SSP 014: Jenifer Merifield - The Keys To Living An Extraordinary Life

State shifters podcast episode 14 with Jennifer Merrifield.

Welcome to the State Shifters Podcast.

Welcome back to the State Shifters Podcast. It has been a few weeks since I released the last episode. Reason being I've been traveling around Europe and moving from country, country to country, and it's been a little, little difficult to find the time to sit down and edit this episode. I filmed and recorded this one before I left, and it's a discussion that I had with a very close friend and a mentor of mine, the lovely Jennifer Merrifield. Jennifer is a personal excellence coach, a life coach, or a transformation coach, whatever you prefer to name a life coach or the work that she does. And Jennifer has had a really profound impact on my life for the short amount of time that I've known her. I've been working with her for probably the past three to four months. And we connected through our mutual, mutual collaboration with Soul7. And I thought it would be nice to sit down and have a chat with Jen and put it on the podcast because I've learned so many valuable lessons, advice, principles that I would love to be able to share with you guys. So you're going to enjoy this one. Jennifer is amazing and has so much wonderful knowledge and wisdom to share. So take note. Without further ado, here's Jennifer Merrifield. Okay, Jennifer Merrifield, welcome to the State Shifters podcast. How are you?

Thanks for having me here. This is awesome.

Pleasure is mine. I've been meaning to get you onto the show for a while because you've had such a big impact. Excuse me. On my life through the coaching and through the work that you do. And I wanted my audience to get to know a little bit about you and how coaching can impact anyone's life, regardless of position or work or age or gender.

Even if you're a coach.

Yeah, exactly.

Always good to have a coach. Yeah.

So maybe do you mind giving a brief background to the listeners on how you got into coaching and maybe how your journey today in a short, succinct format?

Short, succinct, if that's possible, because, you know, I can ramble and ramble. Okay. Short succinct. You know, it's always been a passion of mine to be of service to others. And I think from a very young age, I just have always wanted happiness for people. I could always. I was always upset when people were upset and wanted to sort of keep the peace kind of thing and make people happy. And then I guess through my life was most of the positions I held in work or always some type of service in project management or anything like that. There was always an element where people would come to me and it was just such an honor and a privilege for me to help support people and let people know that you can do anything. I remember being a little girl in my room and thinking, I don't believe in impossible. It just didn't make sense to me because of something that I had heard earlier that day about impossible. And I was thinking, no, I think there's always. And I still feel that today really strongly. And I believe that about anybody that I work with. So let's see, I was in marketing, and then I went on to publishing for a little while for an Empowerment, empowerment magazine. And I just got a lot of opportunities to do speaking engagements and talking to groups and mentoring people one on one about personal empowerment and personal excellence. And it just got to a place where it just made perfect sense to get the certifications in coaching and neuro linguistics and sort of a bunch of other branches in this type of field. And it's just been, yeah, it's exactly what I meant to do. I love it.

So, yeah, that's amazing. For those who don't know, we kind of met through Soul7, which is the company that I started working for here in Toronto. And you have been associated with Soul7 for just over a year now, if that's correct. Yeah. And I guess we kind of stumbled across each other as a way of fate, just mutual interest through Bob and.

Working together and, you know, similar clients and.

Yeah, exactly. And I want maybe people to understand how or what exactly Transformation coaching is, because I guess I could explain it in my own words, but I think it's better to come from you because the work that you do is really special.

I wonder if it's better to come from me or if it's.

Because I think we could do both.

I love that you said that, because it's really. The experience is what the client gets from it, what each person gets from it. Because every client comes from a different place, has a different set of beliefs and programming from the past that they sort of bring into their life day in, day out, that sort of alters how reality shows up, you know, what we think about, what we focus on, what we feel that sort of creates our next reality in our life. And so, you know, whether someone comes to me for they want help in their business or in their relationship or with depression or anxiety or whatever it is, it's always the same approach in that it's foundational. So when you get really Clear on yourself and what that programming is from the past, that's no longer serving you anymore. And when you get clear on how to create a new belief system that matches what you want to believe and what sort of guides you to creating the reality that you desire, that's like the domino effect for everything else. So we can pick your relationship or we can pick your job or your finances or whatever, and start from any one of those points, and it will have an effect in your entire life.

I think that's what shook me the most about coaching. When I've had my first session and you were lucky enough, you were generous enough to offer me a few sessions just to get a taste of what coaching was. And I guess I went in there with no real expectations. I had no idea what to expect. And obviously I thought I had a lot figured out about myself until I had my first coaching session. And you really opened up a whole nother plethora of inner growth that I guess I didn't realize or didn't see until you have someone there that really points you deep down into the psyche. Yeah. And.

And that happens for everybody. There's that moment of, oh, wow. Like, there's this. It's like taking the blinders off, you know, of like, oh, wow, there's so much more that I wasn't really paying attention to. That's always been there. It's like that creating that awareness. You guys talk about awareness a lot at Soul7. It's such a key part of it because when you see the possibilities, it's just like, oh, my gosh, like now, like, it's limitless what you can do. And then having someone to support you and say, it's okay, go there, go there. You got this and I got your back. And, you know, because it's a little scary. Right. When you see the possibilities. And then you sort of, you know, tend to pull back a little bit in.

