SSP 092: Shira Linker - Healing Through Clarity and Expression

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to the Stage Shifters podcast. Jordan Kanlish here with you. Excited to be back for another episode. And today I've brought on a guest who I really felt a connection with her energy, felt connection with what she was putting out to the world. Her name's Shira Linker and Shira is the founder of a male self care brand called Gent Sac and they create products for male skincare, which is bloody important if you're a man, but you got to get on the skincare stuff. Shira is also a singer songwriter and she's done a lot of deep work on herself and I wanted to bring her on here and really share some of the perspective that she's developed for herself in her life along her journey. And we dove into some really important topics like relationships, finding the balance and finding harmony in the way we go about our practices and tapping into our true expression. And I know you're going to get so much out of this episode. I'm really excited to share this one with you guys. But before we dive into that, Shira has been nice enough to offer a 10% discount for starting State Shifters listeners. If you're looking to buy a gift for your partner or if you're a man, you want to get into skincare, this is the stuff. It's time. This is key, keeping yourself looking vibrant. So if you use Stateshifters 10, you'll get a 10% discount off your order. They ship internationally as well. So yeah, I'm really excited to dive into this one with you guys. And before we get things started, if you want to learn more about my Build a Stronger Relationship with Yourself program, I've really started this program to help people really go deeper within themselves, to uncover and peel back the layers so that you can really solidify a strong connection with yourself. Because I've come to the understanding that all other relationships in our lives are just direct reflections of the relationship we have with ourselves. So that program, I'm going to be kicking off another group starting in about three weeks time. So if you're listening to this podcast and you feel like, you know what, I'm ready to kind of just go deeper within myself, then hit me up on Instagram, DM me @stateshifters or just send me an email jordanstateshifters.com and I'll send you some more information and get you on board with that. But hey, like I said, this is going to be such an epic episode. You're going to really enjoy this. 1. So, without further ado, here's my wide ranging convo with Shira Linker.

Welcome to the State Shifters podcast, a.

Show dedicated to helping you discover your true potential through connecting the mind, body and soul. Okay, I've got Shira Linker on the State Shifters podcast. How you doing today, my friend?

I'm very well and very grateful and honored to be here. Thank you.

Well, it's a pleasure to have you on here. And you know, I was just saying before we recorded that there is. There was. There was a resonance, there was a. There was a connection that I felt with your energy as to what you were sharing out in the world through Instagram and all the amazing things you're creating right now. And I just felt called to want to connect with you and bring you on here. And I'm excited to dive deep with you and share a little bit more about what you're up to and what you're creating in the world. You're out in Sydney and at the moment you're running a business and you're a singer songwriter as well, which is quite amazing. Very talented. So maybe if you want to give the listeners a bit of an update as to what you're creating at the moment and what you feel like your purpose is here on earth.

Oh, that last one's a big one. Okay, well, creating. I, like you said, I'm the CEO of my business, Gent Sac, no pun intended. We curate gentlemen products and we put them in really cool reusable sacks. So we have an online business and a flagship store in the city here in Sydney. We're kind of like a men's mecca. So beautiful curated essentials for men. We are coming off the back of 2020, the year of COVID So this year is all about rebuild, building our business. Very grateful that we survived 2020. It was a tough year. And so, yeah, when the landscape changes, you got to take a step back, reflect and change the strategy. So that's what the first quarter of 2021 has been about. It probably sounds a little counterintuitive, but I have slowed right down and taken a massive step back to really think about how we can move forward with purpose and integrity and excitement and learn sort of some of the silver linings from 2020, put them into practice and change things up a little bit as well. So, yeah, I'm creating that strategy as we speak and preparing to execute on that. And then in my spare time, like you said, I'm a singer songwriter, so I spend time creating music and writing songs. And my intention with that is to cultivate more and more time for that and to collaborate with other amazing writers and artists. I'm definitely a collaborator. Like, I love working with other creative people. So, yeah, so that's a big focus for me, really. They're my two key things that I spend a lot of time on. But other than that, as we spoke about on the phone, my key focus always is healthy. So I'm a yogi, I'm a meditator. I do boxing for fun and to move. And when I think about what is my purpose, I mean, baseline, you know, I actually think it's about learning to discover who I am in this world and heal and use my healing journey as a means of healing others. And so I feel like I will heal others through the lessons that I learned in business as a CEO and as someone who's leading a team. And I can heal others through my music. And so my job is to constantly work on myself to be the very best version of myself so I can then support others in the best way possible.

Beautiful. Wow. Love that. Thank you for sharing that. Because the reason I asked the purpose question was because I really do believe that, you know, once we understand that core primary purpose, which is, like you said, heal and integrate and come from a place of wholeness and embodiment, then the external purpose, which is how we share our gifts, how we bring our energies to the world, basically takes care of itself. Right. Our primary purpose is just to connect and come from that place of wholeness. So beautifully articulated. And there was something that we were just discussing as well before we started recording. It was sort of this balance that you started to now incorporate around your doing, prioritizing more, being, starting to really come from that place of slowness, not trying to rush things, and from myself as someone who, in the past. It's one of my tendencies. I'm very aware of it. I like to rush, like to get things done quick. Let's create, let's do, do, do. So that is one of our patterns. And I sense, as an entrepreneur, it's been one of your patterns in the past as well, is like overdoing things, trying to get lots of things done, and missing the kind of simplicity of how simple life can be when you slow things down and how effortless life can be. Would you mind sharing, you know, was there a moment in time in the past, perhaps when you started the business? Or we overdid things and you overcooked things a little bit, which allowed you to come to this understanding? Like Was there a big shift that happened there?

