19: From Bikini Waitressing to Biz Owning with Tory Dube

Hello friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter Layden. Honor to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. Hey friends. I am so excited about today's episode where I interview guest Tori Duby, who is an unbelievable human. So great that she actually hosts a podcast called An Excellent Example of Being a Human. Her overall messaging is really about this human experience and how. How to really focus on being in control of our energy and how this perception of having a linear path in our journeys here on Earth is really pretty convoluted. And she and I both share in so many of these philosophies. We speak the same language. I've been so inspired by her ever since we first connected paths and just made this really great connection. She's absolutely hilarious. She will share with you how in her early days she started as a bikini waitress in New York and is now moved on into being in the space of an entrepreneur and most recently landed a really exciting corporate opportunity that allows her the freedom to live in California and work in New York. So I am so excited. There is so much to learn from her. If you are into all things energy, high vibes, low vibe, you must listen to the way Tori breaks it down and talks about being in alignment. So without further ado, let's dive in with Tori. Tori, welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am thrilled to have you on here as you are part of the reason and the inspiration that I even began this podcast. So thank you.

Oh my goodness, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. And I can't wait to dive into your story. A lot of the amazing insight and wisdom that I've been able to witness and be a part of you sharing with so many. But I always like to start off the podcast with just a couple of little warm up questions if that's okay.

Please.

Okay, so first one, as you know, the name of my podcast is Grief Guts and Green Smoothies, which makes a lot of sense for me, but not always to other people, that combination. So I'm curious when you hear Grief Guts and Green smoothies. How does that resonate for you?

So I know you as well, so I know why it makes sense. But for me, if I were to connect the dots outside of that, just honoring this human experience and human body and doing the best we can, and that absolutely includes grief. And so all of it is a healing process. I mean, the whole human journey is essentially one big healing process.

Yeah, it's interesting. Like, when I first started working with a grief coach, she said grief just takes life, and it just amplifies it, magnifies it, and takes, like, a lot of our stuff up to the surface. And so I think you're right. Like, it's just grief is a healing journey on steroids, essentially.

All right.

And then just the only other question I need to know from everybody is this is my own research project. What is your favorite type of taco?

There is one near my house. I live in San Diego, so we have access to really great tacos. That it's a mushroom taco, but they bake cheese on the inside. So it's like really crunchy baked cheese inside the tortilla, and then it's mushrooms inside.

That sounds really good. I think, actually, when I saw you in San Diego last year, we were chatting about tacos.

Yes, we were. And I think I told you to eat that taco.

I think I did. I think it was the place if it was near the conference center, like, walking distance. It's definitely where we went down because we got mushroom tacos. But so, Tori, those tuning in, we talk a lot about on this show, the listeners really identify and appreciate hearing about how life isn't necessarily a linear path, how we kind of anticipate it's going to be. We're often given messages that it's a linear path growing up. And then that puts this, like, pressure on us, this unstated pressure, or perhaps even stated. And then we have to spend so much time not only being far from linear, but then, like, unpacking that pressure. You have had this amazing path. I love hearing kind of where you started and where you are now. And so I would love if you could just share that with everyone tuning in.