I guess that was the thing. Not everyone's ready to kind of take that, dive into themselves and figuring out a lot of things that sometimes you need to shine the light of awareness on before you can actually overcome. And it's getting to the root cause of a lot of things.

And again, it comes back to our programming. So we're used to doing things the same way over and over, day in, day out, year in, year out, that we get. Even when we learn a new way, we fall back into habits so easily. And it's funny, a lot of people say, like, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I'm just not doing it. I don't know what's holding me back. And it's that comfort zone. That comfort zone is the place of safety. We know what to expect there on that edge, looking over to unknown possibilities and knowing it could be fantastic. There's still that fear of, I keep wanting to swear, but I'm not gonna swear on your show. Like, holy smokes, there's. Then what. Because you don't know what you. And it's that leap of faith and having that surrender. But, you know, it's easy to say, you know, take a leap of faith and surrender, but it's. It's scary. But when you have a coach or when you have someone supporting you, you get a little more fine tuning on what that actually means. And it's not like jumping off a cliff into a black abyss of nothingness. There's steps along the way, so it's not that scary.

Yeah, I think that's what excites me the most about bringing you on to this podcast. Because I'd like to hope a lot of people that listen to this podcast are the ones that are ready for that step into the unknown and they ready to take that, that next leap of faith. And coaching for me was such, like, it was such a big jump because I was amazed by how quickly the growth happened when you have someone there that's able to hold your hand and go, go, go deep, go within and just really work through. Yes, I was. I think the people. We'll go back to awareness for a second because people may have already discovered a meaning behind their own meaning behind self awareness, which can mean a lot of different things. Consciousness, presence, higher energy, God. And for me, self awareness was a big part of my shift to move away from my job when I discovered that I had a light of consciousness within me that was the sole source of my happiness and fulfillment. And it's available in each and every moment. So even though I had realized that doing coaching made me realize that there was still so much inner growth that I had to go through to really evolve into the person that I want to become. So do you mind explaining to people that what the different. First of all, what's your definition of like, self awareness? And if someone's discovered self awareness, does that still mean they can get a lot out of coaching? Or can you? Do you have to discover?

So, you know, I've been doing this for 11 years officially and probably my whole life unofficially. And I would think I'm fairly aware.

Yeah, I would say so.

And there's more like, there's more like I'll sometimes come across a piece of research or some new learning and just my mind is blown of like, oh, there's always more. There's always, always more. And it's kind of a humbling, beautiful thing to just surrender to. There's no end, there's no finish. There's no like just enjoy it. Just enjoy the journey of always having beginner's eyes with something, always seeing something new and knowing that in the time that you discover it, it's the perfect time time. And it's going to enhance you in whatever way. And rather than feeling that anxiety of needing to be done. Yeah, yeah, but.

And how would you describe what consciousness or self awareness is? And how would you kind of. How can you tell if someone's kind of discovered that already for themselves?

I love that question so much. There are so many different ways. I think a lot of it, a lot of it. Now, now there's the spiritual side and the scientific side and the sort of logical side. From the logical side that I think is the most obvious when you're out and around would be when you see people really taking ownership. That's a huge indication that self awareness is happening. Because when you get to a point that you realize, so say you have some type of a. Someone butts in front of you in a line and you're in a hurry and whatever. And instead of blaming and criticizing and being pissed off all day and that kind of thing, when you take ownership of the fact that okay, well it just happened, it's not going to affect my entire day. And what must this person, when we come from the other person's perspective, maybe they're in a hurry, maybe they had a breakup in the morning, maybe someone died, maybe they have to go to the bathroom, who knows? You know, when you come from that non self part, which sounds contradictory from having self awareness, but when you really start to become aware of other people and where they're, you know, like what might be happening for them, then you can just get that real sense of peace of not having to be in resistance all the time, not having to have a struggle or a force against something and having to blame and judge. But when you take full ownership of yourself and what's happening so this can happen and I get to choose, am I going to allow this? Am I going to carry this through my day with me or am I going to let it go and just be like that's, you know, whatever that's that person's Stuff and let them have that. I think that's a really great first indication because it takes a lot to get to that point. And then the more it happens for you, the more you can detach from other people's moods, other people's poor behavior and not let that affect you personally. It's really. Stuff starts to really happen. You'll just start, you know this, right? You totally know this.

I just love the way you're describing this.

Yeah. I mean, you had some amazing experiences with this kind of stuff. I mean, and you knew a lot of stuff already when we first started working together. But. But just the more. And the more you stay in, you know, connected with other people who are, you know, a similar wavelength and this kind of. You just really notice that. Right? Just like more happening and larger and you noticing it and the detaching. Isn't that just such a beautiful place to be where, you know, even thinking of things that happened in the past, a year ago, 10 years ago, that we hold onto and this thing happened and this person did this to me, it's like, okay, but detach from how can I now be a better person because of it? How can I grow and have wisdom and actually move forward versus giving my power to it versus choosing to be a victim because of it? Because freedom is not attached to anything.