It's happened to me many times, and I've had to learn, or not so much learn the lesson, but I've had to go through various versions of the same lesson many times until I ultimately started to learn the lesson. I would say if we're going to use the most recent example, because that's probably the most relevant, I mean, even as recent as last year, at the end of 2020. And I actually want to use this example specifically, too, because it also shows that we're always going to be on this journey. You know, one of our conversations, you actually used the phrase, the pattern's always there, and it's just noticing when it's presenting itself again. So, yeah, so I've had several dances with the burnout, but the most recent would be end of 2020. And again, you know, being the year of COVID and being a business owner and also having about 18 months prior, having gone through a separation with my partner of 10 years, 2020, I went straight into survival mode. It was all about putting on a brave face for my team and for my community. So I did that real well. But it wasn't until the end of the year that all the unprocessed emotions of, you know, how challenging some of the things that were out of our control were kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. And it manifested in being really, really sick. So come December, I was bedbound for two weeks. And it's really unheard of that I wouldn't be in my store during the week before Christmas because we. That's like our biggest trading week of the year. Having said that, there was a cluster in Sydney that meant lots of people weren't going to the city. So again, it wasn't normal times. But, yeah, it manifested in being extremely sick, feeling really disconnected. I would say aversion of depression, which I think it was Jim Carrey who once said, when you're depressed, you need deep rest. So I definitely reached that point. How did I overcome it? I actually think that was probably my rock bottom because I've experienced burnout so many times. This was the one where I went, this can't happen again. And what I did was I withdrew and took myself away into a different environment for a week where I could just sleep. Phone was off. Like, the team knew that I was not to be contacted, and I just took some time for deep rest. And I utilized my meditation sessions and my journaling practices to kind of tap back in to what was going on with me. There was lots of like grief that came up, you know, and I think that actually as a whole a lot of people will be experiencing this from, from 2020 that, you know, we all experience grief. We didn't get the year we thought we were going to get. Things didn't go the way we expected them to. And just that alone. There's a form of grief that follows and when it's not processed, it reveals itself in many ways. So I got a chance to process those emotions. I got a chance to and to sleep and to journal and to really reconnect with myself. And the other thing that came up for me during that week and that experience was how I was identifying with myself and who I was identifying as. And I was actually in many ways through that experience of survival mode. There were like past traumas and past experiences that became my lens in which I was seeing things unfold rather other than my 33 year old self who's very, very capable of overcoming all this stuff. So different experiences can trigger experiences from the past and if they're not healed and dealt with, we're actually not really seeing things clearly in that moment. So it became an even bigger investigation into, you know, where am I really at? What am I limiting beliefs? What am I manifesting through my thoughts? How I'm experiencing the world and what's happening is biased based on my previous experiences. Where do I need to expand? And so I picked up a book that was really helpful called Inner Engineering by Sadhguru. And that combined with my meditation, my yoga, my journaling all started to really like open me up. And I took six weeks off work, which once again sounds very counterintuitive for a founder who runs what I would say is a small business. You know, in the grand scheme of things, that is surviving Covid. I think that most people would expect that's when the hustle really kicks in. But I actually took six weeks off and trusted my team to manage the store and the online orders that were going to come through and all the things I had an out of office on my email so everyone knew they weren't going to hear from me until the end of January. And I spent all of January just digging, just digging and getting myself into a really healthy routine as if I was going to work. But then the time that would be spent on work was just free time to do whatever I actually felt like on the day. And if it was rest, it was rest. If it was sing, it was sing. If it was brainstorm ideas for work, it was work. If I Felt like logging in and working. I did. If I didn't, I wouldn't. And so I had this amazing flexible month of just getting back into a routine, you know, thinking about how I wanted to nourish, how I would prepare my food, what kind of exercise I wanted to do. And yeah, I had the time to reflect on all of that. And I feel like it really set me up for coming into the working year with a lot of clarity and purpose. And the transition back into work was the smoothest it's ever been. So. But to your point, like two months later, fully in swing with work, life, balance, that pattern presents itself almost every week in some way. And I have to make a choice on some days. Is this the day to rest and not go to that yoga class, or is this the day that I actually need to give myself a little bit of tough love and go anyway? And that's the constant conversation.