Absolutely. Do you want the long version or the short version? I want the long version. To really make sense of all of it is I started with an eating disorder when I was 11 years old because I moved to a new school and I had a little best friend who was like, half my size, and they weighed us in gym class. My perception was she was half my size, but they weighed us in gym class and I was three pounds more, and they, like, announced it out loud or something. And I remember just going like. And settling into my body and going, oh, my gosh, I have breasts and she doesn't. Oh, my gosh, I have a little belly and she doesn't. And so that was the beginning of my battle with my own body. And I was just a little kid, so I had no idea what that meant or who to talk to or who to ask. So I just didn't eat food, and I played basketball and danced, and everyone told me I looked amazing when I lost weight. And so I was like, ooh, there's something to this. So that lasted all the way through my 20s, but that was catalyst for a lot of the decisions I made along the way. So grew up as a dancer, Grew up as a perfectionist, student council president, Dealt with my anxiety through my eating disorder. It was just a source of control for me when everything else felt so out of control. And when I graduated high school, I thought that I would go to the university in my town, University of New Hampshire. They have an amazing business school. I thought that I would just get the most versatile degree possible in business management and just continue on trying to be a perfectionist. But one year in, I absolutely hated it. And I had such a pit in my stomach and something just said drop out. And I had such bad anxiety that even driving two exits up on our one lane highway, sometimes I would get blinded and I would forget where I am. And I'd have to pull over and call my dad and be like, I don't remember how to get to the. The mall. And he's like, buddy, it's the same road you drive to go everywhere. It's just an exit up. But the anxiety would be so overwhelming that I would forget who I was. Like, I literally couldn't see, I couldn't hear. So when I told my family that I wanted to drop out of college and move to New York City to be a dancer, they were like, interesting, but, okay, that sounds like it could be really great for you. That's perfect. So for my sophomore year of school, I changed my major to theater and dance and moved to New York City, thinking, okay, well, if this dance internship doesn't work out in New York City, then I can at least come home to unh and have my theater and dance major and use my internship for credits. So moved to New York City, Never, ever wanted to come back. I just immediately felt like a new person when I arrived there. Like, I just kind of left a lot of my junk at home. I still had the eating disorder, but it wasn't as loud and I stopped with the panic attacks. Now I had an eating disorder for a different reason. Because I was a performer and needed to look a certain way. But because I was dancing eight to 10 hours a day, it just wasn't really that sustainable. Like I couldn't stay alive throughout the day unless I was fueling myself. So now the face of it changed and now it was about just eating perfectly. How to eat the perfect foods I would eat, but they had to be so perfect. And therefore then I would be fueled. But I'd also look amazing as a dancer. So I did stand up comedy. I waitressed in a bikini in Times Square to pay my bills, which is funny. How I got that job is I applied for every restaurant in Times Square, which was right near my dance internship. So I was too afraid to ride the train anywhere. And the servers in New York, they're like serious business. They're career servers. So they either have New York experience and they're phenomenal or they want you to be a career server. And I did not want to to be a career server and I didn't have experience. So the only place I would hire me was the bikini place. So I went in one day and I the two girls at the hostess station were wearing a bikini with a sarong. And I just thought it was like a cute like reading thing. I didn't know that you had to wear that. And I gave my resume and I was wearing like my little business outfit and they're like, great, did you bring a bikini? I was like, what? No. And they're like, yeah, if you really want to apply for this restaurant, you have to put on a bikini and show our managers. And I was like, no. And ran out.

Legal anymore? I can't.

I mean, the restaurant is closed. But two weeks later, when I still didn't have a job and was new in New York City, needed to pay my frickin rent, I was like, ah, I'm just gonna go back. And so I went back and I ended up working there for like four years actually. It was awesome and it was really good for me and joke was on everybody else because all of the waitresses were uber smart. They were like in law school and there were nurses and Anyway, so waitress in my bikini was a professional dancer, was doing standup comedy, was writing, blah blah blah, blah blah, and went through a really awful breakup for some reason. It just hit me so hard in a way that a breakup hadn't before. I just felt like I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't want to do any of the same things I was doing anymore. It just felt like it was one of those moments that, like, a hole opened up in the ground, and I just wanted to swipe everything in it and completely start over. So I went to a meditation retreat. And throughout that retreat, I thought that I was going to be mourning the loss of this relationship, this person that I thought I was going to marry. And instead, all I could think about and all I was dreaming about and all I was seeing in my meditations was my eating disorder. And I just really fully heard myself for once. And it said, you can't be who you want to be unless you heal your body. Like, you can't look outside of yourself and help other people unless you're helping yourself. So I came home and I immediately enrolled in the schooling that I went to for mindbody transformational psychology also a little tiny bit, thinking that if I still learned about all the perfect foods and learned about having a perfect mindset, that I could still have this perfect body. But that's okay if I needed that to enroll. So I enrolled, and school was for about two and a half years. And on the other side, I was than a nutrition coach.

Amazing.

Yes. So fast forward a couple years, my business has changed tremendously. First it was nutrition. Then we pulled the lens back, and it was positive psychology and behavioral change in nutrition. Then we pulled the lens back and it was business coaching with the pillars of nutrition and mindset being very important pillars to build the business. And then now, actually, I'm the director of client growth for a media company in New York City.

Yeah. So exciting.

Yes.

Talk about far from linear.

Oh, my gosh. It's been the weirdest. Most.

What?

Like, my parents, they still are. Like, what do you do? I don't understand. Yes. This is my first time. So I'm 32 years old. This is my first time being on a payroll, like, having a real quote.