Yeah. So wonderfully described. Like, I think I was thinking back just then about living from this perspective. This way of living opens up a whole new dimension to life, I think. And I think I still, it's still relatively fresh for me. I think like it was probably three years ago that I really discovered this through. I read Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth, and that really was the catalyst. I think I was ready at the time to receive that information and that's what started it. But I love being around people like you who've been living this way for a lot longer than me. You have a lot more wisdom than me. And hearing you describe awareness or consciousness or it's a way of living, that is what I really want people to learn more about or discover through this podcast or through whatever work I do or through interactions with others. And you're doing that on a day to day with clients, one on one. And I want to know, does every client that come to see you, are they aware of this already or.

No, no, no, absolutely not. No. But, but there's some readiness, I would say there's some, you know, that there's like a. If you, you could liken it to anxiety, like there's an anxious sort of feeling of like, I want next level. I know there's something. More frustration, you know, something. And then that's what we call ready. So you're ready to take accountability, you're ready to take ownership, and you're ready to kick some ass.

Yes, you can.

But you know what I want to also say, like, I love your example there, because even though, you know, you're saying that I have more wisdom and whatever, and it's the years and whatever, it's one way to perceive it in growth and things like that. But it's also the fact that don't ever feel defeated. No matter how old you are or young you are or what you've accomplished or not accomplished or however you're measuring yourself, it doesn't matter. Because I think I would say probably some youth and youth being in your 20s, would listen to you and know how advanced you are in meditation and understanding this stuff and feel a little intimidated that, oh, my gosh, like, I gotta get started. But I mean, I have clients from, you know, teens to 60s and 70s that are all just starting, you know, and there's never. There's never a bad time to start. There's never. It's like, what's that old phrase, you know, when's the best. When's the second best time to plant an oak tree? Right now. Right. So just don't ever feel intimidated. You can. And the advancement of how fast you can get there, it's not like back in the day where you had to be a monk and meditate for so many hours every day for years to get to whatever level is now. I mean, with the stuff you teach about meditation and the coaching tools and techniques that we have, you can advance very quickly.

Yeah. Well said.

Yeah.

So I think if someone's listening to this podcast or they're absorbing information similar to this, clearly they're on some sort of level of advancement of they've taken the initial steps. I want to know from your opinion and perspective, is there anything people can do who say, maybe they don't have access to coaching straight away, which soon access to coaching is going to be available. Because I know you're putting out lots of online courses and lots of, yeah, some great stuff. But say right now, someone doesn't have access to this kind of coaching, where you've got someone there that can help you through this whole process. Are there any things that people can do to accelerate the process of understanding themselves?

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, again, like, don't Be intimidated if one on one coaching is too expensive or too high level. There's, you know, there's, there's group coaching, there's online programs and things like that. But you can also, you know, spend no money and just so focusing on, you know, awareness as that theme. So we like to say notice what you notice. So what does that mean? Well, so if you get up in the morning and you go do what you normally do in your day, say you're walking to work or walking to school and you tell yourself, okay, I'm supposed to notice what I notice. Well, what the hell does that mean? So just by saying that your mind is going to go into trying to figure it out, you're going to look around at certain things and you're going to start noticing different things that you may not have noticed before. Noticing is such a great tool. It sounds just so silly and well, whatever, yeah, I noticed. But when you really think of all your senses, so like what am I smelling right now? Like really get clear when you're eating. Close your eyes and really taste your food. You know, when you're with certain people, be a really good listener. And when you want to jump in and respond, you know, with your version of whatever they're saying or this story, just pause and hold back a little bit and listen and ask them more questions about themselves. Just do things where you're being the observer on life and you know, like I think sometimes with like meditation is so great and even just five minutes a day and I'm not sure exactly what you're teaching as far as how much you recommend, but you know, when you get to your level, that's whole next level. But if you're feeling like it's difficult and I can't do it, just five minutes and just consider it breathing, you know, just consider every little bit is okay. When you're a little kid and you're wanting to tie your shoes, that seems impossible. But you practice and you practice and you get there. So just having awareness and having that pullback and then thinking like, you know, where, where are other people coming from? Put yourself in their shoes. You know, we hear this when we're kids. Like what? You know, put yourself in their shoes, but really do that. Like really think when there's, you know, who's that person that first comes to your mind when you think of that annoying person in your life? Come from compassion. And what must that person be thinking or feeling in order to justify that kind of behavior? Because like I always say, hurt people, hurt people. Happy people don't hurt people. So when we understand where people are coming from with their emotion, we actually get more sense self awareness of our own selves. Does that make sense?

100%. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I love the allowing and notice what you notice. There was two things that really that you told me that really just made me think and made me step back a little bit in life and try and be the observer more. And can it be easy as just being on public transport and just noticing what you notice and just without judging? I think that's one thing that getting better at is not judging others when they may not necessarily be on this path because whatever path they are on is perfect for where they are in their life.

