How do you stay grounded when everything around you is shifting?

This month, Nancy and I reflect on the threshold we’re standing on, individually and together, as we move into a new season of the Deeply Rested podcast and our shared work. From physical moves to program pivots to emotional recalibration, August is bringing in change. It’s not the kind of transformation that announces itself with trumpets; it’s the kind that asks for presence, for slowness, and for trust.

Together, we talk about what it means to stay honest while still evolving. We share how we’re navigating business from a place of deep listening, and we discuss the uncomfortable but viable path of being seen in your in-between. If you’re longing for clarity in the midst of change, this conversation will help you soften into the becoming.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The real story behind this season of personal and professional transition (13:33)
• How we’re learning to stay visible even when we’re still in process (20:26)
• Rebuilding from collapse without slipping back into overdrive (29:56)
• The difference between forcing clarity and allowing emergence (38:11)
• My go-to practice for hearing my own voice again (40:59)
• What’s evolving in our work, and what’s staying rooted (50:45)

If change is swirling around you and you’re not sure what comes next, this episode offers the gentle reminder that you don’t have to rush the answer. You just have to keep listening. Tune in to hear some concrete ways that we're doing that amid our own transitions. 

You can watch Nancy and I chat on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMHb1IU6oCI

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

Hey Nancy.

[00:00:53] Maegan: We're here in the same room together. We're in the same room. How was your weekend?

Long story short, we ended up on this really, really rough road. I was right on the edge of having a panic attack. After driving on this road that was basically just a pile of rocks and I usually love driving in the forest. I love driving places. This sort of stuff doesn't usually stress me out.

I was like half a minute away from a full-on panic attack. So I was like, I turned to my husband, I was like, we gotta go. You gotta turn around, and you have to drive on the way home. Oh my gosh. Because. So we just abandoned all camping plans and headed back home, and it was fine.

I have one thing to say to that. What's that?

That's what I have to say about that.

That's the perfect response. I mean, that's all. That's it. So we might have a little sound effects board in this room, and I'm into it.

Nancy: Me, too.

[00:02:11] Nancy: How was your weekend?

That's the worst. I'm really glad you didn't get hurt. Yes, so dangerous this time of year. So painful. I mean, there are so many natural disasters happening. It's just intense emotionally. I've been thinking a lot about collective grief. And how we are all moved to grieve in times when the places we love are being destroyed, and people are dying,

but that's the last depressing thing I'm gonna say on today's episode. Alright, that's a challenge for myself. So what did I do this weekend? I spent a lot of time thinking about how sad things are, but I'm so glad that you made it back safely and are so wise. Okay, here's a question for you before we dive in.

So you're driving down this rocky road, and you know it's a bad idea.

[00:03:08] Maegan: But at some point, you knew it had become a bad idea. Yes, did your husband also know that it had become a bad idea?

So here's a little bit more context. The road we were on was seven miles of unpaved road. We knew there were seven miles of unpaved road, and we had three miles left when I was like, I can't fucking do this anymore.

I turned to my husband. I was like, if you wanna take over and drive, you can, great, and I was like, we have just under half a tank of gas, a nd he was like, the gas is lit. If we had more, if we had like a full tank of gas, I'd say we should go. I'm like, first of all, having a full tank of gas is not gonna stop us from popping a tire out here.

[00:03:53] Nancy: But also, I'm glad that we only had half a tank of gas. 'Cause it meant we could turn around.

[00:04:01] Nancy: Oh, absolutely not.

[00:04:04] Nancy: Well, that's the thing. I was like, could you imagine trying to get out and change a tire in this disaster? We will kill ourselves with a car falling off a jack.

[00:04:25] Nancy: Luckily, we've watched a few seasons of Alone Together, right?. So maybe we would've been like, make it hold up in a shelter by now. That's right.

[00:04:36] Nancy: Right, like a bear skin rug on the carpet.

[00:04:46] Nancy: Oh.

[00:04:50] Nancy: Oh, you know, that's when they're about to be like,

Spoiler alert, and I feel like we can weave this thread through, right? There are these moments when we know that we have to change the plan.

And do we honor those moments? Do we name them? Do we avoid them? Like you knew the moment came, the plan needed to change, and you did it.

You changed the plan, and we'll never know what would've happened. Maybe you would've found the most beautiful camping site you'd ever seen in your entire life, or maybe you would've had to resort to cannibalism, because

[00:05:40] Maegan: But I so admire these moments when we intuitively know, like, this isn't safe.

This isn't right; something needs to change. You turned around, you came back. Totally sucks that you wanted a pleasant camping experience this weekend. And you didn't get it, but you still had an adventure, absolutely, and you proved to yourself that you're wise and capable.

