challenge with?

Well, I think it comes down to ultimately, like, the depth of it. I think comes down to self worth and self love in the sense of when we don't have a really good, strong, solid relationship with our own value, we're looking outside of it. Outside for it, right. So we're looking to advertise, we're looking to things again, that ego comes into play of, like, what will satisfy me? What will make me happy? And so we're looking outward for the answers, and so we think the answers are outside of us. When we can say, like, okay, it's in me, when we can turn around and look at ourselves and say, who am I? What do I want? What do I need? What's my relationship with myself? All of that, then that awareness becomes more present. They get more present with themselves. Right. But when we're so focused outward, when we're focused on succeeding or making money or being loved or finding the right job or the right person or the right anything that we feel is going to satisfy us, we're not really looking at the right target.

We're looking at something that we think is going to make us happy versus our own self, our relationship with ourselves. So how we're mindfully talking to ourselves, thinking about ourselves, all of that. So I think in the self awareness piece, we're just distracted in a big way. We're highly distracted in the society. We're a get me it quick society. Like, we don't have an attention span worth bigger than a gnat practically, right? And so we don't have the ability to just get quiet with ourselves and become aware of who we are. And that mindfulness piece, because mindfulness plays a huge role in it, too, right? That presence. Am I present with myself? Do I even know what I'm feeling? Because I think our society, too, has no idea, like, the ability to tap into what you actually feel on a day to day basis, moment by moment basis.

Like, we don't know how to label emotions. Brene Brown talks about this a lot in her recent book, Atlas of the Heart. We only know I'm sad, I'm mad, very vague in our emotional awareness. And so it's just that lack of awareness in general, I think. And then it comes back to ourself, too.

That's always impressed me. When I worked with young children, we worked a lot with emotions and labeling emotions and working on emotions, and that was like a baseline thing we worked on. And it's so interesting that I loved specializing with children and being able to say, like, I don't work with adults. Like, I don't work with adults. Looking around adults going like, oh, we all need to work on this. I need to work on this. Forget these, these skills that I work with, with kids. Like, everyone that works with adults needs to learn them, too, and teach them to adults, because it's not just the kids who need to learn this.

And part of it was, we didn't get it as kids, which is why we're offering it to young children now. But it's like a lifelong skill. You need to learn this stuff and reflect on this. And it makes such a big difference to tap into.

I work with kids as well, with a, with a contract job that I do. And I think that the difference is between now and then, when we were kids and even now, sometimes still with people, is that we make a lot of emotions bad or wrong, right. We don't want to feel anger. We don't want to feel sadness or those hard emotions. And, or sometimes people call them big emotions, right? Because they're difficult, they're painful. And when you weren't given the tools, when you weren't modeled, like, it's okay to be angry. It's just not okay to throw something across the room at somebody when you're angry. Right.

Or it's not okay to slam the doors or do the things that we do as a result of our anger, then we just learn that. And so we know we feel it. I think intuitively, deep down, we know I'm angry or I'm upset, and we don't know how to deal with it. And that's when numbing comes into play, right? That's when people start to numb and buffer and feel like, okay, I can't handle this. I know that it's in me, but I don't know what to do with it. So I'm just going to try to stuff it or numb it. And that obviously doesn't work either, but that's how most of us cope, right? And I think we see this a lot in mommy culture, right? With the wine culture, with mommy, how's her happy juice? You know, and all of that. Well, it's like moms are so stressed out nowadays that they're like, oh, I need my glass of wine every night to feel relaxed.

Cause I'm so stressed out. It's not wrong to be stressed out. Like, you're raising a child. It's stressful having a newborn. But are your expectations of yourself based on our society and the way that we perceive people? Like social media? It's a double edged sword, right? I love it in so many ways and that it helps us connect and find each other and relate in certain ways. But on the other side, it's just so detrimental to the stress and mental health of so many people. So, yeah, I just think that the emotional piece is really important, and that plays a huge role in self mastery is the emotional intelligence of, like, what am I feeling? How is it making me feel? Like, how am I behaving as a result of this emotion? And what's it creating for me? What's the result I'm getting or not getting? How is it impacting my relationships with myself, right. And with others and all of that.