A really great thing to remember when we judge and we do it. I mean we're human, there's things we like and things we don't like. It's great to have preferences and to know what they are, but when we judge versus discern, we take it personally. So if I see someone and I'm judging the fact that they're smelling a certain way or behaving a certain way and I don't like it when I judge it, I'm now giving some of my power to it. I'm now attaching to it because now I'm gonna go and tell you later about this person that I saw that I didn't like this behavior. I'm gonna go tell someone else and I'm keeping myself attached. I'm giving my energy to focus on something that I don't like. Whereas if I just discern. So discerning is noticing without attaching personal stuff to it. So if I just like, okay, so that person, maybe they didn't have time to shower, whatever. I don't want to make it about me. Let it go. And I'm not going to speak of it again. I'm not giving my power to that. I'm not, you know, And I now have more room to focus on good things that I like 100%.

Yeah, it makes hundred sense. Yeah. I. So I guess I'll shift gears a little bit because I've got an important question that I want to ask and it goes back to people who I'm looking at people in my position maybe two, three years ago. And that's probably people who the younger generation, millennials and younger who I think the most difficult time in our lives is. One of the most difficult times is going through university, finishing university, and starting your first career. And a lot of people feel like there's this expectation or pressure from parents, friends, family, society. And they're not. They lose touch with themselves and they may make decisions based on keeping other people happy, not necessarily in tune with what they actually want to do. And like what I found myself, I found myself four years down a path or six years if you include the two years of work that I did in a path that wasn't something that fulfilled me both emotional level. Yeah, it's very common. And I guess I wanted to ask, do you have any advice for people who. I'm not going to put an age group on this because people can be any age and realize that what they're doing for work isn't what they necessarily fulfills them. What advice would you give for someone who may be in a position where they're undergoing this sort of process? They're starting to look within and they're starting to realize that what I'm doing for my work isn't giving me the inspiration motivation that I want. I feel like there's more to my life.

Right. First thing I would say is you're so not alone, you're normal, it's all good. Everybody's feeling the same thing on a certain level. I see it all the time. And people pressure on ourselves, actually more on ourselves than actually we get externally. And that's a great place to start is to just sort of remember that in this phase of your life there's a big exploring, learning sort of growth phase to go through because you can't go from learning something to being something without having the experience experience in the meantime. And we can read a book and we can know how to do something but until we actually hands on do it, we don't actually have the experience. And the same kind of wisdom had you been doing it for a while. So allow yourself to have that exploring and that learning and go into the job even if it's the one you don't want. But you feel like you have to go there for a while and really get clear on maybe this isn't for me or this isn't what I want Decide or maybe it is or. But just allow yourself to have as much experience as possible before you, you know, before you make any hard decisions. You know, we put a lot of emphasis on what other people think or what we think we should or we'll see that, you know, someone we know is far advanced where maybe we should have been there or we, you know, thought we would have by now. And that tends to hold us back again. It's giving our Power over to external forces. And that holds us back. Definitely holds us back. So if we can get to a place where a lot less pressure from just getting clear on what we actually want and it might not be so, say I think I want to be a doctor, but what does doctor mean? What do you. You feel like when you have your best job? So do I want to be a doctor because I've been programmed to think I should have been a doctor and because that's what everyone's saying or that's some influence that I had. But what makes me happy and feel like this is the best job ever? Contentment, some kind of, you know, I wake up feeling amazing in the morning. I work with people who are. Are they, you know, really, you know, white collar, serious? Are they spiritual in another way? Are they just more. Is it more community? Is it more solo? Is it, you know, ask the questions of when you're living your best life in that best role, no matter what the title of your job is, what do you feel like? And then you can plug that into, is it being a doctor? Is it being, you know, whatever occupation that might be, but that will help you get more clear. So for you, for instance, when you got into the, the world of finances, right, did that how you feel at your job match what you thought you should get into?

It didn't? No. And I think that was the realization that I had, was I needed to work on myself first of all. I needed to change my inner world before my external world would change. And that was just getting accountable for myself, not putting, like you just said, not giving my attention or energy away to my external environment to decide how I felt. That was it. Taking ownership each day for I'm gonna feel good today no matter what. I'm the sole decider of how I feel and how and how I think. So that's really good advice. One of the big, you're a parent, you have two wonderful, amazing daughters that I've met. A lot of people, me included, feel pressure from our parents to be a certain way most, and it's come from love. Our parents just want us to be safe, happy and secure. But a lot for a lot of people, they are so scared of letting their parents down that they ignore these feelings. And a lot of. I've met a lot of people who have these amazing creative talents and passions that they pursue part time or casually just outside of their normal job because they're too afraid to leave their job out of fear of letting their parents down or upsetting them any Advice or like being a parent. I know you would never. You've never put pressure on your. On your daughters like that. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, maybe you have if you're a parent one day. Yeah, you can't help it.

True, true.