Yeah. And sort of like as we go through life, we're starting to feel into how do we want to live? Like, do we want to live in this arena of being confined to these patterns of thinking we need to overachieve and create and build and grow, or can we step back and give yourself the time and space like you did, to really get clear on, hey, what, you know, what's going to nourish me here? Is it serving me to be going at this rate all the time. And this has just been something I've been going through myself as well because I realized a lot of the conditioning was to get love. I need to achieve and grow and make money and impact lots of people. And that was always the measure. Right? Just keep going, keep growing. And as I've slowed down, the more that I slow down, I'm starting to feel for myself and the way that I want to live, which is unique to everyone. Right? Everyone's got their own unique way that they want to go through this journey in life. And some people do want to live the entrepreneur hustle and be in the grind and they love that. And that's fine. But I'm noticing that for me to be able to feel and experience life moment to moment, the simple things requires. It requires a slowdown in pace. If you go on it, fast forward, you miss things. You can't truly experience a sunset if you've just come out of a eight hour workday where your mind is racing. So it's about finding this, like, I won't even say balance because I feel like it's impossible to find balance, but starting to find this like middle ground where you can still work and grow and want to create, but at the same time, can you master the switch off? Can you master the, like the slowdown where you watch a sunset or you sit underneath the tree and you feel all of life? And I'm curious to get your perspective on if someone is maybe still unclear on how to start to access that, or maybe someone feels like that they haven't been able to discover how to even tap into that level of clarity that you've created. Where does one begin? Like, what do you suggest?

Well, one thing, when you said you didn't want to use the word balance, maybe the word harmony could be a great choice of word there to find harmony between all the things. Yes, well, because balance, balance kind of indicates that there has to be an equal measure on one side and the other. And sometimes harmony doesn't look like that. Sometimes harmony is 10% energy towards one thing and 50 towards something else. But if that's intentional, then that's great and that's alignment. So for anyone to even just begin and go, well, what does harmony look like? For me, that's a really great question to ask. I always think a good place to start is asking yourself great questions. And in that slow down is when we get a chance to ask good questions, like even just reflecting, how was I in this last week? How am I? How am I really? How am I feeling? What's going on? Dropping in, connecting, how's my heart? How's my body feel? You know, when we slow down, we can ask these really good questions and then we can investigate. And we learn in meditation and in yoga to be the observer. Like, I guess this would take the conversation down a completely different path, but just a little taster, you know, we, we learn that the thoughts that pop up in our head are not actually us. Like, that's our mind doing its thing, thinking. It's 60,000 thoughts a day. And like Viktor Frankl said in one of his books, the space between thought and action is freedom. And what that actually means is if you can cultivate some space where a thought comes up and you're able to notice the thought, rather than react to the thought or act on the thought or even have a physical reaction to the thought, you then have the freedom to choose. I'm going to let that thought go. Am I going to investigate that thought? I'm going to wonder where it came from, why I'm even thinking it. That level of inner reflection can only happen when we slow down or set aside some time and space for it. And that, to me, is always a really great place to start. And also, I would say, you know, you mentioned before, like, life can be effortless. I feel like this journey can be too. Even though the journey never ends. And in a way, there's never really an end goal, from my understanding, there's little baby, daily goals, you know, ways in which we can improve or feel better or find more presence in daily life. Yeah. So that that journey is always going to happen for us, but when we learn to inquire a little bit more, that's when I started to see the shift. And in terms of it being a little bit more effortless, the point I was trying to make is that it's your journey, it's no one else's. So you don't have to go in one particular direction or feel pressure to, like, do it too quickly or feel pressure to have to go down the yogi route or the this route or that. Actually go with what's. What you're curious about. Because when you do stop and ask yourself those questions, you'll find yourself naturally gravitating towards something that you want to inquire about. Go there. That's where your journey begins. Doesn't have to look like anyone else's. And sometimes it feels like you're going against the crowd. That's exactly where you should be. So that would be my advice.

I feel that that's great advice because I just feel the main challenge a lot of people have, and me included, when I first began this journey of trying to understand myself was there's so many different perspectives and opinions that you can take from the people around you, your family, all the books you can read. And oftentimes they're all great perspectives and opinions, but ultimately it should lead you back inward so that you can formulate your own view on how you want to live life. The only way to do that is to remove the distractions. Sometimes just find the space, Find the clarity in the space like you've been able to do. And for me personally, nature was such a big part of that process. Because what I noticed was when I just spent extended periods of time in nature without distraction and just sat there and waited, waited for life to show me where to go next. Or waited for life to process that stuck emotion that was getting in the way of me having clarity. And we forget that we are a part of nature. Like, we're all interconnected with it and we're unfolding whether we like it or not. We're evolving, whether we like it or not. And it's a lot of the time just like dropping back and just going, okay, where's nature want me to go now? And oftentimes the only thing that prevents us from following that is an outdated story, an outdated belief. I need to stay at this job so that it can pay the bills, so that I can prove to other people that I am worthy of love or whatever it may be. And that's outdated story that just keeps us doing things that aren't in our highest alignment, that aren't where nature wants us to go. Really cuts off the ease. It cuts us off from the effortlessness. So was there a main, I would say, emotion that you had to move through that had a story attached to it that you had to let go of so that you could live from this place? Maybe before you started the business or even along the way, was it something big that you had to process in order to free you up to have this level of clarity?