And so if we're numbing and we're tapping out, we're not even going there, then how can we even begin to master ourselves? We just can't.

Yes. And when you talk about the mom culture phase, like, I think it's one of the best jokes from my generation growing up, and possibly the same still is just remembering my mom and the phone would ring and be like, you guys, stop doing this. Da da da da da. Hello? Like, and the masking, I feel like women especially were taught to just mask whatever the emotions were and, like, put everything aside and how you have to present and professionally how women have to present and how, like, the masking that goes that you start to dissociate from those feelings as well. If you're not numbing them, you're masking them and trying to present that you're one way when you're not. And that being able to be authentic and real and presenting in a way that it all comes together and to be able to not just buffer against emotions and bounce back and fight them, to actually feel them and let them move through you and get to the other side of them. Like, this whole concept is something that I feel we all need more time with.

I agree. And that's the thing about the mommy the wine culture, right, is that people may think they're connecting because they're drinking over a glass of wine, they're bitching about whatever's going on, you know, and they're like, venting to each other and relating in that sense, but they're really not getting to the true, deeper stuff of it. Right. And the vulnerability of being seen and heard in their truth and saying, like, I am struggling. Like, I feel like I'm a failure as a mother because my kid is sleeping with me and they're not in their crib or vice versa. Right. Or whatever. They're not.

They're measuring themselves up to and they're not willing to get that vulnerable space of, like, this is how I am, this is who I am. And you're going to judge me because our culture has gotten so trigger happy on the cancel culture or so, like, judgmental that it's like people are afraid to show up and be real, and when they are, they're burned at the stake for it. We just have to get more comfortable with the hard stuff. And understanding that just because things are hard or just because they're uncomfortable doesn't make them wrong. And that's the bigger part of the self mastery, too, right? Just because I'm having a hard time or I'm really uncomfortable or, you know, this is like, ooh, I want to go drink or, you know, numb this out. Doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong. It just means it's hard because I wasn't taught how to move through it, you know, and I can learn that. That's the whole point of personal growth, is you can learn.

The beauty of being human is we can learn and we can grow. That's the point.

And that's one thing I love about your podcast. Life is a circus, is that it does this beautiful job of showing growth in that aspect, of getting to know yourself while helping us connect to, like, this beautiful dream and things that you did when you were younger because your style, you have a journal entry, you reflecting on this memoir style of reading and covering, like, your experience when you were younger. That gives us this one view of processing emotions and figuring things out at one stage in life and you coming back and doing this beautiful job of relating it to where you're at now and the things that are happening now with these life lessons. And it's so fun because I love the younger version of you processing emotions and having these beautiful moments of clarity about emotions and running up against about the friends who just don't get it and trying to do it. So you see, like, where we've all been with trying to process emotions, and then we have your sage wisdom of now. So tell us more about, like, that process in your podcast about how you managed to give those different perspectives of growth because you show such different levels of growth with the way you've set up your podcast.

Yeah, yeah. It's been an interesting journey so far, and we're just getting started, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So originally, you know, I had started writing a book, and I had been wanting to write a book for a long, long time. And when I was going through the book process last year, I was like, I think I have, like, undiagnosed ADHD or, like, writing. Just, like, I don't know. Just the whole thing of writing a book was really difficult for me, and I really wanted to have a conversation. And so in the process of writing the book or starting to, I had a moment of healing where it was like, I started to realize. I started to see myself in a different light from this side of the fence, so to speak. Right? And I think if we all do this with our own lives and we can look back at ourselves, at first, it's a little cringy.

Like, I'll be honest. Like, when I first started reading my journal and, like, oh, my God. Like, this girl, she was, like, struggling to love herself. She was struggling to find love. Like, she just wanted to be loved so badly. And boy crazy. Holy cow. Not even in that part of the story yet, but, you know, reading myself.