Real job instead of doing entrepreneur work and side work to, like, pull everything together.

Totally. I always was nannying or waitressing or whatever I had to do to pay the bills to serve my vision. And the vision just kept changing along the way, too. It would just adapt based on what I was experiencing in my life or something new that I learned or. So it's been anything but linear.

Yeah. One of the things I love that we've talked about and that I've really deepened my understanding on in working with you is, you know, the flow of energy. And so I hear you talking a lot about trusting your intuition about letting energy flow, not forcing it. And some people might get confused as to like, you know, how is that not that pit in your stomach, intuition, not just like, you know, anxiety or how is like letting energy flow really being aware and aligned versus, you know, avoiding or bouncing and, you know, you understand, like totally. That's really great for a lot of people. I think you have a lot of clarity around it and what insight can you provide for listeners on that?

Yeah. So that's one of the questions that I get most, is how do I know if my intuition is telling me not to do something? And how do I know if it's just my own resistance in the way?

Right.

And so the easiest rule is that usually our intuition feels like a really loving nudge. It doesn't make us feel sick. It feels like a loving nudge. So there are moments. Yeah. Where we're possibly like in danger. And our intuition says, you know, maybe you don't walk down that street or maybe you walk a little faster and take a right at the end. But most of the time we're just living our normal life, we're not actually in danger. And we start honoring these really, really negative thought cycles that then, because our thoughts create a physiological response in our body, creates the feeling of anxiety where really it's just us habitually thinking negative thoughts. So my general rule is I don't make a decision, of course, unless I'm in like, imminent danger. But I don't make a decision unless I get back to a space of what we call abundance land. So there are two villages, we got abundance land. And it's way miles and miles down to the right and over in abundance land, everybody's happy. That's where the money lives. That's where the opportunities live. That's where all your soul friends and all your soul lovers live. That's where anything that you could ever want lives over in abundance land. And then miles and miles and miles in the other direction is Lac village. And Lac village is the opposite. If you are in Lac Village, all you have access to is dis ease, is discomfort, is fear, is judgment. And you're never going to get the answer that you want over in Lac Village. And so our big work is to be able to stand in awareness and go, okay, based on how I'm feeling right now, is this more of a Lac Village feeling or is this an abundance land feeling? And we can very distinctly feel the difference, because Abundance Land feels really delicious. It's like when you watch a sunset and you're overwhelming with love, overflowing with love. Or when you're hanging out with friends and you just, like, have one of those moments where you go, oh, my gosh, I'm so lucky to be surrounded by these people.

Yeah.

It's like when we're stuck in Creative Flow and we've been painting for two hours and the time just flew by. That's Abundance Land. When we're in Lac Village, everything feels clunky and slow and hard, and our brain wants to go a million miles an hour. And so the general rule is we make a decision only when we're in Abundance Land. And so that job that we have to fulfill is when we're noticing we're in Lac Village, we need to stop, not try to fix anything from there. Because remember, all you can get is a bullshit response. You're only gonna get more crappy answers if you're asking from Lac Village. And you gotta get yourself over to Abundance Land. And then you ask the question again. So our intuition feels like a really loving nudge in Abundance Land. It feels like another great idea. It feels like a creative solution. It feels like innovation. It feels like the next exciting thing. That's our intuition. Our intuition is only ever love if it ever feels like, no, I can't do that, or no, you're too fat, or no, you're not strong enough, or no, you're not smart enough, that your intuition does not think like that. Your intuition is limitless. And so our job as human beings is finding that intersection between the human body, our intuition. Think of it like two intersecting lines, right? We got to take as best care as we can for our human body so it can operate and intersect with our unlimited potential. And where those overlap, that's where we want to hang out. That's where peak performance happens. That's where we have so much access to our intuition. That's saying, yeah, follow that thing. Do that thing that you're thinking of.

Yeah, I love that. And it's so interesting. Like, you hear your Abundance Land and Lac Village, it's like, it's so catchy. I love the way you break it down. It makes so much sense. And I think. There's so many things that I think allude to this. And people have such a hard time. I don't know if you're familiar with Louise Hay. Probably. Yeah. And she talks like poverty thoughts, right? And then you hear, like high and low vibes and you hear these things and I think people really struggle. And I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are. One with the expectation that they're never going to go to Lac Village or low vibes or poverty thoughts, this expectation that they're never going to go there and then when they're there thinking that they're never going to get out. And strategies that you've seen because you have done so much work coaching around this.

