Cymber Lily Quinn is an expert on guiding women to reclaim and share their life purposes with the world. After reconnecting with her own lost passion for the magic of harp music at the age of 42, she found her own unique ways to weave it into her life. And now she inspires others to do the same, in their own authentic ways.
Cymber Lily Quinn has won awards and recognition for her work in journalism, marketing, copywriting… And harp music.
When her journey of self exploration and development led her to recognize that something was missing, she embarked upon a quest to discover her purpose. At the end of her quest, she discovered the secret had been waiting in her childhood memories.
Now she uses her unique process to guide other women in reclaiming their life purpose and discovering how to express it in their life, so it can be shared with the world.
In this episode we discuss:
Cymber is the host of The Purpose Cafe podcast (www.ThePurposeCafe.com) and the author of the upcoming book 3 Steps to Reclaiming Your Life Purpose and Saving Your Life.
If you are ready to claim your purpose - learn about her special gift to our audience here: https://cymberthecopywriter.wixsite.com/ultimatelife-roadmap/clients
Welcome back. I have to start over. We're just going to burst out into laughter throughout this.
Okay, good. Welcome back. I am so happy to have you with me this week for a fascinating conversation with someone in a career right now you may not have heard of before. That's why I'm so excited to introduce you to Cymber Quinn, Cymber Lily Quinn is an international speaker on the topic of reclaiming and sharing life purpose. She's a creator of a supportive new course the ultimate life purpose roadmap and author of the upcoming book three steps to reclaiming your life purpose and saving your life. She is an expert on guiding women to reclaim and share their life purpose with the world symbol returned to her purpose at age 42, and is now a master teacher and an award-winning professional harpist who has been featured on National Public Radio and Hawaii Public Radio. Simba is also a certified perfect customers coach and the creator of the purpose cafe international podcast of women who are living their purpose in a big way simpler. Thank you so much for making time to join me today.
Oh, thank you, Susie, I'm so happy to be here.
I love having the conversation about people who took a little while to come right around to their life purpose, because my path has certainly been anything but linear. I like to think it was concentric circles. And it all informs where I am now. So rather than being hard on ourselves, I think it really is beneficial to kind of get that perspective and see the benefits of taking what might have been a winding path. So I'd love to know a little bit more about yours. What were you doing until that epiphany when heart came back to your life.
That's such a great story Susie, I'm I love telling it. So I started out in a musical family as a kid, my parents were singers, my brother and sister are as adults, both professional musicians. And I just I suffered from what a lot of musicians suffer from which is the not good enough syndrome. And I didn't feel like I could compete. Everybody was so glad everybody in the family was so good. So I decided to leave and go into business. And I became a first a journalist, and then a marketing copywriter. And I did that for 27 years. And I loved it. And if I hadn't had some health issues that redirected my life, I might still be there. I liked the camaraderie I liked the work that I was doing. But in my late 30s, I was struggling with endometriosis, which is a very difficult reproductive disease. And while I had tried all kinds of things to preserve my life in the business world and take care of my health, ultimately, the body worn out on that one. And I needed to leave corporate life and and I was fortunate at the time to be with someone who was financially able to carry me a little while while I while I worked on this. But I went through a whole journey, changing my diet and changing my exercise and letting go of dreams that I had that I thought oh, I know as a journalist, as a writer, I'm ultimately I'm going to end up back and get a Master's or PhD and teach history to college or something, you know, along those lines. And none of that I just watched all those dreams, take a left turn at Albuquerque and go somewhere else. Well, I was figuring out what I was doing. So the aha moment came when, when I was 42, I would been working with a Reiki Master and an energy worker at that time, trying to get to some of the deeper issues that just seem to keep eluding me, like what is really going on here. What am I supposed to be doing? What is my purpose? So she said to me one day, she said, You need to go back into your childhood, and she used a rather strong language with me. And she said, You need to go find that piece of yourself that you sliced off in order to move forward in your life. And I've just told you what that was, but I didn't know what it was at the time. And so I walked around in my life with a question mark in my heart. And a question mark in my in my third eye and I just kind of took the Dr. Seuss approach and said, Are you my purpose? Are you my purpose? Are you my purpose? I just walked around in my wife and I said what are you my purpose? And so 14 years ago, a 14 and a half years ago now almost 15 years ago I opened a Christmas catalog. Holiday Catalog there was a picture of heart. And I had a moment memory of being a little kid and meeting the the principal harvest of the Denver symphony orchestra in person. And when I met her, I knew that's what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to be a part, I was six. I have had the opportunity since then, to thank this woman for sending me on this journey. But the first thing she said to me when I was six was you have to learn piano first. And I thought, Oh, no, I'm six, I'm busy. I don't know, if things need to happen. Now. I'm 60, right? But I did, I learned piano not very well. And in the process, I had the great spiritual forgetting. Which happens a lot. And till I learned to play piano, and I sang, and I played a lot of other instruments, because as I said, I grew up in a musical family and a musical community. And then here I am now age 42. Having this whole memory, the whole thing came back whole cloth that I'd like. That's it. It was so visceral. It was as though I place my hand on a car reading car engine. And I could feel the electricity, the vibration, the like, there was no question. I, I never turned back. I never looked back after that. Not everybody has that kind of epiphany moment, but I did. And then it became a process of how do I make that childhood dream into an adult version, an adult reality. This is part of what I teach in my programs, is how do you make an adult version of that kid dream? Well, I ordered a harp on Amazon. I highly do not recommend that harp to my students now.