So on the way back, I was like, can we just pull over, and I just need a few minutes to settle my nerves and look at this beautiful landscape, and like, oh.

[00:06:27] Nancy: I think you added the profundity.Is that the word?

Which is too many hours. So I was beat by the time the weekend came along. I did have a really nice, fun Friday.

My friend Mark Henry, one of my soul friends who is a listener of this podcast, so, hey Mark.

[00:07:01] Maegan: It was his birthday.

Happy birthday, Mark.

[00:07:04] Maegan: And I took him to the spot on the Washougal River

[00:07:08] Maegan: We had a river day on Friday, and then Saturday came around, and I had all these big plans of all these work things that were gonna get done. I told you about them on Thursday, and then the weekend started, and I was just like, it's not gonna happen.

So I started reading a really crappy romantic novel about a werewolf. And that's what I did all weekend.

[00:07:31] Maegan: You know, like, it's not good.

[00:07:36] Maegan: Well, I'm all for escapism. It's just like, you know, the story is good, but the writing is terrible.

And honestly, like I'm just waiting for them to bone. Like that's all I want, and it's just not happening.

[00:07:50] Maegan: And then sunk cost fallacy. Okay, so you know how you made the wise choice, you were driving down the road and you were like, I gotta...

Okay, so there's a term in like the reading circles, like DNF, do you know it?

[00:08:00] Maegan: And DNF, like, we did not finish. Like you DNFed. Your camping trip. I need to DNF this book about werewolves, but I haven't yet, and I probably won’t, so that's what's up.

[00:08:14] Maegan: I really hope so, I'll keep you posted. So here we are, in this brand new recording studio.

[00:08:27] Maegan: I think so, is anybody listening? I don't know. Yes, people are listening, and we're so grateful.

Our July episode about uncertainty was so incredibly well received. It was such an honor, truly like the amount of feedback that we got about that episode, and how it resonated with our listeners, and just people sharing the uncertainty that they're going through in their own lives.

It just really reaffirmed for me in a moment when shit was hitting the fan that this matters. You know, like talking about werewolf smut, like, it matters, it's important, it's a service to the collective. And the reality is my basement is, well, it's not still flooded, but it will be out of commission for an indeterminate amount of time.

So we had to pivot. We had to change the plan. We had to surrender to the mystery and like open up to what else is possible here. I started googling for podcast rental studios in Portland, Oregon. I was like, you can rent so many things, like can you rent a place to record a podcast? And I was finding some places that were very expensive, out of our budget.

I was like, no, I can't pay like $300 an hour to like record this podcast one day, sure that'd be awesome. But that day it's not today. And then I had this memory of being out of town. I was probably in New York City or something, and I was visiting a coworking space.

And in that coworking space, I remember there was a podcast studio built into the space. And then I was like, I wonder if there's something like that here in Portland, Oregon. And guess what?

[00:10:12] Maegan: It exists, and we're in it right now. So not only do I now have a place to work.

This place we're at it's called Kiln. It's gorgeous. It's very nice. They're popping up all over the country. Years ago, I worked out of a WeWork for a while, which was cool. I have no bad things to say about it, but this place is cooler, and they have this podcasting studio.

We have four sound effects on this board, so we're gonna try to use all four before the end of this episode.

[00:10:48] Maegan: And then we'll never. I promise we'll never do it again. Well, that's a big promise. I promise we won't do it very often.

Here we are, and it's cool. We've always wanted to do this together in person, but my basement was too small, so we didn't quite have the infrastructure set up for it. We're just rolling with it, right? It's like, this is the first time we've ever been in this room.

We set up the tech as best as we could. It's not perfect. It's gonna sound different, probably, than some of our other recordings. These are the things that my inner perfectionist really struggles with, but I'm really working on, just like going with the flow.

I know we talked a lot about like not silver lining your way through things that are chaotic or, you know, dysregulating, and not saying that you did that, obviously, you didn't. But like what a silver lining has turned out for us. I know in this specific situation like, oh, we were kind of looking for an opportunity to do this.

Didn't know how to make it happen, and then because of the craziness that happened in your basement, like, here we are with a fresh opportunity to do something that we've been wanting to do, and it's just like, what are the choices? How are we responding to what presents itself to us?

Don't love that for us, but it will be fine, and here we are. And I think being in this space is actually gonna open up maybe many opportunities, or our business that were not available to me when I was spending most of my time in a basement alone. So we will see, we'll see what comes of it, but

I'm so glad that we're here now, and we're gonna continue seeing what the mystery reveals to us. I think what I wanna talk about today is change, because so much is changing. So much is changing.