But here's the thing, Jordan. I mean, when we put pressure on our kids. So, yes, you're right, it does come from a place of love. We want our kids to be happy and successful and have all the things in life, but it also comes from a place of fear. And that's the part you gotta get really clear on. So if someone's parents say, you have to be in this profession, you have to make this amount of money, this is the sure thing. You can't go off and be a musician or an artist because there's no money in there. You have to remember. Okay, so again, like we talked about a little earlier is where are they coming from? So, yes, they love you, and there's no denying that. And love expresses in a lot of different ways. And that's another talk for another podcast. But what are their fears? So let me think of an example. So I had a client whose parents said, you got to be in similar to yours in the financial industry because it's guaranteed and you're going to make money and then you can support your future family and this kind of thing. And they're already creating their future family. And, you know, at the time, he was in his twenties, like you, and he went on to do that, but he always wanted to be in the arts instead. And what we discovered through our coaching was his parents came from a place where that was the only industry in their time that was really that the people they knew were thriving and doing all right, and the other, you know, the other industries were not. So really it was coming from his past programming, the parents past programming, and putting it onto their kid of that fear of, oh, no, I don't my kid to suffer the way I did, or people that they saw. So, you know, we don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. So. But you have to ask yourself, do I want to give up? What's really calling me to please someone? Because eventually they come around mostly most times. But you have to zoom out and sort of really take a, you know, a bigger picture, look at it of, okay, there's this sure thing, but what are we doing this sure thing for? Why are we making money anyway? What do we need money for? I want a million dollars. That's what everyone Says, I want a million dollars. Well, what are you gonna do with. Because if I just give you a million and you just hold the million, what good is that? Right. You want to spend the million. What do you want to spend the million on? Oh, I want to buy a car and a house, and I want vacations with my family. Okay, so why do you want those things? Because I want to be happy. It always comes down to I want to be happy. So I get. There's a lot of pressure. And I remember that pressure, too, of, you know, what should I do? Or what's. You know, am I letting my parents down? Am I pleasing them, not pleasing them? And it's really hard. But I think if you have that conviction to go forward and you get a great support system around you and you give everything you have to, you know what will make you happy. I really think most times the parents will come around.

Yeah. And amazing things start to happen. I think that's one thing I heard from most people is they asked me, is like, oh, how did you go about. Not like, taking that leap, as in leaving your job and following your passion or your creative outlet and not necessarily knowing where money is going to come from, where the opportunity is going to come from. And I think after taking the leap, like, you know, just under a year ago, things just tend to work out. I think when you step into, like, that higher version things, I don't. Opportunities have.

Yeah, yeah. You don't see more possibilities, more opportunities.

And you don't know where they're gonna come from. And that's the hardest thing for people is the unknown.

It's the unknown you can't see. But when you trust it and you follow really what's in your heart, and I think that's a part of it too, Jordan, is that sometimes we don't know what's in our heart because we're so stuck on the shoulds and supposed to's and we don't actually know. I hear from a lot of people, I have no idea what my passion or my purpose is. I don't even know what that is. Maybe I don't have any. I should just do this thing that I don't like, just for the money, for the security.

But it's really glad you brought that up. What if someone doesn't know what their passions are? They know what they're doing isn't necessarily what they're passionate about, what they want to do full time. How do you start to begin to dig a little deeper and find out, okay, if this isn't what I want to do. What is?

Well, one great idea. So when people get totally stuck and have no clue at all, often that's an indication that they've really been programmed by external forces, whether it be parents, teachers, peers, you know, whoever that they should be doing something else and they've sort of squashed their. You know what those are? A great technique is to think about when you're like anywhere from age 5 to 10 kind of thing, like what did you love? Like what did you. Even if it was like riding your bike, you know, in the ravine or whatever was your thing. Okay. So it doesn't mean that's what's going to be your profession or your passion. But what was it that. That felt so good? Was it because you're with a bunch of people? Was it because you were free and alone? Was it because you were physically active? Was it because you were singing when you did? You know what I mean? So you'll start to get little clues and then you can then notice in your life today. So what kinds of things do I do that you get little hints of that. You know, like is it when you're cooking, do you love that or do you hate that? Is it when you're with groups of people or when you have your alone time or when you're in nature and just really start to. Again notice what you notice. Right. Like notice where are those little places that you just start to feel better. And a lot of times, unfortunately, when we're under pressure and having those transitions of school to work or work to something else, we kind of prioritize things in not the best way for ourselves and we get burnout and we get, you know, sick or headaches or you know, not enough sleep and things like that. And we forget about fun, we forget about, you know, that kind of. Or we do the self soothing kind of fun that's not always beneficial like drinking or you know, other substances or whatever. Where. What's that? What are those things that just feel good.

Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I think making sure you find. Yeah. A balance around your work to ensure that these. Yeah. These curiosities don't go unnoticed. Because even if you act on a curiosity and might find out later on that isn't necessarily what you want to do. That's another thing you can cross off the list. Yeah.

And the other thing too is when you're in, if you're in a job that you're not loving, just give your best. Like if you show up and just blah, you know, I don't really like this. You're just killing time and doing the minimum. You're gonna miss opportunities. Whether that's conversations with a certain person who will remember something and say something, like anytime we have enthusiasm, we're opening doors. So if just show up and be the baddest ass best, you know, whatever it is that you can be, even if you're, you know, serving coffee or whatever it is, opportunities will show up. Just you get that. You know this, right? We've talked about this a lot where when you raise your vibration and get your energy up there, just stuff starts to match that energy and show up for you. And next thing you know, like a month later, two months later, you know, some fantastic job opportunities. That's like, holy shit, that's my passion. Like, that's actually it.

And it may. I'm getting goosebumps when you explain that because that if there's one takeaway that people are going to take away from listening to this, it's exactly that. It's. It's right here, right now.

Yeah.