But how I did it is that is what I did. And then, because I was living in Hawaii at the time, there were no harp teachers nearby. So I learned by Skype. Zoom didn't exist yet. And I showed up for my lesson every week for three years. And I played like I was like, I was three years behind. I got caught up with myself. And I thought, This is my purpose. This is to bring First of all, for me personally, to heal myself to sit at this gorgeous instrument. And to just absorb those vibrations directly into my body because it's resting on my body as I'm, as I'm playing. But also then emanating that out that healing energy, I became a Reiki Master in the process of doing all this working with that Reiki Master as well. And so my music is not just beautiful heart music, but I'm also infusing it with, with these healing energies for people. So that's kind of like that's how I got to play the harp. And then there's like, the next 10 years where I became a teacher, and then big. And then as I started to play more concerts, and I tell the story, women particularly would come to me after the concert and say, How do I do that? How do I find my purpose? How do I, you know, I might not want to be a harpist, but I, I feel a little lost right now. And so I started thinking, Well, what process did I actually go through, excuse me, and kind of narrowed it down to three, kind of three big steps, but they're doable. There are three big doable steps.
I love that. And I love that full circle of once you were in this space, and being visible, playing and bringing your music into the world that you were drawing people, you know that magnetism exists, just like when you were six, and you had that opportunity to meet that harvest. Now people were drawn to you to say, How can I get this, whether it was the heart, or just being in that joy of feeling expressed, and in the right place, so powerful, and I think so many people are missing out on that. And I love what you said too, about the great forgetting. You know, we get these insights, these light bulb moments and maybe life is busy and it's hard for them to sink in or life happens and that just gets overwritten So you know that that coming back in the pages of a catalogue, it's just perfect the way the story unfolds. I love it all together.
Thank you.
So was that then when women were coming to you and saying, right asking you these kinds of questions that really are about coming back? How do they find their purpose is that the point at which you started recognizing, like, maybe coaching or that kind of support is necessary? Or was that kind of coming along in tandem with with learning Reiki because as a Reiki Master myself, I know that in my process of understanding and growing in that space, you just start to see more situations that deserve attention and solutions and love and light, right? You just keep wanting to, like, bring solutions to where you see issues. And so how did that kind of come together for you?
That's, that's a really interesting question it came across came along organically. Because I, I just kept getting the same question, how do I do this? How do I not how do I become a harpist and get out and play and stuff like that? But how do I step into my own purpose? And so I really had to instill do reflect on what were the steps that I took, what were the what was the support that I got along the way. And so for me, it kind of as I said, it came down to three steps, the first step is to look back and childhood, to a time before the world told you, you know, it's such a joyful time, maybe you're four, maybe you're five, but you know, before people start imposing real, you know, societal, the great, the elements of the great forgetting. So that's where I went. And that's where I send people first. And the first thing that happens when they think about it is they get this huge smile on their face, and all of their pretense drops. Because that's who you are when you're four, or three, or four or five, somewhere, somewhere in that neighborhood. So then the second step of the, that I followed for myself, which is to make an adult version of this. So when I met the principal harpist of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, it was at her home in her basement, she let me touch all of her harps, and then gate and delivered the terrible news that I had to play piano first. But I did it. And I knew that as an adult, after I had, you know, been lost and gone, other directions, and, and all of that, that, one of the things I did need to do was I needed to learn playing piano better. And so that I started with piano lessons, even before I started with harp lessons. And this is what I also encourage my, my clients to do is what is the adult version going to look like, of this dream of yours, that you have from from before. And then the third step is share it with the world. And that can be it can be start small, in my case, you know, like just playing for senior homes, cows concerts that gradually grew to where I was playing bigger theaters, and playing and interacting with other musicians, musicians and theatre people. And I don't think that I ever imagined that that was going to end up being part of what I did. But it just sort of happened organically. So when I started coaching other people, I'll talk about my 86 year old financial planner client, because she's awesome. She says, I love this idea. I love these three steps. Okay, so she says, So tell me, what is my purpose? And I said, All right, Joan, what did you love to do when you were four years old, she got the big grin on her face. And she said, I was teaching my neighbor kids how to read. She said, I learned to read very early. So I was teaching the other kids how to earn how to read. And I said, Well, that sounds