Yeah. So we can easily mistake our big work to mean we have to stay in Abundance Land all the time. We're really. Our big work is just finding the awareness around where we are and understand. Understanding how that affects our thinking, how that affects our actions.

Right.

So as somebody moving through grief, are you allowed to be in a state of grief? Absolutely, absolutely. And you have to.

Right.

You have to allow yourself to process it and move through it. And the more that we so Abundance Land Lack Village, it's a great space for building that awareness. But we really know that the human experience is so much more nuanced.

Right.

Like we can feel deep grief of losing somebody at the same time feel overwhelming love for that person. When we use the Abundance Land in the Lack Village example, those would seemingly not be able to exist together. But really the human experience is so much more nuanced. So we use Lack Village and Abundance Land to start to build that awareness so we're not stuck in habitual Lack Village.

Right.

Like now we get to make a choice if we start finding the awareness around. Okay, I'm doing that thing again where it's Sunday night and I'm just super anxious because Monday's tomorrow and. And so I'm just being crabby and I'm kind of being nasty to everyone and everything I view is just like through stinky bad attitude lenses.

Right.

That's a perfect use of Black Village and Abundance Land because someone can stop. This happens in my household all the time. And we go, okay, I'm going to stop talking until I get myself over back to Abundance Land. Then we will continue on. And so some things that I use are, I'll go for a walk around the block, I'll drink a glass of water, I'll take a bath, I'll take a nap, I'll go for a run. Like it's whatever you know, will move some energy for you to get you back over to Abundance Land. But with human experience, to be super honest, it's just really layered. And so the awareness serves us when we know we're habitually stuck somewhere versus if we're having a real honest experience and allowing ourselves to process the feelings we need to process. But many people are afraid of that processing, correct?

Yeah. It's like they want to just kind of press those energies, those feelings down. And when we press them down, they're going to come back up.

Right.

And in different spots. What's that, that whack a mole game, Right. Like, I like to think of it like that. Like it comes up and we'll like whack it down and then it's going to pop up somewhere else and we're going to try and whack it down.

Totally.

Yeah. For me. Go ahead.

Just from physics class in high school, if you remember, energy is never created nor destroyed. It just changes shape. And so we can't create or destroy. We can't create joy out of nothing. And we can't destroy grief or sadness or fear, but we surely can manipulate it and change the shape of it.

Yeah. And for everyone listening, you know, who's experiencing grief, which, you know, a lot of people experiencing grief. And grief manifests in so many ways, right. The loss of a job is grief. The loss of a relationship is grief. I mean, grief doesn't just have to look in the lens of death.

Right.

There's so many other ways that it manifests. But you know, I think you're right, like in re channeling that energy. And I always say, like, we don't get over it.

Right.

Like, you know, a lot of people think that one year marker, like now you're over it, now you got to move on. And it also doesn't get easier. I think we just build our muscle to re channel the energy. And for me it was like, I like to visualize, like if you have these two spaces, right. Lac Village and Abundance Land, like almost having a bridge between them at first. And it was like the word and.

Mm. Right.

Like that word, like, formed my bridge because at first I was like only living in the space of negativity. I didn't see the purpose of anything. And so once I started by like building a bridge with the word and like, this can be really terrible and I can find growth or this is really terrible and I have the opportunity to honor laden. I started to kind of like straddle the space and then eventually, like, you know, energy, law of attraction. Right. Building momentum. Being able to get myself over by seeing it feels a heck of a lot better.

Right.

Intuitively and just humanly, it just feels a heck of a lot better to be standing in the space of, you know, Higher vibes and better energies.

Absolutely. And an easy way to think about it, too, because it's not a detriment to be in Lac Village. Sometimes we need to be over there to even understand what the joy, the peace feels like.

Right.

We think of it as, in Lac Village, it's time to take care of you.

Right.

In Abundance Land, now you have space to serve others.

Yes.

So had you only stayed in Lac Village, that could have been fine, because it could have just meant it's time for me to take care of me and focus on me. I got to keep learning these lessons about me. What are my patterns? What's scaring me? What's the conversation that's going over and over in my head? That's you time. But now that you are continually moving yourself over to Abundance Land, now you have space to serve other people around the grief that initially invited you to Lac Village.