Give your best in this moment and opportunities start to open up. And it's, it's not what we do, it's how we do it. You hit the nail on the head there. I just.

Okay, so here's a great thing. So if you're ever feeling, feeling depressed or sad, it means you're in the past. You're thinking about stuff in the past that doesn't feel good that you didn't enjoy. If you're feeling anxious and frustrated or like pulling back, that's you're in the future, that means you're worried about something coming up that you're creating in your mind that is not something wanted. So if you, in either of those times, if you come right here to the present and get really in touch so you can go through your five senses, what am I smelling right now? When you notice smells, you're in the present. If you're, you know, what am I seeing? Where am I? You know, focus on your breathing. Okay, so right here, right now, I'm fine. Is that thing I'm remembering that's making me feel sad, is that serving me and is that affecting me? Can I see it in a different way? Can I look at it from a different angle? Again, like we talked about earlier, you know, in this session of, you know, how can I be a better person from having gone through that rather than being a victim to it and carrying it through my life? And if I'm feeling anxious about something, that means I'M worried about something in the future. And what's another possibility other than that thing that I'm imagining that I don't like? Can there be a better option that might turn out instead? And what we put our focus on is what we give our energy to and is what we was what we create.

So 100. Yeah. A quote from Wayne Dyer came to mind, just as you were describing, talking about that. He said, because I read a lot of Wayne Dye books for a large period of time, and one of his quotes was, if you change the way you look at things, things you look at will start to change. I think that's such a. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head when you describe that. Yeah. Yeah.

And here's the thing. We can read quotes all day long and scratch, scroll through our Instagram and quotes, quotes, quotes. And you're like, oh, yeah, that sounds amazing. That's so good. But just live it. Just pick one and live it for an entire day. Like, this is my quote for the day. So when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change and then just do that. So if you're feeling grumpy in any way, you're feeling less than positive, ask yourself, why? What is making me feel that way? I'm going to change the way I look at that one thing that's so powerful.

Yeah. I want to be mindful of your time here, so I won't ask too many more questions. But you taught me something very fundamental with reading books, because for a large portion of time, I was just, like, absorbing so much information from books that I don't necessarily think I was retaining a lot of it. And you said to me, don't necessarily rush through the book. Take your time reading it and then really live the information that you're reading and take it on board. Take notes, highlight things. So that's another really good piece of advice for someone who may be in this phase where they're just, like, reading everything, listening to everything. A phase where you're just trying to, like, uplevel as quick as you can. Slow down. Yeah, there's no rush.

And it feels like it. Like, I remember that very clearly. And even sometimes now, like, so much great information will come into my stream of attention. And I was like, oh, my God, I want to know it all, devour it. But. But that really slow. Like, people are learning to speed read and people are. And maybe some people are really great at retaining and speed reading, but I think if you. Yeah. Absorb it and just like, read One chapter, and then go live it. But live it until you feel like it's now integrated. It's part of your knowing. It's part of your new knowledge, you know? And then when you get to a chapter that's not really resonating for you, skip it. Go on to one that does. It's like I always say to you and my other clients, don't believe everything I say. If it resonates, take it and run with it. And if it doesn't, ask me about it. And we can, you know, let's make it fit for you. And the same with reading any of these books, unless the action happens, the books are just the knowledge. You're not getting the wisdom from it. It's not. You got to do those actions. You got to live that stuff.

It's so true. I mean, while we're on the topic of books, was there any fundamental books or teachings or podcasts or. I know you've got heaps. Was there any that stood out?

Yeah, well, the first one that I always recommend to any client, just as a foundational book, is Dom Miguel Ruiz, Four Agreements. I mean, that's foundational stuff. That's so brilliant.

And because of you, I've introduced that to a few people in my life as well.

Yeah, I've given dozens of those away as gifts. I think it's just such a. It's just such a common sense. Like you're smacking your forehead, going like, oh, yeah, like, that's just such a. Like the way he says it, how much love he puts into all his words. And then. And then when you practice. And reading that book is a great way to start noticing what you notice. It just makes you do it. Like, you'll start noticing other people not being impeccable with their word or making assumptions or whatever. And then the key is to just quiet, you know, don't call everyone out. Just notice it and be the example of it rather than, you know, trying to get everyone else to do it.

Definitely. You introduced me to someone when I first began coaching, and his name was Joe Dispenser.

Oh, my God. Dr. Joe.

Yeah, Dr. Joe. Yeah. He had a very, very big impact on my life. I read all his books, listened to all his audio, and we actually went together and seen him live in Toronto.

Yeah, a bunch of us. Brilliant.

That was. It really was life changing, I would say. What do you think Joe's work has taught you the most?

I put him up there with Dr. Bruce Lipton. Bruce was someone that I found first, and then he led me on to Joe, which is a great segue, I think. Wow. Dr. Joe really puts the proof behind the spirituality. That's what I love about him and Bruce Lipton is it's not, we're not talking woo woo stuff like this is scientifically proven, you know, no bs like it is. And he teaches us how to meditate. I mean, this is your stuff. This is for sure. This is your expertise of, you know, how to really connect to on another level. How to get out of our heads and out of our bodies and out of, you know, so stuck in, what do they call it? The meat suit.

Yes.