[00:13:22] Maegan: Oh, okay, I'll stop. I'm like,

[00:13:26] Maegan: No, oh god, okay. Change and uncertainty go hand in hand. It is so true, and I've been thinking about how we know change is a constant. Duh, how cliche is that? Change is a constant. Change is the only thing that's real. It's true. We're not gonna talk about that today because I think we've all had enough of that lesson.

We get it, everything's changing all the time, but what I wanna talk about today are the moments when change happens in like a big dramatic way, right? Because it's like change is always happening on the micro-level, but then there are moments or seasons and our lives, and especially like in our businesses, when change

is dramatic. It's big, it's transformative, and that transformation might be orchestrated, it might be well planned, or the transformation might happen, kicking and screaming. It might be happening to you, but it happens to all of us and it's happening internally in this business. Right now, there's a lot of change happening that I feel like my basement flooding when it did was really like an initiation into this larger change that is unfolding, and that tends to be my relationship with the universe a bit.

You know, it's like something's trying to change or evolve, and then maybe I'm resisting it a little bit or a lot. And then something dramatic will happen in my life, at like, is it this catalyst? Right, it propels. It's like now's the time. This change is happening.

[00:15:04] Maegan: Forces your hand. Yes, exactly.

 And so that's what's happening right now. We're inside of this moment of change, and I wanna talk today about what is changing here internally, but of course I want to connect the dots so that. You know, those of you listening can weave some of the wisdom we're gleaning into your own businesses and your lives and the work that's unfolding, the changes that are unfolding in your world right now. So that's my vision for this conversation.

So, at the end of 2023, we had just spent two years creating some really robust online coaching programs.

Next Level Therapist and Spotlight were the names of these two programs, and they were awesome. They were lovely. There was nothing wrong with them. They were totally effective.

People were getting great results, and it became clear to me that it was time to let them go. And I think we both resisted that in different ways, right? 'Cause we were like, but wait a minute, like, we just finished creating them.

Like we're finally in this like steady, stable place where we can sort of just like rinse and repeat and like do the launch and move cohorts through the program.

And it was predictable. So there was a lot of sunk cost fallacy around letting them go, being like, well, you just invested all that time and money. Like, why, why would you stop doing them now when they're finally gaining traction and they, working, but it was just really clear that we needed to learn everything we learned from that experience, but it wasn't the direction for the future.

I mean, it could have been 'cause we have a choice all the time, but it wasn't like the soul aligned direction for the future. So we sunsetted those programs. Okay, before I move on to the next chapter, anything you wanna add about what that was like for you? Like that decision to shut them down.

what felt the most aligned, and as we talked more and more through it, I came to see that like, yes, i t is the way to proceed here is just to like sunset the programs and start fresh. You know? As an Aries, I always go toward, like, okay, so what next? What action?

What can I do? And so I think I started going into this process in my mind of like, okay, well, what can we do next? And then you were very like a counterbalance that like, whoa, we need to slow our roll

way back, and like really dial back. So all of that to say, I think that the change was a little bit scary because it was very much stepping into the unknown of what was gonna come next. But I did have this trust that, like it was the right thing to do.

And liminal spaces are all about transformation, right? It's the dark night of the soul. It's the inside of the cocoon. You know, liminal spaces are these kinds of shapeless, formless, aimless journeys that we go on as we are discovering. It's like what was no longer is, but what is has not yet revealed itself to us.

It's that in-between space. So we very intentionally said, we're stepping into a liminal space, and we said that out loud, right? We said that in our newsletter. I wanted the journey to be open, and then I think when, you know, change is coming and you choose to step into a liminal space, or you choose to go straight into a transformation, if you are, if you do know what is coming next, you have this choice, right?

You have this choice to completely step off the scene and do it in private or continue creating, even though you know that what you're creating isn't the thing you're meant to do. Okay, so I've seen a lot of business owners, and neither one of these choices is clear, better, or worse than the other.

I've seen a lot of business owners go through one of these moments where they're like, yep, this isn't it anymore. I got what I needed. It's time for something new. I don't know what that is yet. So I'm just gonna kind of quietly disappear. I'm just gonna fade away. I'm gonna stop sending my newsletter, I'm gonna stop marketing.

I'm gonna stop, you know, posting things publicly, and I'm gonna go into my life and I'm gonna do all the transformation work personally, and then when I'm clear about what's coming next, I'll step back into the world and share it. So that's one way that we can move through these liminal spaces.

The other way, and the way that I'm gonna talk about, 'cause it's the choice that I made, is to continue creating publicly.

Knowing that you don't actually know what is going on, or like what's coming or what you're doing, and you know, I like to think about business ownership as a deeply creative process.