And a lot of I know what you've taught and coached and, you know, anyone listening, I believe, and I say this all the time, I told you like a thousand times when I met you in San Diego that, like, Layden has connected me with people for different reasons and different times and, you know, really learning to listen to that. But, you know, I literally, I think I told you I joined Angie Lee's mastermind. Just complete intuition. Everything else was saying I didn't even really know who she was. I think I listened to, like, two of her podcasts. Something resonated and was like, this is the right time. This is the direction you're moving. Like, do it. And business is not my zone of genius. Like, I mean, I like it. It's fine. I can do it. But, like, all mindset and all of this, and when you came on as a guest coach in there, it was like, ha. And so, like, we, you know, immediately connected from that. So just to give everyone a little bit of background, and I got to meet Tori last year at an event, and then I was able to join one of her groups that. That you run Tori for coaching, which was amazing. And one of the things that I think you do such a great job of teaching is how to make space to let your intuition be heard.

Right.

And I think a lot of people listening and my former version of myself included, right. I always say just like former version of myself, because we're always evolving, but would not make space to listen. It was over busying. It was, you know, like, that was almost seen as a lack of achievement to kind of just like, hold that space. And I think it's one of the most powerful things you teach and would love to hear you kind of break that down for our listeners now.

Yeah, this is one of my favorite conversations because. So we were talking about how in Abundance Land, that's where the money lives, that's where the people lives. That's where your next big opportunity lives. But think about what usually leads you to those people, places and things. Usually it's an idea, right? So if we're constantly consuming, consuming, consuming, always on the run, always thinking about what's about to happen or what already happened, we're not even listening to the ideas that are bubbling up and out. So if we find the space every day, and it's not guaranteed an idea is going to bubble up, right? But if we give ourselves the space every day, I feel like our bodies start to remember, our intuition starts to remember. Like, okay, she's going to actually honor the ideas that come up and out. So even if you're just giving yourself five, ten minutes a day to journal, to meditate, to just be open and available to what comes up and out, that's how you access the first idea that is going to lead to that money, to the soul partner, to the next opportunity that you seek.

Yeah, I love that. And it's a really hard thing. I think it takes practice, right? And a little bit of trust and leaning in and saying, why? You know, why am I resisting slowing down? Like, where is this resistance coming from? And is it really even serving me well, right. To absolutely have this level of resistance?

It starts to become your favorite part of the day, though, if you let it. I crave my alone time and my meditation time. I think it was Oprah one time, she was talking about people who have hit a deep state of meditation. If you ask them, like, would you rather have deep meditation or go to Hawaii for a week? And they're like, the meditation, like, it feels really delicious when your human body and your inner self connect in that deep, deep way in meditation, it's like discovering a whole solar system inside yourself. And it takes a while. It takes building up musculature. Like, I was fake meditating for the past two years. Like, I just would listen to the audio, be actually going through the list of my day. And then I had to call myself out on it, like, a couple months ago. And I'm like, girl, you're not even doing the thing. If you're going to sit, you might as well do it. And so then I started completely overshooting it, which is a trick that I use all the time to get myself back on path. So say I want to get up at 6am and I can't. Okay, I make myself get up at 4:30am for a while, completely overshoot it, right? Because then 6am our brain goes, oh man, that's easy. So with meditation, if I couldn't do my 10 minute, 20 minute meditation, I started saying, okay, you got to do a 90 minute meditation. So I did that for a while and then now if I even do a 40 minute or a 30 minute, I'm like, oh, that's cake. Because anything compared to that frickin 90 minute meditation. But I started really feeling that solar system inside of me. Like the magic and the ideas were flowing. It's like this woman named PETA, she talks about just hooking up your hose to like divine inspiration. And that's what it feels like. It's like there is all of this wealth of wisdom, of love, of inspiration, of intuition within waiting to flow to you. But it's only available if you hook up your hose. And that's what that alone time is, is you just hooking up the hose. And sometimes all you have space to do is hook up a straw. But hey, a straw's worth of flow is better than nothing.

Yeah, no, I love that. And like I said, I was, I was always over busying myself and I still, it's something I still have to be aware of for sure. Even if we're doing things that, you know, are seemingly self care or, you know, have great value, doesn't mean that we have to be doing them every hour of the day.

Right? Right.

But when I started making that shift, I kid you not, I was waking up and this was about over a year ago, so it was a year ago this weekend actually that I resigned from education and made like the leap into entrepreneur work and decided not to just go teach a thousand yoga classes a week and not to just go get a teaching job because then at least I knew I had benefits again.