And just really get to that next level. Really coming from a place of self love. And that's what I always say is like, if you want to have freedom, have self love, because you can't feel bad and love yourself at the same time. So I mean, Joe is next level meditation kind of stuff. But so I would, I would recommend as a first intro to him read Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Fantastic. Right?

That was the first one I read and it really did. Yeah. Mind blowing.

Because he does such a great job of how he explains. He makes everyone understand. Yeah. And then as his. There's a couple more books after that that just get. Yeah.

Oh yeah, it's super cool. So, yeah, really big shifts started to happen to me when I started doing his meditations. And I really started to tap into these elevated emotional states that when you realize through meditation and other practices, they're always available in the present moment. And when you cultivate them, you actually start to create shifts in your own reality, your personal reality, your state of being. And then you really start to notice things manifest very quickly in your life. And yeah, big shifts.

Right. And that's, that's the good thing is, you know, even like we said before, even if it's just 10 minutes a day to just really get present and you know, we just like the second we open our eyes, we're like thinking of all these things and we're going there. It's just to just give yourself some time. And then if you can get up to like an hour, which are some of his really awesome meditations, it's just, I mean, it's phenomenal. And like, you talk about how much shift happens, how much possibilities and opportunities just show up and it's, you know, I know a lot of people who will say, like, I just, I don't understand it. I'm skeptical and I'm. Whatever. It's like, just do it and you'll Prove it to yourself. And a lot of people say, well, I don't know how to meditate, and it doesn't make sense. And I'm trying so hard to meditate. That's the key, is you can't try. Just do it with no expectation of it being great or not being great. Just do it and do it every day. And then day after day after day after week. I see your grin over there. And then stuff starts happening, and it's like.

Yeah, yeah. And it really is quite amazing how quickly things start to shift. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, really, really good point, I think. Sorry.

No, I was just gonna say the other person I would say to go look up is Esther Hicks.

Yeah.

She's. Oh, my God, I love her so much.

I know how much you love her.

She's phenomenal. She's just. She's so. That's all I'll say. I won't get it. Just go look her up on YouTube and listen her well. Which is actually Abraham Hicks is who she channels.

But it's amazing stuff.

Outstanding stuff. Yeah.

I guess what comes to mind was a good story of notice what you notice, which happened in my life.

Okay.

The way I discovered Joe was through you. But probably a few days before, I had a client come into soul 7 who was doing a meditation session. And he finished his session, and he turned to the bookshelf that was sitting beside him, and Joe's book was pointing out his. You are the placebo book. And he said to me, that's. That's my favorite book of all time. And he said that to me. And I was like, oh, who's it by? He's like, joe Dispenser. I was like, okay, cool. I'll make note of that. Two days later, my first session with you, one of the first things you said to me was, have you heard of Joe Dispenser? You should check out his stuff.

You know what? I remember that vividly because I had, like. I just remember, like, we were chatting. It was just the first. The very beginning of our first session. And I said, I don't know why, but I just feel like I need to tell you to check out Joe Dispenza, because I had read the placebo, and I have, like, oh, my God, like, 25 tabs in that book. I was writing notes in a notebook at the same time. It was so mind blowing. But, yeah, I remember mentioning that to you. And you just, like, the look on your face was like, oh, shit. Yeah. Obviously someone's telling me to read this.

As soon as we got out of that meeting, I bought all three of his books. Two audio forms, two physical forms.

Brilliant. Brilliant.

Yeah, but, yeah, that's. That's. That's the sort of sign, I think that, yeah, if you just noticed, I.

Think, yeah, those little things, because just believe it and get excited and like. Like he talks about and Esther talks about and Bruce talks, like all of them talk about is when you get the emotion to match the thought. When you really get an elevated level of emotion, that's when stuff starts happening. That's when you're really, like, sending out those. Those vibes of, you know, attracting more stuff. You know, it's like the tuning fork example that Bruce Lipton gives of, you know, if I hit a tuning fork, you know, tuned to, you know, whatever, however many hertz, any tuning forks in the room that are tuned to that same level are going to start vibrating. And if you think about, you know, us as being sort of antennas or whatever you want to call it, like, when you turn on the radio and you turn it to a certain station, it's going to go out and hit the satellite or whatever it is that's going to make you hear that station. You turn a little dial and somehow we get another station that's tuned to a completely other place but brings it in. So what's actually happening there is. We're changing the frequency. That's science. But when you take that into us as human beings, we have frequencies as well. When you walk into a room with a bunch of people who are down and complaining and gossiping or whatever, you're going to feel it like a frequency, like you're gone. Like one of those off stations a little bit. Like, not, you know, and if you stay there long enough, you'll start to tune down to that frequency. Whereas you walk into a place like when we walked into Joe's workshop, right, when we were all there at the Hay House event. Holy smokes. Like, it's like, wow. Like, we're all just, like, almost floating because just the vibe of everyone was so high and it was so great. So keeping in mind, you know, that kind of thing, it's just so, like, that's the science behind it, right?

Oh, yeah. I get excited when we talk about this stuff. And being around people like yourself just, I feel like this raises my frequency in and itself. Talking about this stuff, living this stuff, and just absorbing this kind of content is just. Yeah. I think this. Anytime you listen to a book or read something, I think that is raising your frequency in and itself.