My business is my art form. What I have, you know, learned about art and the approaches that really resonate for me are the idea that when you are a creator in the world, your job is just to create. And sometimes, you know, for what purpose you're creating, and sometimes you don't.

So if you're a writer, you know, maybe you don't know what your next novel is going to be, but you're gonna sit down every day and you're gonna write something. If you're a painter, you might not be working on a commission, but you're just gonna like pull out a blank sketch pad and you're just gonna pop some watercolors on the page every day.

Like you're just gonna keep creating and you're gonna let your creations reveal to you over time what's coming next? Is that making sense?

[00:21:41] Maegan: Can you think of any other, like, examples of that?

You like, have something in mind that you're gonna create and [00:22:00] I just this summer have really tried to start challenging myself to just like sit down and sew and improv and see what's next. It's like way more freeing, right?t. Because you're just like, you don't have this like, finished idea in mind already, and it just allows for more experimentation.

Are you like with your sewing, or does it make you uncomfortable when people come into your sewing space and see the doing?

[00:22:46] Maegan: That's such a great point. It's not all yes or all no. It's not all good or all bad. Like, we have to know internally what we can consent to and what we cannot consent to, so right? It's like there are some things that. I'm not gonna share on the podcast.

There are some creative projects that you're not gonna share. And there are some that you are going to share. And when your business is going through a big transformation, I think that's a great question to sit with. Like, what parts of this process do I feel comfortable letting people witness?

And what parts of this process belong to me, right? What parts are private? Which I think we're actually gonna talk a little bit about here in a few minutes. I decided that what felt right for me was to start a podcast in this liminal space. I don't actually remember if I've ever shared on this podcast that when I was a kid.

And people said like, what do you wanna be when you grow up... I'm such a nerd. Are you ready? You already know this. I was like, I wanna be like Terry Gross. People were like, who? That tells you everything you need to know about the kind of kid I was. I was just fascinated with this idea that you could just talk to people and tell stories and pull out meaning, and that you could do that, and that that's the thing that you did.

And I knew it, and I'm sure enough people looked at me like I was crazy pants that I just buried. I just tucked it deep down in my soul, you know? And I was just like, okay, well that's a private thought. Let's not say that out loud. People will laugh at you, or whatever the case may be.

And when we entered into this liminal space, the idea of doing a podcast just kept coming back to me, I was like, I know that it's a massive undertaking. I know that whatever we create is probably gonna be super impermanent because everything is changing, and yet I still kind of wanna do it.

And I know that my work and saying yes to doing this podcast is gonna be to hold it very loosely.

So a year ago we stepped into this project, and the other thing was we had done the Rest In Success code online Summit three times prior to this point, which is basically like a week-long podcast.

I was just talking myself down from it. And then someone said, we'll do a summit instead. It's like a condensed podcast, blah, blah, blah. So we did, we did it three times. And we were sitting on this bank of episodes, which, if you listen to this podcast regularly, you'll have noticed that about every other episode we've been releasing is an episode from the Rest and Success code.

[00:25:40] Maegan: When we realized we had all these great conversations that we could reshare, it made the idea of starting this podcast feel more manageable.

Instead of having to record four new episodes per month, we only had to record two new episodes.

And we would repurpose two other episodes so it would become clear. That in this liminal space, we could start a podcast, and we could use it as a place to experiment with different formats and different topics. And we could just see like, how does it go? Do I like it as much as I think I'm gonna like it?

Does anyone else give a shit about it? Like, what's gonna happen? So here we are in August, and we launched the podcast in September of last year. Here we are in August. And we're about to change everything. We're about to change all of it, and there is a part of that that feels really hard.

Because I'm like, oh my God, but like we just like, we finally have the graphics figured out and we finally have the workflows and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, Maegan, you gotta remind yourself. Like you, I stepped into this knowing that this was the first draft of something that I hope will

become something really spectacular. And nobody likes to come out of the gate with their masterpiece, right? The first time around. Like, you've gotta draft it, and this was the first draft, so we decided to go with Deeply Rested because it was already part of our message.

We were talking about being deeply rested and wildly successful, a nd we both were kind of over the wild success part of the message. We're like, what if we just go whole hog into Deeply Rested and we see what happens? And we did, and we've learned so much, and we'll talk in a future episode about all the things that we learned, and now it's time for something new.

Now it's time to change. Anything you'd add to that?

[00:27:43] Maegan: Okay, well, everything's changing, and it's true. That is really hard, and that's the next part of this conversation. Is like, what is it like when you actually commit to a big, dramatic change in your business, in your life? Well, you can't avoid the chaos that ensues when you are deep in a transformation process, when something is changing.