And it was like, wow. Seeing myself. But then there was a part of me, too, that was able to say, wow, she's really wise, too, in a lot of ways. Like, I was already a coach when I was 1918 years old. I was like, look at me reframing myself here. Look at me, like, seeing how I can reframe myself. But I really wanted to just kind of illustrate, like, because I've always wanted to tell the stories that happened on the show because they're really big. Like, there's some really big life changing.

Like, that year in my life changed the trajectory of my life, impacted my life literally to this day. Like, it's still impacting my life to this day in ways that you never would have imagined. Right? And there was so much that happened, and people are like, there's so many stories. They're like, really? Like, how many stories can there be? I'm like, there's a lot of stories. Like, we have a lot of stories unfolding and all different angles, right? But to see, it's that human experience thing, right? So to be able to see myself as a young person going through life and chasing my dream and to see myself now doing the same thing, it's all a matter of the human experience, and I think we all experience it together. It just looks different for each one of us, right, depending on how we go about it, regardless of if you've healed or not healed at the time. Right. So I'll be talking about in the coming weeks about my healing journey, like, how important it is to heal based on your trauma and, like, how it can impact you and the decisions that you make and.

And that's what happened to me. Right. I didn't go into the circus, like, all healed and wise and all this thing. Like, I was just a wild child chasing my dream, you know? But the concept came to me, and it was like, I really want to turn this into a podcast. I feel like it'd be way easier for me to just talk about it and share it in my voice versus writing a book and it just being this book on a shelf that ends up in Powell's and you buy it for, like, $5 and nobody knows about it, you know, kind of thing. Like, this is more interactive and more rich, I feel like. And so I just thought about the idea, and, like, okay, it came to you, and I was like, okay, can we do this? You know, and just wanted to share the reflection piece of it because I've always been pretty introspective, and again, that's a part of me that for a while, I felt like it was a flaw, you know, that I was really deep and overanalyzing and really, like, introspective around life and the journey and all of that. But I've come to learn that it's a gift, and I'm able to offer perspective and perception that others may not have and have aha.

Moments for people. And so I wanted to do that with this whole situation so that this whole experience, because it really has been an incredible journey. And I feel like it's just meant to be based on everything that happened and, you know, I'm in the museum and, like, just all the things. I just feel like it's meant to be, meant to happen this way.

Yes. I love this. I love this. Because you do have so much wisdom to offer, and yet there's this great, entertaining aspect of learning what it's like behind the scenes and for all of us to kind of reflect back to being that young age with dreams and to actually go along with you on the journey as you chase the dreams and the stories that come from that adventure and what happened and how, as you reflect later in life, how there's still parallels and still growth to be had based on them.

Yeah. Yeah. It's literally. I literally ought to use the analogy, but I feel like I'm walking a tightrope because it's like there's a part of this whole journey of doing this podcast that there's the drama and the, you know, the romance and the suspense and, like, the things that are gonna happen, the things that unfold as you listen to the podcast and as it goes, it's drama. Like, they're gonna come for the dirt, right? They're gonna be like, tell me about the dirt. Like, tell me what happened. You know? But as with anything in life, I don't think it stops there. I think that, again, the richness and the experience of the human experience is that there is the drama, there is the pain, but there's the joy, and there's the alchemization of the hard stuff, the bad stuff that happens to us, the pain that can come out of it.

How can we alchemize that into a growth experience, a positive thing, you know, learning experience and all of that, and what happened as a result of that? You know, who did you become as a result of that? And so I want to illustrate that, because I want to give people hope, right? I want them to understand that no matter where they are and if they're chasing their dream now or they want to chase their dream, or maybe they chased their dream and it failed, that they're not a failure and that they can find, you know, golden nuggets within their journey, and they can look back and say, oh, well, this wouldn't be this way if that didn't happen. Right? And it helps us continue keeping going because life is hard and it's a circus.