Right.

So we're on opposite paths. You just, you just entered kind of that world of payroll and I just left it. But it was just months before that where I was waking up in the middle of the night, idea after idea after idea. Like I had to drive in silence because I had so many things flowing in my head. Like everything was silent all around. And like you said, it's like you can't explain it, you just feel it. And now I'm very aware, like I have one day a week where I really commit to like letting my creative Juices flow. That's what works for me. You know, I don't know if you have any tips for other people and fitting it into busy schedules, but I know for me, the way my schedule works, not being structured, I'm able to kind of take one day a week where I literally am in silence and try and make space for things to flow and I come up with all my ideas on the day.

Oh, I love that. I would so love to have that. So yeah, everybody has a different schedule, right? One of the things that I don't know why I'm a frickin quote machine today, but Gabrielle Bernstein says all the people who say they don't have time to make space, she says, okay, well do you have time to feel like shit? Because that is what you're choosing if you want to just be on autopilot. So yeah, for me, I work for an east coast company, so I'm already getting text messages by 3, 4 in the morning. An east coast startup. So no boundaries on time and what needs to be done, they just kind of assume you have to build your own boundaries. So I'm already getting text messages at 3, 4 in the morning. Morning. So when I wake up, understandably I could be super anxious and be like, just get on the computer, just do it. And I have to just say no. Because if I want to be the best version of myself today for our clients, for the team, I need to take the 10, the 20, the 30 minutes. So it's just a non negotiable for me. Sometimes it means I have to wake up a little earlier than I want to, which means then the night before I got to go to bed a little earlier than I wanted to. But I just make it happen because I don't want to live a hard day. That's what happens if I don't get that time. The day feels hard. I'm just like stuck and clunky and tired and I don't have access to my best ideas. Whereas if I just take the five or ten minutes, I hooked up the hose.

It's so true, it's so true. It's really. And I think it's that roi, right? Return on investment, like just taking a few minutes, like here or there. We don't have to complicate it. You know, you haven't had the privilege of meeting much yet, but you might someday. But we always say like, you know, that self care, it doesn't have to be white robes and like, you know, these luxurious vacation or spa days, it can literally Just be laying in bed with awareness for, like, five minutes and gathering your thoughts and, like, really making sure you're in alignment and ready to go.

Absolutely. Sometimes when I'm really rushy, it'll even be me sitting in my computer chair before I click anything on the computer. And I have three minutes until my next call. And it's just like me saying ohms or breathing or. It doesn't really matter the length. It's about the quality of the connection. So if you're a mama and you got kids screaming and chasing you, like, lock the door when you pee and just take a beat in there for five breaths.

Five breaths, right.

Whatever you can do. It's more the act of committing to yourself that is so profound. It's not necessarily the time invested.

I completely agree. Two of the things I always share with people when they're like, I don't have time, I'm like, look, these are two of the things that I do when. When I don't, quote, unquote, don't have time. And I also think it's also a choice of whether or not we're making time on certain things and being okay with that choice. Like, a new mom might not have the same time to allocate towards fitness, but, like, recognizing they're committing to this experience of motherhood.

Right.

And so not beating ourselves up because we can't always do everything. But for me, it's showering and driving in the car. So those are two times where if I have space throughout the day, maybe I'm listening to a podcast in the shower. Maybe I'm thinking of my to do list. Maybe I'm, I don't know, multitasking in my brain. If I have no other space in my day, you better believe that shower is silent. And I'm repeating to myself, like, this is my me time. This is my me time. Because we can't. Like, sometimes we just have to create it in the chaos, you know?

Absolutely. And for the people who always feel like they don't have enough time, I would really investigate how you speak about your time. So that's one of my. My blind spots is I can always feel stretched. It does not matter what is in the day. I can feel stretched. And I have to always be investigating and going and setting the intention in the beginning of the day. I'm not going to speak like that. I'm not going to think like that. I'm going to take up as much space as I can in every moment that I can. And what actually happens is I feel like I stretch time throughout the day. Like, I feel like I get more time and I get more stuff done because I'm not just constantly saying I don't have enough time. Everything flies by. I need more hours.

I love that. So can you give, like, an example when you say, I'm not going to speak like that, of what that might be and how you would flip that? Yes.