There definitely was. And I would say that it was grief. It was, it was definitely grief. There's been chapters in my life where I've had to let go of things and didn't process that. You know, I had some trauma as a little girl with my upbringing and my parents, who I now don't have like an active relationship with. So that's kind of. That was the foundation. And then There was a 10 year relationship I separated with my partner of 10 years. And in a way that kind of mirrored some of that trauma and the letting go that needed to take place. And it was even more complex because he was involved in my business that I was going to continue to run. So there were like different layers of grief in the letting go of how he appeared in my life. Grief's been a big theme for me, actually. And it's interesting because it's not the way that most people would expect in terms of someone passing or. But there's something very absolute about someone passing. And there's something very gray about someone who still lives in this world that you need to let go of, and you need to let go of your attachment to that person and your relationship with that person. And that requires a lot of love and a lot of time and a lot of devotion. And then when it's freed up, there's a lot of love that takes up that space because the resistance is fear, right? So you kind of are either in fear or love. And when you're resisting to feel the true emotions, you're fearful. And when you feel the emotions and yourself Process them. From my experience of that was nothing but love, you know, like, I was majorly freed up. I could think different. I could. Yeah, I just had so much space also. Again, grief is another thing that's not like, it's, we're done. I call them little grief bubbles. But anything that you're ever grieving or that you know, that you're letting go over time, it comes and it goes and it comes in waves. Sometimes big waves, sometimes little baby waves. So learning to notice and recognize when that particular feeling is coming up is what's really powerful. Because then you can actually be really kind to yourself and go, oh, okay, that's coming up for me today. So I just need to sit with it or I need to give it some space. I need to be extra gentle with myself. Or maybe the self love is I need to go and work out and, like, sweat it out or whatever that is. That level of connection to self is so powerful because then you can move through things quicker. You can show up, you can find the silver lining. And that painful feeling, often I find when I go through something, someone around me is mirroring it, and then I'm like, ah, okay. I needed to go through that so I could show up and be really supportive to this person. Because I get it. I understand. And it's my job to go through it, to feel it, to experience it, to come out the other end so that I can help someone else with that exact thing. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Thank you for sharing that. Because I feel when we let go of such heavy emotions like this, or we learn the ability or the awareness to process emotions like this, it just gives us more capacity to hold more love, hold more life inside of us that we can then overflow and give to other people. And honestly, I'm starting to realize that that really is like this path that we're on, right? Where we're evolving through the journey and each stage of the evolutionary process that we go through, we just increase our capacity. And then we get to the next stage. Like, cool, now I've got more capacity to hold more life. And then there'll be another, you know, blind spot or another area where a pattern might be holding us back from having more life inside of us. And then that becomes the next step. It's sort of that. That is the process. And then what I want to ask you next is, you know, given that you've been in a relationship for 10 years and then come out of it and probably learned a lot from, from. From all of that, and let go and processed a lot from all of that. Where do you feel like you're at now when it comes to relating? And I get the sense that you're at a place where you don't necessarily need anyone to come into your life. But for a lot of people, they get stuck in the neediness in relationships. They need someone else to fulfill them. Or maybe they feel really alone right now. Where do you sit right now when it comes to relationships? Do you feel like you're happy to be on your own? You want to stay on your own? Will there be a time when you decide that you're ready to go back out and start relating again? I'm curious to get your perspective on that.

Yeah. Well, in the spirit of being in flow, I'm all about. I'm probably not the kind of person who would go, okay, now I'm ready. I'm gonna go out and look for a person or so. That's just not something I necessarily resonate with. But I think that intuitively straight after the relationship, I felt very much like I wanted to be alone and that I needed to process. And I really honored the process of coming out of that relationship in many ways. I honored it with my ex. We went to therapy for three months to separate with grace and with love as consciously as we could. So that was one thing. That was one part of the process. Then it was learning to live without him because we were both very mutual about this separation. It was hard, though, because we still loved each other very much. We just knew that this chapter had come to an end and we were, I guess you would say, best friends. But after being with someone for 10 years, I've said this before, it's like losing a limb. So even if you're wanting to not be in that relationship anymore, which, that was my experience, it was hard because of the nature of losing something that has become like family to you. Right. And hello, Trigger. Not having my mom, my dad present in my life, that was huge for me from a reliving old trauma point of view. So I intuitively didn't feel like I wanted to start exploring anything, that I just needed time to heal. And I know that some people go out partying a lot and drinking a lot and having lots of sex. And I guess everyone goes through their own version of what feels good for them. But for me, it was a lot, lot of alone time, and that felt healthy for me. And I also was really vulnerable with my closest friends and in particular female friends. I really felt the need to have My tribe of amazing women supporting me and I kind of was like reaching out to them and saying I'm not having a very good day today and I'd let them know I needed support. So that was really important for me on my journey too. So in terms of relating, I think it's important to note that because as a woman, I think we struggle sometimes to take our mask off. And I use that phrase a lot. And I also use the pun face mask not included because I love a good face mask. But to take the mask down and to go, I'm struggling and there's this weird competitive energy that definitely happens and doesn't need to happen. Like we're here to support one another and to help each other rise and grow. So it was actually really uncomfortable for me to ask for that kind of support. I massively had the mother wound coming from a place where, you know, I didn't, I didn't witness or that kind of a woman was not modeled to me. And I was so trying to be in alignment in every way that I could. So I was craving beautiful female friendships and I really listened to that and I leaned into those relationships and now I guess where I'm at. Fast forward. First of all, I love love. I'm a big believer in love and romance, so I'm not at all tainted by, you know, having a 10 year relationship that didn't end up in happily ever after. I have lots of thoughts about, you know, should there be one partner for your whole life when marriage was created, you know, what it meant then versus what it means now. So I have a very open mind about, about that. But I absolutely love love and I feel like it will kind of just happen at the right time. I've also been really happy being single and I think it's also really important to note that because as a 33 year old single woman who's separated, there's a massive stigma that people project onto me that I must be really unhappy or lonely. And I've definitely experienced bouts of loneliness as part of the grieving process. But I'm actually really happy being single and it's really important that I debunk that stigma that women in their early to mid-30s who are kicking goals and have their own business and taking the time for self care, for self discovery, for identity, to live in integrity, to live in alignment. We're actually really happy doing that without anyone else telling us what to do and how. So I just really want to put that out there. Yeah, I'm super happy. But at the same time, like if I ended up in a place where I met someone and there was connection or, you know, if that was evolving now potentially, I'm totally open to all of that. It's not like a hard no or a hard yes on anything, which I kind of think with love, how can it be? But my anchor is, you know, that I get to be in relationship with myself and I get to really use the extra space for self discovery, for living in alignment. Because my 10 year relationship was very codependent. So I'm making sure that I learn that lesson and that I get to put in practice the way I want to live now so it becomes effortless in my next relationship.