Someone should make a podcast called life is a circus. That's a great. It's a great title. No, I love it. Because people are going to want to know about, why were there ambulances at the circus? Why did you go to the house? What happened? Like, you were on a train where all of the exciting, like, behind the scenes that you got to do and the mastery of. What's the web called?

It's called the spanish web. Yeah, the spanish web. And I'm excited to tell that story because I was not a gymnast growing up, and so I was a dancer. I didn't have the upper body strength, nor do I now, you know? And so it was like. Like, here. Here's a rope. Climate. Like, what climate? What are you talking about? You know, and it was really a hard thing to do, and it probably jacked my body up a little bit.

Now, like, I'll be honest, you know, like, I'm feeling things. I'm like, is this from that or is this age or what's going on? But quite the thrilling experience. I don't want to give away too.

Much, but, yeah, yeah, but, yeah, there's. Yeah. People need to listen so they can hear all the stories that you have because that's exciting. What do you feel like the biggest lesson you have, you receive from actually chasing your dreams? Like, what's the most you've gotten from that? Do you feel like.

I would say probably I'm capable of more than I believe, right at times, or that life is richer from chasing my dreams. It's more dense and richer and textured and all the things from chasing my dreams and that resilience that we build from falling down, getting back up, that strength, that perseverance, like, all of it, that it just reminds me that I'm amazing. And it sounds so weird to say that because it's like. It sounds so egotistical, but, like, when you lived a life, like, I have lived, like, I did not love myself for many, many, many years. Decades. And it was only recently, in the last probably five to ten years, that I really dove in deeper. And even up until two years ago when I went through breast cancer, like, it was that experience that really made me go, wow, okay, I am no longer going to hate on myself or criticize myself. Are those patterns there? Yeah.

Neurobiology is still there, and the neurotransmitters are still wanting to fire sometimes if you see a picture of yourself, ooh, double chin or things like that, but I don't torture myself like I used to. And I think that that's been the biggest thing, is learning to love myself through it all and living life to the fullest. That, to me, is what we're here for, is to truly live life to the fullest. We're not here to just wake up, go to work, come home, look towards Friday, drink on Friday, get through, have fun on Saturday, look at Sunday, and go, God, here we go again another week, and just rinse and repeat. I just feel like there's so much more to life that's available to us that it's chasing our dreams, that gives us. That taps us into that, that gives us that ability to say, okay, I feel alive now. It's a ride. It's up and down.

It's a roller coaster, and it's intense. But you feel alive in that way. Right? And while I'm here, I want to live fully live, right? I want to live my life. And so to me, chasing your dreams does that. It helps you fully live.

So do you ever think about how easily you could have not gone to that audition and not made that choice to join the circus?

Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day, actually. I was thinking, like, what would have been different? I can't even imagine. Like, I don't even know what would have happened other than probably deep regret. I think that there's the phrase there's a lot of dreams die in the cemetery or something like that. Like, there's a lot of dead dreams in the cemetery, and that people die not living their dream or not pursuing their dream. And that's where the regret of not pursuing something I think is worse than the regret of pursuing something and failing, because at least you can say, I tried. I did it. I did my best, and that's all I can do, right? For us to live life and be like, I didn't try.

I didn't go for it. What did I miss out on? What did I miss? Like, the ultimate fomo? What did I miss that I could have had differently in, again, that richness of the experience of being human? So I think if I hadn't gone, I don't even know. Part of me feels like it was destiny, so.

Absolutely. And I feel like if I actually stop to catalog the things that I've attempted that someone else might see as failure. I don't think of a lot of my moves and attempts and stuff in life as failures, but I think if somebody else wrote the story of my life, they might see a lot of things I've done. As failures. And I honestly see them as getting closer to the right path, that they were the little side path I needed to go on, that I needed to do that audition or try that thing to eliminate that path or get me closer to where I actually needed to go. Cause I think that when I was younger, I did. I auditioned for. I don't remember what movie it was.