So this is full transparency. This is something I say all the time. I'll say, well, I'm super busy. Well, I'm so stretched thin. Well, I have so much on my plate saying that stuff unless I'm then gonna go do something about it.

Right?

Like, I'm gonna hold a meeting with my boss and say, let's actually do something productive and get some things off my plate. What is the point of saying those things all the time? It just makes me feel shitty, makes me feel rushy, makes me feel anxious. And then again, that means now I'm in LAC Village, I'm not gonna get any creativity, innovation, positivity from that space. So instead I choose to say, like, well, I don't say someone wants to pick my brain instead of saying, I'm super busy right now. I don't have time. I would instead just be really intentional and say, I'm being super intentional with my time right now. I just started a new job. We'll connect when I have more space. Like, it's just around finding intentionality, around what we speak. Or it's like not even saying it anymore.

Like, I just don't.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, how often do we complain just as a really cheap connection point?

Mm, let's just don't do that anymore. 100% it is. I think gossip and negativity are things that people latch onto for ways of connecting because they're seeking connection and it's a way that they've seen connection happen. Right. It's what we're taught in the media. Right. Everything is catastrophe and, you know, exaggerating and finger pointing and scrutiny. Like, that's what sells. And so people think that that's a way of getting connection, but the flip side, it drains them. And so you might have a lot more energy and a lot more quote, unquote, time, which is really just an energy source.

Right.

If we were much more, you know, as you always say, like, have integrity with your energy.

Right.

If you're making sure you're not using in a way that's draining you.

Absolutely. Yeah. Don't limit my communication with the people that I love just because on paper, I have a lot to do.

Right.

Notice I didn't say because I'm super busy, but if I'm going to use that time to communicate, I'm just more intentional.

Yes.

And it makes everybody feel so much more loved and nourished.

Right.

So my partner, he can understandably feel like I'm working too much sometimes. And if I were, my communication with him was just me bitching and complaining about things. He's not going to feel ever fulfilled.

Right.

Whereas when he comes home, we're just really intentional with our time spent together, because that one hour of intentionality could feel like a whole weekend.

I love that. And speaking of partner, by the way, congratulations.

Thank you.

You're engaged. I am. When is the wedding?

Thank you. It's in October. Coming up quick.

All right, so just a couple of questions that I would love to wrap up with. A couple of questions, and you hit on something super juicy that I see as really a universal challenge. It doesn't matter age, it doesn't matter gender. It doesn't matter lifestyle. This is a really universal challenge. And we could spend an entire series of, like, we could have a podcast on it. So no pressure, but in a really abbreviated version, you talked about boundaries and the expectation of, you know, the work, your new company, for you to kind of set your own boundaries and kind of how the ways in which you're creating boundaries around your own space and your own time. And I see boundaries as a major area of struggle for so many in terms of feeling like they can set and create their own and also having the expectation of other people to do it for them. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah. So I feel like it's easier to understand when we use it from an energetic point of view.

Right.

So while we're still building our musculature, while we're still building our awareness around being in Abundance Land, because in Abundance Land, we can handle most things.

Right.

If we're in Abundance Land and we come across somebody who's in a really stinky mood, it doesn't really bother us at all because we're so saturated with our own joy, with our own centeredness. So where it gets kind of hairy is when we don't own our own energy, and we just kind of ebb and flow with everybody that we meet. So it's like I bump into Barbara at the bank. She's in an awful mood, and I take on Barbara's energy, and now I'm in an awful mood, and then I see Carlos at the coffee shop. And Carlos is really sad and he tells me a sad story, and now I'm in an awful mood and I'm really sad. So that would be an example of me not claiming my energy and finding awareness around where I am. I'm just kind of be bopping around and taking everybody else's. So in the beginning, it makes actual sense to be really intentional about who you surround yourself with. So if you know that there are people who do drain your energy, who are habitually in LAC village, who are habitually angry or complainers, it is okay for you to create some space while you're building your musculature to understand what your boundaries are, or else you'll never know what your boundaries are.

Right.

I love that once you build that musculature now, you can start introducing it in doses.

Right.

Like, I know I have about a 45 minute threshold with some people, and I have that awareness because I understand my own musculature around energy now. So I know after about 45 minutes, I got to get out of there. I cannot hang out with them any longer than that. And so I just offer activities that only last for 45 minutes.

Yes, yes. And again, having that awareness, though, I think you're spot on and like, just starting to think about where people. Where you're feeling drained and where you're feeling filled up and leaning into that more.