Wow, that's a powerful share. Thank you. Thank you for that. And yeah, I like to say that relationships aren't here to make us happy. They're here to make us more aware, more conscious. And it sounds like that 10 year relationship just brought your awareness to all the parts of you that were maybe getting in the way of you having true unconditional love for yourself. And now that you've discovered that, it's just like you don't need to go out looking for it, you are it. And when the, you know, when the, when the next relationship shows up, you know, you'll know it's not something you have to go out and search for. You know, that's what I sense with you now. You're not, you're not searching, you don't need. It's like, hey, I'm in flow. When it, when it's time, it's time. And that's such a big distinction for everyone, for men and women. Because like you said before, like we oftentimes people go through breakups and we're like, go out, gotta go find. Let's just party, let's distract, let's numb, let's avoid. And they miss the opportunity.

Yeah. And yeah, and don't get me wrong, I've had moments of distraction and, or like struggling or, or gripping when you're kind of like something has to go a certain way. Like I've experienced all of that along the way and I, but I guess for me it's like it was learning to notice that and learning to come back into alignment. What's my intention here? Things are going to unfold as they should. Actually even just recognizing that I have zero control over most things. Like we like to think we have control of our life. And you know, by the way, I'm like a huge to do list person. Like I'm a planner. Like, anything I can control, I will. But recognizing that, really, in the grand scheme of things, I'm like this tiny little speck in this big universe. And like mother Earth universe, the cosmos has something figured out, and it's unfolding in a way that I have zero control over. Allows me to kind of go, oh, I'm gripping. Okay, we just gotta let go and let things kind of unfold as they should. And that's always an invitation to just show up in the way that I wish I would like to. You know, how do I want to show up for this? So even when there has been some connection, you know, with some incredible guys that I've met, it's been all about how do I want to show up for this connection? What can I give to this connection rather than what do I want? And it ends up coming back to yourself. Like you said, the relationship with yourself reflects a relationship you end up having with others. So for me, learning, you know, more compassion allowed me to have more compassion for others. And. Yeah. So continually exploring that is a beautiful thing. And I think that's another reason why I say it's such a sacred time, this time on my own. Because planting those seeds means they're already going to be in the fabric of who I am when I enter into a relationship. And that's how I want to do relationship. Like, I want there to be freedom. I want there to be a deep conversation. I want there to be compassion. I want there to be independence as well as interdependence. Yeah. And you really got to live it and breathe it for yourself before you can bring it to a relationship big time.

Yes. What about if someone is in a relationship already and they are going through their own process of trying to deepen their connection with themselves, but their partner maybe is not quite on that journey yet. I don't know if you experienced in your last relationship, but at what point do you decide that it's time to let go of the relationship if you feel like the other person is not supporting you or not in alignment with you anymore? And I know this is a tough one for a lot of people who begin this process. And the partner's not there yet, but they've got so many memories with this person and they want to help them and pull them along on the journey, but if the other person is not ready, then it can create disharmony. It can.

Yeah. Yeah.

Was that something you experienced? And I'm curious to know what. What some of the main challenges in working through that. That you had to overcome.