I used to remember what movie it was. There was some movie, and they did auditions, and it was between me and somebody in LA, and the girl in LA got it. And so, like, there was those moments, but at the same time, I don't feel like I, like, dodged a dream. I think that there was a point with. My aunt had offered for me to move to California and pursue acting. And at that time, I'd realized that there was a play I wanted to be in in high school. And the director told me that he was choosing between me who had the talent, somebody else who had big enough boobs to play the role, and somebody else who had the seniority for the role. And I was so glad that the director told me that, because in my world, in my life and my definitions, me having the talent was what you needed, not the big boobs of the seniority.

So that was, like, my 15 year old lesson, 16 year old lesson about, like, life. Just being good at something doesn't get you where you need to go, especially in some fields. It's timing, it's circumstances, whatever else. Even, like, with my writing, with everything else that I've done and everyone else, like, it's very frustrating. And they feel like they're not good enough because they don't get there. And I was like, no, I know I was good enough. And I was told that they couldn't decide between these other things were more important than having the talent. I wasn't meant to go do those things right.

And so not getting that role, I wasn't meant to go do those things. These doors that close, that it's getting you back on the right path. But for me, like, that's part of my passions and pursue my creativity and doing those that I needed to pursue that. And I needed to know for me that that's not what I wanted to do. And I didn't need to spend another five years on that road to figure out those lessons. I got them when I was young. I feel like somebody else could say, oh, you failed at that. And I was like, oh, no, that just wasn't meant for me.

And then it got closer to my creativity, to my storytelling, to all these skills. Podcasting wasn't even a thing, right. And storytelling and these skills that we have, like that, they come up in other places. And so for me, like, chasing your dreams, and the dreams do change, and you got to keep pursuing them because they're going to lead you to something even bigger and better. There's, like, not a finite end point, right.

Never a finite end point. I don't think. And I think that you're right, that failure. I don't see failure that way, either. I feel like failure is a myth in a way. Like, it's what we make of it. And if we stop, if we think it's finite, we do think that failure is failure, right? If we think, like, okay, this is the end. If I had thought this is the end at the circus, because I'm trying not to give a spoiler, but, like, as you listen, I don't know when we'll get to that, but eventually you'll learn.

I don't leave on my own accord. We'll put it that way from the circus. And so I could have stopped there and said, like, that's the end of it. I'll never mention this again. I'll never talk about it again. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me. I want to just put it behind me. And yet I didn't.

Right. And it was kind of my. I don't say claim to fame, but in a sense of, like, now becoming a bigger purpose, becoming a bigger thing. And it's taken 35, 36 years to get here, but I'm finally ready to step out and be like, this is my story. This is what happened, right? And show that, like, doesn't matter whether it ends there or ends. Like, it's never over. There's always more to the story. There's always more to the story.

And we get to write the ending of our story. We get to decide that. So, yeah, failure, I agree with you. It's kind of. Oprah talked about that once, right, where it's like a redirect. Like, it's just, you go one way. That's not the way it's supposed to go. What did you learn? That's maybe you had to go on that path.

And I've talked to my clients about this, too. It's like, just recently, I had a client I was talking to this about, and I was like, because she was feeling that way, right, that she had really stepped off her path and she had really lost her way and didn't know how to get back. And I said, what if you didn't lose your way? What if you were supposed to go the way that you went these last few years? What if you had to learn the lessons that you could only learn on that path and there's no other way you could have gotten there without going that direction? And based on what you've learned as a result of going there or what you're learning now, right. And who you are and how important it is to you to go this way, right? You choose that way, but it doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means you had to go that way for a certain reason or whatever. Like, it's just a way that it's all in how you look at it, right? And so she just had an aha moment where it's like, wow. And it really released some pain for her because she realized, okay, she was making herself wrong, right, for the choices that she had made. And yet, we can't sometimes learn certain things without making choices that we feel are wrong.