I am being reminded in this iteration of my own personal transformation that it's a messy process. You know, and the chaos shows up. And I wanna talk a little bit about the chaos, because I think the chaos of change is where so many people abandon ship. It feels like too much. It's overwhelming, it's scary.

It asks you to release your grip on a lot of things that make you feel secure and stable. And often we are so alone, we're so isolated in our personal growth, our business growth processes, as people, that we're just not well supported. We're not supported enough to be able to weather the storms of transformation.

So I find in the private clients that I work with and in my own personal experiences that when change is knocking on your door and youanswer it and chaos comes through and everything, you're like the inside of the tornado with Dorothy. You know, and you're in the winds of transformation, the fires of transformation,

however you wanna think about it, that people tend to default to one of two extremes. They can default to a hyper arousal, right? They like to switch into overdrive. You were sort of speaking to this earlier, right? Being like, okay, things are changing. So, my anxiety is up. Action-oriented behaviors are up. Like everything is like, okay, what can I do? What actions can I take? What to-do lists can I complete? I've gotta to work my ass off so that I can get out of this tornado as soon as possible. That's one extreme. And then the other extreme is like, total collapse, right? Freeze response, hypoarousal when you just, Yes, thank you. You've now heard all four sound effects. Congratulations.

[00:29:57] Maegan: Oh shit, sorry. Well, I think we actually said we'd stop after this episode, but, okay, wha wha wha Like that feeling that kind of collapse of being like, this is too too too overwhelminging. I can't do it, so I'm just not gonna do anything. Those are two ends of the extreme.

And personally, I definitely find that I bounce back and forth between those two. Always trying to find like my way to an integrated center. Which we'll talk about in a second, but what do you think about, you know, change knocking on your door? You answer it. Chaos is ushered through, right? The whole house is getting cleaned out, whether you like it or not.

What is it like for you in those moments when everything is changing?

What can I do? How can I do my way out of this thing? And then I get too overwhelmed because I'm like, I don't know what to do, and then.

I swing all the way to the other side, de and I'm like, I'm not gonna do anything, and then somewhere I'll land kind of in the middle, that's like, okay.

I don't know what to do, but I feel like I need to do something, and then it's like, what do I have to offer? Whatever the situation is. Do I have something to offer here? And usually that means reflecting back on, like, what are my gifts? What am I good at?

What do I like doing? Are there things in the situation that fall into the categories of things that I like, things that I am gifted at, things that come naturally to me? Is there something in that kind of soup of things that I can bring to this situation? . And that's over and over when chaos knocks, that's kind of the typical cycle that I find happening. So it's like, whoa, I swing really hard one way and then I swing really hard the other way and then I just find some sort of balance in between those two places, so.

And how do we, like, let ourselves be in the flow of mystery and trust, like with this podcast studio? Like, trust that something better, it's gonna reveal itself. And that doesn't mean that we can't be upset or hurt or grieve what's changing, what we're losing, what feels chaotic.

But we can't force our way to the next thing. We can't force our way to the next thing. And also, if we just totally throw our hands up and collapse, nothing's gonna come from that either. I think people sometimes misunderstand these approaches to life and business that are about finding an integrated center point. So you're basically saying like, we can be on the pendulum where we're breaking action out of fear, or we're not doing anything at all.

And I think that people who are trying to approach a more spiritual, perhaps way of doing business or of just existing in the world, can see the collapse as a surrender.

That's what it is. I had to puzzle that out for a second. You know, like when I say like, I'm surrendering to this, what I'm actually saying is like, I'm trusting that something better is trying to work its way through me. Like something

better is trying to be revealed. It might be really fucking painful getting from point A to point B, but I trust that there is something larger than me that's working itself out. And I am surrendering to being in the flow, to being in the current of that mystery and of that unfolding and being in the current requires that you know how to swim. Like, you have to swim, you have to create, you have to take action. And sometimes I feel like people confuse that surrender with collapse.

But they're like, oh, so when you surrender, you basically just sit on your hands. And you're like, okay, well, whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. It's like, no, no, no, no. We're not talking about not taking action.

You know, we're not talking about not doing anything or just sitting, you know, on your couch and waiting for the next great thing to be revealed to you. I've never seen it happen that way.

So what we're talking about is how do I find this way of operating that's in the middle that exists between collapse and hoping for the best and fear-based. Action taking, where we're actually just making like a lot of decisions from a place of scarcity, and we're muddying the waters. What does it look like to be in the middle? Does that make sense, what I just said?

And I think that I really like the way that you said that because you're like integrating both edges of this pendulum swing. Both extremes and like integrating it into the situation, you're experiencing what's happening and using your choice, right? To move forward from there.

Because of the lesson from these two edges. I like the way you said that the lesson from these two edges is action and observation.