That was definitely something that I experienced. And I almost could see it happening a few years in advance. I actually remember having a conversation with my partner. Now, I'm not sure actually if this is the right thing to do, but I remember having a conversation with him saying, I'm going down this journey and I need to do. I need to do this work on myself. And I feel like it's an individual thing, but I also feel like it would be good for you to do the same. And perhaps if you don't, in two years time, we will find ourselves not on the same path. And so I said that. I remember saying that to him and almost like calling it early because again, intuitively I could just see, oh, the direction I was going this way. And, you know, there was no expectation for him to go that way with me. Again, that must have been intuitive because I really do believe that, like, you can't force someone down a certain path or to do the work. It's really got to be an internal calling. And you can also be in a really healthy, happy, beautiful, loving relationship. And not on the same page about those things too, because at the end of the day, you are individuals and you're on your own timeline and you're on your own journey. As long as you're supporting each other in your timeline, and as long as you both value each other's journey and respect each other's journey, you can totally actually have lots of success in your relationship and not be 100% on the same page all the time. But in my case, it was about really honoring what was truly coming up for me and doing that work. And at the time, it meant going to therapy. That was what I needed to do. For me, because some of that previous trauma was coming up. And as I was healing it, the lens in which I saw the world was changing. And that's just the natural progression of healing. You see things differently. And I think in any relationship, I really think it's a choice. You either decide, yeah, we're going to work through this together and continue to evolve together, or we're not. Like, it doesn't necessarily mean that the love goes away and it doesn't necessarily, you know, but I actually think that relationship ultimately, like life is super cyclical. You know, we talked about that. The seasons are cyclical. We go through our samsara. Everything's cyclical. And when you get back to the beginning of a cycle, it's like, are we going through this together again or are we on a different path? And that's a really deep and honest question that you can answer. And to me, it was very clear when we were no longer on the same path. So once again, it was just about honoring that. You know, it wasn't about being attached to a particular decision either way. It was about honoring what was the reality of the situation. And, you know, I guess the other thing I'll say is before we. Before we. And before I. On that, I was deeply in fear. What would people think? How am I going to be on my own? Will anyone love me again? Will anyone love me as much as he did? These are all, like, natural human thoughts and fears. The day in which those thoughts and fears no longer existed or mattered. I was in alignment when those were not the things that were driving any kind of decision. And it was just like, this doesn't feel right anymore at all. And I love him, but I'm not happy. He loves me, but he's not happy. I've got to let him go, and he's got to let me go so we can go on to that next cycle, so we can go on to that next chapter. And the day that I realized that was a very liberating day, and all the tension and fear that I had had previous to that day was completely overtaken by love. I had so much love for him, and it was all about, I just want you to be happy. And I know I'm not the person making you happy anymore, and I want to be happy, and I deserve to be happy, and I know you want me to be happy. So that's where the conversation went. And. And I remember him, like, getting a little bit stuck in kind of the guilt or the shame of us not making it further or some of the, like, toxic arguments we'd had or things like that. And another little nugget of wisdom that must have come from a yoga or meditation was just like, we did the best we could with what we knew. And that was also so liberating. There was so much freedom in that. And I would say to him, on repeat, anytime he got a little bit stuck, I was like, we did the best we could with what we knew. And today, this is what we know. So now we get to choose to do the best we can today with what we know. And that's different to what we knew five years ago, three years ago. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that answered your question, but there was a whole mix of things there. For someone who's. Yeah, that's right. For Someone who's on. On the path to self development or self discovery and their partner isn't. I would say, in a nutshell, just honor that. And, and to be really, you know, to be really transparent with your partner and to initially know that it's okay to not be on the same timeline, but keep checking in. Where is this really?

Yeah, nailed that. Like the, you know, the self development journey, you know, relationships are, you know, the core pillar of the whole journey because self development is strengthening the relationship with yourself. But then that. How do you then bring this awareness, bring this understanding into your other relationships? And not just romantic relationships, it's all relationships, business, family, friends. And that's where this level of clarity brings a level of clarity and communication as well that is so, so important. And I can't tell you the amount of times where I've been with my partner now for almost five years, and she's from Canada and we've been through a lot of challenges along that journey. She, you know, I moved out to Canada, lived there for two years, lived with her family for a year, which is a big test. And then she came and lived with my family for a year. So we've both lived with each other's families, which has just brought, you know, brought up so many challenges. But we've been able to work through them all. But there's been countless times where we didn't think we were going to make it through. And there was times in the journey where I was going deep in a specific path and she wasn't going in that direction. There was a lot of really difficult conversations that had to be had. But always, always the conversation is what freed us up, freed up the clarity when we didn't communicate. It was almost like the resentment would build when we didn't communicate. It's almost like we were holding things against each other and it was cutting us off from really just honoring our truth. Hey, this is what I'm feeling right now, or like, I'm worried that this is going to happen or I feel like we're going in a different direction. Just putting it out there and communicating that truth creates space for you to work through a process. Whatever's getting in the way of you guys coming back into harmony, and in your case, maybe the harmony, it was finished. It was, it was. You knew that, hey, we've done our best and it's just ain't meant to be.