Like, I could say they're really wrong choices. And I've suffered some serious consequences as a result of my time in the circus, but at the same time, brought me to a place of having to love myself on such a deeper level and the full acceptance of who I am as a complete being. And when I say complete, it's both sides, right? When we say complete, we want to think, oh, it's all happy and complete and wrapped up in a pretty bow. No. Complete means good and bad. If you want to label it like that. Complete means hard and easy. Complete means not fun and an absolute joy.

Right? It's all of it. It's all of who we are. And I think, you know, tying that back into self mastery, it's understanding that. That when, you know it's all of you, when you love all of you, then there's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing to condemn. It's just like, this is who I am. This is me, right? And I'm amazing.

So in all of who I am. So, yeah, I love that.

And you mentioned your intro that you're also a hiker. I'm a hiker. And I feel like that's one thing that I've learned from all the switchbacks and the different ways of the mountains. Because sometimes I'm like, why am I going this direction when I'm trying to go there? Why is the trail taking me this way? And it is such a good life lesson to realize that the only path up the mountain sometimes takes you back down the mountain five more times before you can get up and takes you around the way that you don't want to go to be able to get there. And sometimes cut through a path that's like straight up that you can take, that not everybody wants to take. And if you're willing to do it, you can get up there a little faster. And those are awesome because I prefer those. Sometimes those aren't possible.

And you have to take the longer path and you have to go down before you go up. So.

Yeah. And you learn about yourself along the way. That's the beauty of it. Right? It's like we're all in. As I see it, everything's energy. Our universe, everything that we are, is made of energy. Energy is either expanding or contracting. Never just like existing.

It's always moving, always expanding or growing or contracting. And so we are as energy, we're either expanding or we're contracting. And so if we're willing to say, okay, I can grow through this, I can go through the hard things and then grow and expand from this, then great. If we're not willing to do that, then we're shrink and then shrinking ends up dying eventually. Like, if you think of a plant, it shrinks down and it dies. Right? So I'd rather grow and thrive.

Yes, grow and thrive. I love it. I love this conversation. This has been so valuable. Thank you so much for spending this time and connecting with us and sharing your wisdom. And I'm so excited for folks to check out your podcast and learn more about all of your stories because there are plenty you're going to be sharing in the, in the coming months and weeks. So as we wind down, one thing we do each one of our episodes is we talk about our self maintenance minute and share what you do to take care of yourself. As an inspiration for folks listening to kind of think that there's many ways to do that so you can tell us what you do for your self maintenance.

So I would say for me, the one main key thing is I make my wellbeing a priority. So I make sure that I'm always putting myself at the top of the list when it comes to really taking care of myself. So that might be nutritionally eating correctly, right. Hydrating, decreasing my stress as much as possible, right. Living in a way that I am a priority. The priority, right. Not in a selfish way, but saying, like, I matter because everything else matters to me. And so if I matter to me, then I take care of myself and I can be my best self, and then I can thrive and help and serve and do all the things.

So I would say, you know, it's routine. It's getting into a proper, like, actionable routine where I tune in to myself, what am I feeling today? Like, going back to the emotions things, what am I feeling today? What do I need? Asking myself, what do I need today? And I give it to myself. Like, I have to give it to myself. So if it's. I'm stressed out, I'm feeling tension, I get on the ground, I stretch. You know, I do some exercises to. To calm my body, my nervous system. If I feel, like, tight tense, I get hydrated.

Like, do I need water? I need water, right? Do I need connection? I need connection. So, do I go to social media, or do I actually reach out, get vulnerable and reach out to a friend and say, hey, I need to connect. I want to connect with you. Can we talk? Right? So, it's really that I would say the one key thing is asking myself what I need and making my wellbeing a priority.

That's awesome. I love it. And you also shared, because I loved it, so you had to share it again. Tell us about your morning, this morning with Elsa, because I love the ways that Elsa supports you.