So, if we can come inward on this spectrum, this pendulum. If we come more to the middle and we're not in fear-based rapid action taking,

And we're not in like total sit on my hands, full body collapse. This more integrated space in the middle is one in which I am very intentionally choosing to slow down. So I'm not collapsing, but I am slowing down and I am observing.

I'm really observing so mindfully, so intentionally: what is happening, right now? What is unfolding? You're looking for signs and synchronicities and patterns, and you're looking for moments where your own trauma responses are getting triggered and activated, and you're just sitting and you're observing and you're taking it all in and you're giving your soul, your body, and your mind a chance to synthesize this chaos tornado that's spinning all around you. Right? Because when we're in these chaotic change places, life is happening fast.

Oh man. It's just like so much is happening. So much is coming through, and if we don't slow down to really observe and take it all in, we're often missing really clear signs and signals about where to go next.

So we wanna slow down and observe, but we also wanna take action. We wanna pull from that part of us that knows how to respond to challenging situations. I like to think of this action as co-creation.

So this is where I'm gonna weave in a little bit more of a spiritual lens.

And I believe I have a purpose, I have gifts to share, like you were saying, coming back to, like, what are the gifts that I can share?

And I think it's my duty to share them and to share them in a way that also creates a really beautiful, fulfilling life for me, but I feel that, you know, I work for the universe. You know, that, like, again, like I take my directives from some bigger system than just Maegan's brain.

Another metaphor that you and I talk about sometimes is that we all play an instrument in the orchestra.

Right? I'm like the oboe, and you are the violin. Violin, I'm trying to go with like more random instruments, but okay, uh, okay. So I'm the oboe and you're the violin, which maybe that actually totally checks out and describes our personalities perfectly.

You know, an oboe alone does not a symphony make.

[00:39:05] Maegan: But an oboe and a violin put together, now we're making music. So when I really ground myself into that, knowing that belief, that I am here to play a part, and that there is something bigger and more divine working itself out all around me.

It's so much easier for me to feel brave, courageous, inspired, to keep taking action when it feels like my life is being, you know, consumed by this chaotic tornado. So what does that look like for me in practice? So in practice, this is what I'm doing right now. 'Cause I'm in it, I'm in the chaos spiral, right?

So every morning I wake up, I make a cup of tea, and I sit somewhere quiet. I love sitting for an hour if I can, that's like so luxurious, but, you know, three and a half minutes will do.

So just a reminder, folks, like it doesn't have to be a whole thing. It can just be a couple of breaths.

A dropping in, a taking a moment to just feel your feet on the ground, nd I take some deep breaths, and I just ask like, okay, what is one aligned action I can take today? And I wait to hear the quiet whisper because

your mind is gonna be real quick to give you an answer, and it often sounds like, blah la la la la l, it sounds like that.

You know, it's like intense and loud and annoying, and you're like, please don't ever make that noise again, Maegan. Like, that's what it feels like when you get information coming from the mind. It's like drinking from a fire hose. It's super overwhelming. No, I'm just gonna breathe through that until I can hear something quieter, something more subtle, something really clear and often really, really simple. Like, what is one aligned action I can take today? I'm slowing down, I'm observing, I'm resisting the urge to take fast action because this change season is really uncomfortable to be in.

I'm gonna ground myself, and I'm just gonna ask for one directive. What is one aligned action I can take today? Because I believe that one aligned action leads to another, right?. One door opens another, that if we're constantly checking back in, rooted in this larger belief that like, I'm just playing my part and we're all doing this together, all of a sudden it doesn't actually feel that complicated. It doesn't feel that overwhelming.

How does this land for you?

I think for me, historically anyway, I need to feel those edges before I can land in the middle. So what I'm hearing you say is that this practice that you're doing is what keeps you from swinging edge to edge. Is that how it feels to you that, like, do you feel like you need to reach any of those edges

before you're able to land in this practice? Or is it this practice that keeps you in the middle kind of from the get-go?

I think it's like a little bit of both. That, at this point in my creative process, it's, is my go-to response, but to be clear, it doesn't prevent me from going to the edges. And this is where that observation, I think, is so crucial. 'Cause if you're creating space in your life to be able to observe.

Mindfully, like, what is happening inside of me? What is happening all around me? Then you can catch more quickly when you've gotten hijacked, sort of triggered. To one end of the extreme or the other, but I think there's so much truth in that that we have to go to the edges to really know. Like we're creating our own boundaries, right?

And like, we can't know what the middle is if we don't know where the edge is. So I think it's like a mix of both that I don't step into this practice of observing and co-creating and taking aligned action and moments of profound change in transformation to bypass the more intense, dramatic responses.