There were those harmony and separation.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also that everything you've just described, which is so beautiful, that you and your partner continue to go through that. It's so normal. Like, no relationship is all, I don't know, picnics and butterflies, roses, rainbows, Whatever your. Whatever your cliche examines is. Like you said, our deepest work shows up in relationship because that's when things are mirrored back to us. And that's when we have a choice to either evolve or keep playing out some of our patterns and our habits. And that's why I also say that staying in relationship ultimately is a choice because you can love someone. But are you choosing to continue on this journey with them now, even though right now feels tough? And are you choosing that? Okay. Yeah. Right now, I'm going down this path a little deeply, and it feels uncomfortable because you're not quite here with me. But I still honor you and I honor us, and I love us, and I'm prepared to continue to do the work, to make it work, even while we wobble through this uncomfortable stage. That's a choice. And I remember Ross asking me, like, how do you know? How do you know that we're absolutely, like, done? Like, because 10 years, and I love you still, and I know we're not good, but how do you know? And I said to him, for me, I'm a visual person. I was like, if you can imagine a candle that was burning really, really low, it is out, Candles out for me. And he was like, yeah, you're right, it is. But he just needed that kind of confirmation. There's a way. There's always a way of checking in. Like, do we want out because we don't want to do the hard work, or is it just time to let things go? And that's back to the same conversation I actually said at the beginning of this podcast. Am I avoiding the hard work, or do I just need to surrender to what is right now? Is the same question you can ask yourself about going to the gym in the morning, you know, So I feel like that is the biggest dance of life, Honestly, I really do. Yeah.

That's so beautifully put. Yeah. In those little decisions, am I avoiding the hard work? And the hard work is sometimes the opposite of what we think it is.

Yeah.

That's such a great. That's such a great example. Even just using the example of going to the gym. Some days it's easy to get up and go to the gym and just smash a workout, but maybe it's harder to just be like, wait a second, there's something that I'm not feeling into right now that I'm avoiding through going to the gym. Maybe I need to sit at home and do the hard work, which is meditate for an hour.

Yeah, yeah. It can literally go either way. So being that in tune with yourself, where you know what the hard work is, what the avoidance is, what the surrendering is, and also knowing I didn't get it right today. I didn't get it right today. I didn't drop in and answer that very well today. And now we show ourselves some compassion and go, hey, that's part of the human experience.

Exactly.

I'll learn from that.

Yep, exactly. I can feel with you, Shira, that you have a beautiful ability to express. And then it probably ties back into. Yeah. As a singer, you know, vocally, you know, there's a self expression for me, you know, I've noticed is there's a lot about keeping the energy clear. Right. When the energy's clear, you know, life is able to move through us, and what comes out is something that's so articulate and beautiful. And when we are holding onto emotions, we're cut off from our true expression, whether that is through speaking, writing, singing, dancing, whatever the expression is. And for yourself now, because you've gone so deep within yourself, have you been able to notice that your singing and songwriting ability has started to go to another level? And are you, you know, what is that next level for you now? Like, when it comes to singing and expressing yourself? And how do you know when. You know when it's time to. Okay, cool, I'm gonna. I'm sing today. Like, this is. This is it. This is the time. Or is the day where it's like it's not flowing today?

I love this question so much because it also shows how much work you've done to be able to even ask that question and understand this, because when I was the most stuck or the most uninspired and going through really tough things in my relationship and really disconnected, my voice sounded different. There was a couple of years there that I didn't write, and I actually should have known then that that was a clear indicator that I was not in a good place, because I'm not one of those. I know a lot of artists. I know a lot of artists will write some of their best work when they're deeply depressed, but they're also the artists that do heavy drugs and heavy drinking, and that's really not me. I'm actually someone when I'm in flow is when I do my best work, and then I can tap into previous tough emotions, but from a place of wisdom, rather than the depths of despair. So I have noticed that my voice is just opening up. My process in being creative is changing. I'm noticing my process. I'm experimenting with different things. I'm a lot more curious. I actually think I'm only just scratching the surface of that, to be honest as well. But it's definitely shifted, you know, because I'm coming from my. I'm in my heart space so much more. Where that area was so like protected I was protecting. There was like a little lock and key on that for a while there. And now I feel very expansive and like willing to try things and I just feel creative and I feel even willing to write things, you know, like own some of my thoughts, some of my feelings, some emotions from the past and use them. I think that when I talk about healing people through my music, it means getting to those depths because people heal when they can feel like they're not alone, when they can relate or resonate with someone else. And it's my responsibility to be able to go there in my writing. And when you're numb or blocked, you can't do that. So when you're free, you go there and. And then other people, that's when they get the goosebumps. That's when they go. So relate to that. That's healing. It's healing for myself because I'm writing as truthfully as I can and. And that's cathartic. But it's then healing for those who get to hear it and witness it. That. So that's definitely a shift that I'm experiencing daily.

Well, I'm excited to see where. Where that that journey is going to take you because yeah, it's something so special that comes through when you can reflect and look at, you know, the pain that you've been through and then be able to put that out in the form of music and expression for other people to learn from it and feel into it as well. Is there something you're working on right now? Are you creating an album? Like, what's your focus right now?