Yeah, most people just don't even stop to acknowledge it or think about it because we're never taught that. So we just think that the world tells us how to feel. We're really, we're deciding how to feel based on our thoughts all the time. We just haven't learned how to find awareness around those thoughts. So if you're, if you're really thinking about how you want to creep closer to a tribe of people, a life, a bank account, a partner that is all Abundance, land. The first step is one willingness to be able to look closely, which sometimes.

That'S the hardest part, right?

Absolutely.

All been in a bad mood before and we're like, ugh, I know that if I just got over being pissed at this person, that I could feel better, but it kind of feels good to be upset right now. That willingness takes a lot of effort. But if you're just willing to go, okay, I'm willing to feel better saying it, setting the intention. Now you've given yourself space to. Space to actually shift. And then the next step is awareness. Okay, what am I actually feeling? Is this anger? Is this sadness? Is this Habitual. Is this real? What is this? Once I know what it is now I know how I can change the shape of it. And then the third step would be making an empowered choice. And sometimes that empowered choice is I need to just have a really good cry right now. I need to let this sadness move through me. Sometimes the empowered choice is, no, you know what? This is just an old habit that I need to break.

So.

So I'm going to go for a run or I'm going to call a friend, or I'm going to watch a really funny cat video on YouTube and laugh it out.

I love that. Yes. Thank you. And I think that's going to be so helpful for so many people listening and honestly, to keep practicing that continually, over and over until it becomes more natural.

Right.

And intuitive rather than something that's almost a little bit laborious at first, but it's possible.

Absolutely.

Okay, so last question. We started with talking about, you know, not having the most linear path. And it's funny, you know, a lot of people say to me, well, you know, some coaching now. And I do a lot of speaking and writing and, you know, I've jumped around a bit. But I really believe whether it was what I studied in school or my experience in education, like every experience, and whether it's as motherhood, like every experience has led me to exactly where I'm supposed to be. And, you know, so many women in particular that I work with and support have this understandable, I think, a very real fear of change and difficulty in trusting that those, you know, challenging experiences are for a greater purpose. And I would love if you could kind of share some advice for them.

Yeah. So when we talk about manifestation in energy, we have to realize that we don't manifest bad things.

Right.

When we are in pain, it's just a restriction of love. So let's talk about, like, the biggest, the biggest, scariest thing to talk about, death or sickness.

Right.

So it is actually possible for that grief to coincide with a deep, deep love. If we're not feeling the love, it's just because we're restricting ourselves from feeling it. So you don't need to create anything. You don't need to do anything extra. It's more a process of surrendering. And I truly believe that our intuition never, ever, ever gives up on us. So if you are looking at your life and you're like, this is not what I feel like I'm supposed to be doing. This isn't who I feel like I'm supposed to be. Nothing is Lost at all. Your intuition is still within you. It's always going to be poking and nudging and trying to bring you closer to the that you feel like you are meant to be around, the situations you feel like you're meant to be around, the opportunities that you're meant to be around. You just have to slow down and be willing to listen and then follow that intuitive ping. Trust yourself. Trust that you deserve the beauty, the love that's trying to flow through and follow it.

I love that. Yeah. Building that self trust and again, leaving that space, that room like we talked about. To be able to listen and to hear it instead of just bouncing around.

Right.

Almost drowning out the noise that our intuition is making.

With trauma, with mistakes, with things that we're shameful of. All of those things, if we allow them to be, they can just be feedback. They can just be data that we can mine to make a better empowered choice next time.

Yes. I love that. I love talking all things energy with you. Thank you so much for jumping on here.

Oh my goodness. I love you and the humongous work that you're doing in the world. It is such an honor to be here.

Thank you. And where can people find you? Because if they are not already following you, they have got to start to follow you. Catch up on your podcast. So let them know where's the best spot to find you.

Yes, Come on over on Instagram. My handle is orydubbs T O R Y D O O B S and have a podcast. We publish two episodes a week. So if you want to hear me squawk, there's lots of squawking over there. And it's called an excellent example of being human. And actually it coincides a lot with your messaging in that this human experience doesn't define you. You are absolutely limitless. You just need to learn how to trust yourself more.

Yes. I'm excited to see what continues to transpire for you as you trust yourself and take on new adventures, your professional life and your personal life and look forward to being connected.

Thank you so much.

All right, thank you, Toria. Talk soon.