Those things are gonna happen because I'm human. So there are gonna be moments, you know, like when the first invoice comes in for the basement, we're like, I'm gonna freak out.

And I'm gonna, you know, start figuring out like, how do I book 20 more clients? I'm gonna go back into the la, la, la, la, la, la space. You know, like, ah, I gotta do something right now. And then it's like, hey, look what's happening. Oh, look what you just did. Of course, you did that. This is really scary. Mindful self-compassion is such a winner of a strategy.

Be like, oh, sweetheart, of course. You're freaking out right now. This is really scary. You don't have to stay in the freak out unless you just need to stay as long as you need. If you need to freak out and you need to just like let all that adrenaline course through your body, go for it.

You need to collapse. I mean, obviously, I had a mini-collapse this weekend with my werewolf smut, you know, of being like, okay. I just, like, there were aligned actions I wanted to take this weekend. The weekend showed up, and I was like, not gonna happen. Like, I'm exhausted. I'm like, the world is like too much for me right now. Like, I just gotta collapse.

Great, beautiful, but I maybe what changes is that you do those things with more intention.

in chaotic situations. I think so. And you're able to like really. Notice Yes. What's happening?

You start to see the connection points and the patterns, and you start seeing how this hard thing led to this beautiful thing, or how this beautiful thing, you held too tightly to it, and then it became this terrible thing, and you start to see yourself more clearly, and this is all about seeing, right?

That's like, that's the beauty of observation, is we're not trying to force any action, we're just slowing down the process so that we have more choice points.

Going back to our last episode, right? Choice points. That when life feels out of control, when things feel really uncertain, when we're in huge, you know, moments of transformation, our power comes from our choice points.

So when we slow down and observe, even if we are observing ourselves freaking out and taking like crazy action because we're scared or like totally collapsed and not doing anything at all, when we see it, we then have a choice. Do I wanna stay here? Do I need to stay here a little longer?

Or do I wanna move into a different response? Do I have the capacity today to sit and ask the universe to give me a directive, you know? What can I do today? What's one action that will move this forward and in the right direction today? Do I have the capacity, or is it a werewolf day? Right? Like, you know, it doesn't, there's no right or wrong, but can we slow down?

Can we observe so that we have more choice points when we're going through transformative processes? Does that make sense?

[00:46:40] Maegan: And maybe that's a good litmus test. Like if you feel like you have no choices available to you. If you feel like life is happening to you, if you feel like transformation is happening against your will,

can you slow down and start observing? More intentionally. 'Cause that's never true. You know, like shitty stuff happens against our will all the time.

Yes, but having no choice. Not true. Like, there are always choice points, especially when we're talking about things like business.

[00:47:14] Maegan: You wanna push back, and I want you to push back.

[00:47:45] Maegan: Thank you for highlighting that, 'cause let's definitely make that really explicit. We rarely have a choice over what just happened, right? But we always have a choice about what we do next. What goes forward.

It reminds me of that quote by Viktor Frankl. " Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and that space is our power to choose our response, and our response lies in our growth and our freedom."

Totally honoring that a lot of shitty things are happening to a lot of people right now.

Really hard things. The choice comes after the stimulus, right? The choice is in the responsibility, and that is true. If we lose someone, tragically, it is true. If our home is destroyed by a climate catastrophe. It is true if we're creating a new iteration of the podcast, right?

It's always true that there is a response, and I think that's what I'm going to be deep in thinking about in August, so many things are changing in my life right now. I'm just gonna like, bring this back to me and my process as an example, like so many things are changing, and where do I have a choice?

And how am I going to respond to the transformation?

Right now, I can really feel the need for some spaciousness.

The last month has been intense and a lot of transformation. Kind of like someone pushed hyper speed and now here I am, and I wanna respond to the call.

I'm resourced right now. I am resourced enough to be able to respond to this moment of transformation in my life with intention and action. Specifically, my business, in the work that I feel called to do. It's changing, it's transforming. How do I wanna meet that? Well, right now, I'm not in a place to take a bunch of action.

I think I said that at the beginning, like I need some space right now to like be with grief and not to rush through that. I need some space to be with moments of freak out and not feel like I have to rush through that. So that's how I am responding to change in this moment, to the way change is showing up in my life, is like, hey, I gotta hit pause on some things and give myself some space to breathe and really be with the process that is unfolding.

So that's what I'm gonna do in August. I'm really just gonna like lower the bar on my deliverables, so to speak. I'm gonna send fewer newsletters, right?. We are going to release mini episodes for the rest of this month instead of full interviews. Like we're just, and

Instead of many M-A-N-Y.