So, Elsa is my rescue dog. I just got her about two weeks ago tomorrow, actually. So she's learned her name, which is very cool. So, this morning, I was stretching, and I was. I do a thing where I lay down. I put my feet up, you know, like, a 90 degree angle, and just lay on the floor. Well, she climbed on top of me and laid on my stomach, curled up a little donut. She's a chihuine.

And then I tried to switch, and I was stretching, like, turning my knees, and then she got up and rotated and laid on my hips. She has been an absolute delight. And I've let love back in, I would say I lost my dog two years ago while going through breast cancer. And it's been hard. It's been really hard without anyone in my sphere. Right? Cause I'm single and alone. Not anymore, because now I have her. But I'm glad we found each other.

It's a magical thing, and her name is very, very meaningful to me. I did not name her. She came with the name. Elsa is kind of an avatar for me in the Disney realm because she's got superpowers. And I talk about the Elsa syndrome a lot with my clients, that if you're afraid of your powers, you know, because, you know, they're strong and yet you won't use them again. Meant to be. It was magical. And I just love her to death, so it's fun.

Oh, that is so wonderful. I'm so glad that that can be part of your self care and that you let that love in.

Walking with her, you know, she gets me outside more now and all of that, right? And so I take walks daily, but having them with her is just more joy in my life. Finding joy in our daily moment to moment lives is really, really important. Really important.

Very important pieces of self maintenance. I love it. For folks listening in, we love to offer a little bit of grit. Wit is what we call it, but basically something that they can walk away and apply to their lives from our conversation today. So reflecting back on the concept around chasing your dreams or integrating self mastery, what is something you would like to offer our listener to be able to have them integrate?

I would say when it comes to self mastery is learning to love all of yourself and not making yourself wrong for any part of who you are or decisions that you've made. And even your dreams, right. That your dreams aren't wrong. And even if other people don't believe in your dreams, as long as you believe in your dreams and you go after them, that's what matters. And along the way, you'll learn a lot about yourself. And the core, I think, of loving yourself is saying yes to yourself, whatever that looks like.

I love that. So start looking at what your dreams are and reflecting on how you can start moving towards them and knowing that your inner knowing and you knowing this is your dream is the most important piece of that puzzle.

Yeah. Make a decision. Make a decision that you matter and your dreams matter. And then step onto that path. Step into that journey through self mastery. Right. And learning more about yourself and learning how you show up and how to show up differently if it's not working for you. And really just saying yes to the adventure of life, to the circus of life.

Right. And going after your dreams in the process.

I love that. I love that. And what is the best way for folks to find you?

To find me, probably social media wise? Facebook is my primary. So Stacy A. Yardley is my profile. Instagram I am. Stacy Yardley is my secondary. And getting a little better at that. And then my website is kind of under development right now. It's a little outdated, but Stacy Yardley.com is also my website and of course, my podcast.

Life is a circus. So let's step into self mastery.

That's wonderful. And for everyone listening, we have this beautiful trick we can use with our network where I'm going to actually make it so that after this episode ends, it will start one of the episodes. For life is a circus. So you should be able to listen to the third release for Life is a circus. Immediately following this. If you haven't listened to the first one, you probably want to stop there, go into the show notes and go listen to the very first episode of Life of the circus versus jumping into the third. But the way that we can program things, we can only do the most recent one that follows the release of this episode. So the third one will start playing.

And if you hear that, you're like, wait a minute, this is the third one. Just go ahead and go into the show notes and follow the link to go to the very first episode so you can start at the beginning with Stacy and build up to the third episode and keep following along. Subscribe and follow that so you can keep hearing all these fabulous stories of Stacy's adventures as she chases this dream and getting the wonderful connections to real life. So thank you so much for being here today, Stacy, and sharing more about self mastery and chasing dreams and your podcast with us.

Thank you for having me, Shawna, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us the Grit show. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections podcast network @37by27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget, you are the only one of you that this world has got and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are too.