Yeah, I'm writing lots and I'm preparing to do some collaborations with other artists. I'm really open minded to the direction of where this is going right now because I'm excited about the fact that I'm feeling so creative and that I'm cultivating space for writing and singing again because there was a period that that wasn't happening. So right now, in the spirit of freedom and flow, I'm not actually putting too many expectations. I'm actually Letting the vision of that side of my career and my life incubate. My Instagram handle is lifeofshira. So anytime I refer to that, I refer to it as LifeOfShira. So I'm like, I'm in the vision planning stage of Life of Shira, which is an interesting way of putting it, but that's actually what I'm doing. And yeah, like, I definitely want to perform again, but for me, I'm just excited. I'm grateful that I'm writing and that there are some opportunities presenting themselves to collaborate with other artists because the ideal situation would be that I, you know, in a couple of years I probably exit from gensac and I put all my energy into that creative life and that would definitely entail writing, collaborating, singing. Yeah, all that, all the good stuff. Cool.

Yeah. Well, I'm sure it's gonna be a fun journey when you all in on that, on that avenue. Just one last question before I let you get back into your day. I'm curious just on the self expression part because I know a lot of people who, you know, me for example, I used to be in a corporate job, was so disconnected from my purpose and my passion and my expression, I didn't know what it was for a long time. And I know a lot of people maybe feel stuck as well. Maybe they haven't tapped into that innate ability to sing, to write, to create, you know, to allow life to come through them in that unique way. Any suggestions or advice for people who, you know, maybe don't know what their expression is yet like for you singing, that's such a beautiful, unique gift. You know what if there's some potential singers out there listening to this who haven't quite tapped into that, how do you start to explore that?

Another great question. So there's a couple of things I probably want to say to this one. One of them is don't let the idea of how you've seen other people's success play out limit how your success can play out. Example, I'm 33, I'm not a 15 year old superstar. You know, if I was stuck on what it looks like to be a famous singer these days, I would go, that's it. That ship has sailed. I can't do that. That would be such a limiting viewpoint for me. So similar to our journey of self discovery and healing and how unique and independent that is. It's the same for our life vision, your life of Jordan vision, whatever that looks like. It's so unique to you and it literally can Be whatever you want it to be. So knowing that from the get go means you're free. You're free to paint on a blank canvas. Because I actually think that the limiting beliefs, those blocks will even stop us, preventing us from even thinking what we really desire and even dropping in. And we want to be in a space where we can really give ourselves the opportunity to just go wild with what is it that, how do we want to see our life? The next thing I would say is there's no rush. We seem to always be in a rush. There's no rush. You don't have to know. What you need to know is who you are and who you want to be. Who do you want to be and how do you want to show up every day and focus on that first, Like, I'm already a singer songwriter because I'm singing and I'm writing. You know, it doesn't matter what it looks like to anyone else. I'm a singer songwriter. Like, I'm doing that. And as long as I keep showing up and doing that, it will unfold. I'm not going to give up. And it gives me joy and I'm really talented and I believe in that. So once again, backtrack. Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up every day and start seeing small? Like we talk about, it's all about energy. Everything is energy. So if you're not feeling good, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling unhealthy, I have been there. And the second I made my health and my energy my priority, everything else started to shift. Because that's when you gain clarity. That's when you can tap into your focus. That's when you can tap into your purpose. That's when you get creative insight. Oh, maybe I can do this. That's when you drop into your heart and you literally vibrate at a different frequency. Like the things that you want become attracted to you and you attract those things. So don't rush, don't feel like you need to rush and give yourself time to reflect on who you are, who you want to be. And then I feel like that flow state is available to you to start thinking about, you know, how it is you want to live your life, what your biggest purpose is. You know, I also think the term purpose is probably overused in some ways. And I also think it can evolve and change. But at the core of you, you kind of know at the heart of who you are, kind of what you want to do and to access that you just need to create some space.

Wow, Such great advice. Thank you. And it's such a nourishing conversation. I really enjoyed this and I know a lot of people who are going to get a tremendous amount of value from this. And for people who want to connect with you, learn more about you, discover you online, where should they go?

So my Instagram handle. And by the way, thank you. It has been such a nourishing conversation. I love that word too. So good choice and yeah, really grateful to have this conversation with you. My Instagram handle is like I said, Life of Shira. S H I R A. I'm mostly active on there at the moment. And then if they want to discover a little bit more about self care for men, my company is called Gentsac. G E N T S A C so Instagram Gensac or The website is gensac.com where I've written some blogs. They're basically the two places where they can connect with me and what I do at the moment.

Amazing. And watch this space. We'll see. Might see you on the Spotify number one charts real soon.

Who knows, anything is possible, which is what I love about life.

Exactly. Shira, thank you so much for coming on here and just sharing all your wisdom. This has been so fun. And yeah, I'll put all the links in the show notes for people who want to check you out online.

Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Hey, there we have it guys. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. And yeah, look, if you made it this far, cool. Here's my voice again in Yuria and I'm gonna make one more request for you is go ahead and subscribe and leave a comment on the podcast page because I'm really putting a lot of focus and attention on getting this podcast out to more people because I know what I'm putting in here can serve and bring value to people and it would mean a lot if you got value from this to leave some feedback and subscribe. So you stay up to date with what's coming up and as always, follow me on Instagram and love hearing from you. It's eight shifters until the next episode. Guys, thank you so much and I appreciate you.