You know, but everything that's sort of unfolding right now it's too tiny. It's too embryonic to share it out loud. So, going back to what you were saying earlier, oh, look at us tying up loose ends. That's sometimes the things we're working on are too precious and too vulnerable to show publicly.

And what's coming next in my work and in this podcast it's too tiny and vulnerable right now.

So I'm gonna make the conscious choice to hold that close to the vest, but to talk really openly about the creative process that we're in, and to talk about transformation as it's happening and as we're experiencing it.

That's sort of my commitment. That's where I am in this moment of transformation for the month of August, and I have a couple of reflection questions to offer listeners.

[00:52:27] Maegan: If you, dear listener, are also feeling change knocking on your door. We have some reflection questions to offer you that hopefully will help ground you in more clearly understanding what this chaos is all about,

that's unfolding in your life right now. So the first question is simply, where do you feel the rumbling of change and chaos in your world, in your business, and in your personal life? Maybe, like Nancy said, the change you're going through is deep personal. It's a big loss. It has nothing to do with your work at all. Okay, meet it. Let's meet that change, or maybe it is something about your work, maybe you're thinking about pivoting or starting something new, or, you know, sunsetting something that has served you for a long time. Where do you feel the rumblings of change in your life? Slow down. Observe, notice, name it.

Then ask yourself, how am I responding to change? What is my person? I mean, Nancy and I both shared how we can swing back and forth from overaction to collapse, trying to find some kind of integrated way of being in the middle, but what's true for you? It might be something entirely different than what we talked about.

And if so, I'd also I would love to hear it. Email us, tell us about how you're responding to change and chaos in your life. And finally, if it feels right for you to think about, what would it look like to observe and co-create your way through this change?

So instead of like muscling your way through the change, fighting it, forcing it, or feeling like you totally fall into collapse and don't take any action at all. What does, like, observe, and co-create look like for you in your creative process and the way that you live life?

Chew on that. Think about it. Share it with us if Well, I would love to hear from you.

Regardless of what your answers are to these questions, but in particular, if you have a different take on this, if there's anything that I said or Nancy said that you're like, I don't know about that. Like, something rubs me the wrong way about that, or I think they're missing something. Just know we always wanna hear from you.

Rebuttals are always welcome because we're figuring this out, right? We're just making this process a little more personal by telling you. How we're moving through it in our own lives and in this work. And that's basically all I have to say for today.

And I think that's just like a little golden nugget about the word practice, because, as we were talking before, too, like the more you observe, the more observant you can become, and I think it's similar, like this practice is something that you can return to over and over again.

And I feel like I know my cycles. I gotta meet this edge. I gotta meet this edge and then I land somewhere. So it's like I know I react in this way, and then I react in this way. I know that, and now I can decide how I will respond.

So, I just really appreciate putting that in a frame of like a practice. And like, yeah.

Life is a creative act, right? Business is a creative process, and, ugh, I'm gonna go back to the cliche I said, I wouldn't say it again, but I'm gonna say it again. Like, change is the only constant. Like things are constantly changing. Every single thing of every single cell in our body, every blade of grass, every, you know, air molecule, everything is constantly in a process of transformation.

And how we meet life is what it's all about. Like that's what we're all here just to figure out how I wanna meet life? And I like to think of that as a practice because I wanna bring intention to it. Like I want my work in life to be the work of my business and vice versa, and I think when I remind myself that every single thing, every action, every response has a purpose,

it's easier to slow down and give myself permission to treat it all as a practice instead of trying to like fast forward

through the transformative process so that I can, you know, make more money or create something or have something to show for myself or be productive. It's like, no, I'm just gonna slow it all down and be in the practice of choice.

Wow, well, we talked about a lot of things today.

[00:57:18] Maegan: Thanks for hanging in with us, listeners. Let us know if you feel so inclined, what stood out to you? What little nugget are you taking away from this conversation? Are you gonna be thinking about? I would love to hear it. And for the rest of this month, and honestly, really until we roll out the new version of this podcast, you're gonna be getting lots of mini episodes.

Mini episodes sharing more thoughts and ideas, and things that feel alive for us right now.

So listen in if it calls to you, and I also just wanna shout out before we leave that, summer's almost over. Yes, I know, which means I have a new batch of openings for private coaching clients.

So if you're going through a big change in your life, a big transition, you find yourself at a crossroads in what you wanna do or how you wanna show up in the world, and you wanna a guide to just walk with you through that process, I'm here for that. And if you're curious about working with me, you can read more about it at deeply rested.com/coaching.

I'd love to hear from you. Email me anytime. Nancy, thanks for a great chat today.

[00:58:35] Maegan: I have so much to think about. I'll resist the urge to do any more sound effects, and we'll talk to you next week.

Thanks for listening.