Absolutely.

And when you cultivate, like, elevated emotional states in the meditations, one thing that I took away from it was all you have to do is just get out of your own way half the time. And again, it was back to, like, how I discovered Joe. I wouldn't have noticed that if I was busy thinking about what I had to do tomorrow or busy thinking about the past. Get out of your own way. We're actually attracting the experiences already that are contributing to us achieving the emotional state that we've cultivated like this. The emotional state of gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership because it's the state of we already have something.

Yeah.

So you just go. Yeah. You should think what you're.

Anytime you're feeling down and you don't know how to get into that state and you're feeling stuck and frustrated just come from gratitude and appreciation. And when you just. Okay, so what do you appreciate right now? Anything. Even if it's nothing around you, if you can't pick something, think of something else. Puppies and flowers and nature and waterfalls or whatever, you know, and it will start to shift your vibration. Yeah. And any little thing that shows up, great. That's because you're in tune with it. It's. Yeah. It's pretty phenomenal.

And allow yourself to feel it when something nice happens. Like, for me, it's even just nice sunsets or something. Allow myself to feel gratitude instead of, like, skipping past it and getting to the next moment.

Yeah.

Pause and just feel. Feel the emotion for one second.

And then the physical. The physiology of what's happening is when we. Even the act of smiling will trigger our brains to release positive chemicals. Because. So if we're afraid or we're worried or we're sad or we're thinking about something in the past, we can trigger all those negative stress hormones that will shut us down. And that's how we get illness. Because our body's not in our best immunity and healing happy state state when we're worried and stressed. But as soon as we get positive and think about happy things, even just sit up straight, take a relaxing breath, we're telling our body that we're calm and everything's fine. It's gonna start. Okay. We can stop the stress hormones and get into good. Like, it's just. It's amazing. Like, that whole self thing that we talk about, it's all connected, and it's just, you know, like, it feels like magic, but it's actually science. That's what I love so much.

Oh, that's yeah, that really was the best since coming out to Canada and working at Soul7 as well. For me, it's been like the science aspect that I've really got more clarity around. So the left. The left and right brain coming together. Yeah. When you mix science with spirituality, you start to realize that people out in the east have been talking about this stuff for thousands of years, but now the science is starting to talk about it and we're actually getting to the same destination.

Yeah.

Just a different language.

It's like, if something great happens, who cares why? Just bask in it, you know, just love it. Yeah. Who cares why? Because, you know, when we start to go into that analytical why and figuring it out, we come back down. Like, we drop, you know, if we just stay there and just love it and be happy. Like kids running around and being happy, they're not asking why. They're not trying to figure it out. They're just living and enjoying it. Right.

So true.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Jen, before we sign off from this conversation, I just want to take a moment and express how grateful and appreciative and thankful I am for having you in my life and the impact you've had on me. And I'm so glad I've been able to bring you on and share your wisdom. Yeah. It's just I'm excited for people to listen to this and get to know you and I know in time there's going to be an opportunity for people to take advantage of this wonderful work that you do online. So as soon as.

Yeah. The new Facebook group coming out soon. Extraordinary life. Very excited about that. And I will do some challenges and we'll do some master manifesting together.

Yes. I'm excited. And if anyone's considering coaching, you know, maybe take note of this conversation and if coaching something they see them. I'm the biggest advocate for coaching now. I want everyone to have the opportunity to do this. So people. Yeah, 100%. Regardless of what you do for work, what age, where you are, if you're ready to take, to take serious action and like accelerate your growth, it will.

Transform your life without a doubt. And it's stuff that even when you're done coaching, it doesn't go away. It's, you know, you will always have it. You will always have those two tools and you'll never forget.

Yes.

Yeah. It's brilliant.

Yes. So if people want to learn more about you and your work, why can they go?

Oh, well, I guess you could go to my website, which is jennifermerfield.com and it's 1N and Jennifer, 1R and Merrifield, I guess you could Google it. And then I'm on Instagram, sort of on Facebook. Other than when the group starts, then that'll be really soon. By the time you post this. Yes. It'll be extraordinary life. And if you look up, we're outside. Tell them where we are.

We're at Ryerson University campus at downtown Toronto, and we're sitting outside. It's a beautiful day here in Toronto, Canada. Yes.

There's cafes and trees and all kinds of cool.

It's a wonderful setting to have a conversation like this. Yeah, it's really great.

Yeah.

So, Jen, thank you so much for having this chat with me.

Such an honor. This is really fun.

Thank you very much. Bye for now. Bye. There we have it, guys. Another episode of the Stage Shifters podcast. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. And if you found value from this, please share this with a friend. And if you think someone else can get value from it, that's all more reason to share it. So I'm going to keep these episodes coming a lot more frequently, I promise. I've got a lot of cool conversations at I have planned and scheduled and recorded, and I can't wait to share that with you guys. So stay tuned. Make sure you follow the Instagram page State Shifters. I'm posting fairly frequently on there. You can stay up to date on any thoughts I'm pondering or ideas that come to me. I usually express them through there. So lots of podcasts to come. Stay tuned. Thanks again, guys. Bye.