like you're a teacher. And she said that I'm a financial planner. And I said, like you're teaching financial planning. Oh, And oh, by the way, and I've known her for a long time, she also speaks, speaks regularly at church, and she mentors other women. And she just hadn't quite focused the lens, quite to see that all of that was teaching, and that all of that had been following her as a thread or a rope or a cable through her life until now she's 86 and she's a financial planner and still going strong. I it's and so I think that it's really important for women to connect with that purpose and to connect with that early part of themselves. Who, who were you back then? What do you love to do back then? You know, when I look back at my own time, I mean, six is kind of the age when the world starts to impose a little bit so it like that you must have piano lessons as an imposition on on me. But even earlier than that, when I look back, I was always singing. And the other thing I was always doing was I was outside, all the time loved being outside on the prairie in the wind. And I've been thinking about that lately, because I've been focused a lot on my own story and the music aspect of it. But there is another important piece of that in my childhood, where I love listening to the wind. So this is now I'm feeling this is another piece of my purpose, and I'm not exactly sure what it is. So I'm being open with the question of, well, what what part of my purpose is this, what part of my purpose is that, and this, this is what I encourage women and men to, but ask the questions, and then be open to something that feels so fantastic. Like biting into a fresh peach or, or, you know, a delicious ice cream cone or something, your purpose is going to feel like that. And if it doesn't, it's not your purpose that I'm really clear on purposes are not annoying. They they do not have the weight, oh, should you should do this. It's joyful. It's like you can't wait to go and do this. And then we work on, we work on blocks, and we work on you know what our next steps in the in the coaching program. And then my you know, my favorite part is when we get to the point where like, they're ready to take it out into the world. And now we start connecting, like, Is it going to turn into a business? Is it going to turn into a nonprofit? Is it going to turn into a volunteer thing that you lead, that everybody's purpose is taking them, you know, in a different slightly different direction, but I that's part excites me, because now they get to be seen.
Yeah, and appreciate it,
I appreciate it. And because if you've done that the other work where you're connected with your, your kids self, you've made an adult version, when you step out into the big world, you know, the imposter syndrome is way less likely to happen. If it does, it's a tiny, teeny little imposter. Because the power of that purpose is so much bigger. It's it's so much bigger than that teeny little imposter voice.
I love the unfolding of the whole process, and how it starts off. So deceptively simple as going back to that time and remembering what lit us up. Right and, and making space for that curiosity. Because we get so busy, we show it on ourselves. That's an important thing to recognize and start to try to turn down the volume on those shoulds. And we think if we haven't come up with an answer, then we'll just go with what we've got, you know, or we don't know we don't give ourselves the credit for making that space to explore and let the answers come to us. And and one of the little workaround secrets that I love the first time I heard someone offer this, I was like, Oh, you know when you're contemplating you're trying to land on something and really check in with yourself. And you know, you're asked to what would the answer to this question be? Or, you know, look inside this box? What is in this box? You're like, I don't know? And then follow that up with? Well, if you knew the answer, what would it be? And just that sneaky little workaround sometimes lets that answer just spring right up? Oh, well, if I knew the answer, it would be this. Because we get in this habit of editing ourselves. And it starts just like you said around six because we start to be edited and then we start to try to conform to what is acceptable or what is accepted, you know, acceptable or expected. And, and it spirals from there.
Right? Oh, it's Yeah, and then you go to school and and all the social training and all of that stuff. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, so making space for creativity. I think that's so important. And I love that as you as you describe your you know, your doctors Dr. Seuss process of are you my purpose, you know, we we get so hard on ourselves, like we have to have an answer right away. So making that space is so powerful. And I think that this age where this redefinition happens, I made a hard shift at 40. Also. You know, it's like suddenly Well, we've been working along we've been steaming along we've been making some progress and maybe getting some act For the work that we're doing, but it's just not resonating. So how can we get back to what resonates? I think that's a powerful time to give ourselves that permission.
Yeah, I agree. And when you're talking about making the space, I think in our culture, our culture doesn't really recognize space as something. It's a we're always filling the space. And this is a, this is a journalist trick, by the way, you ask a question, and then you stop talking. And then most people will fill the space with something, because they're not used to it being quiet. And I think this is when when women are looking for their purpose, or they're exploring their purpose or this wonderful question that I you know, if you knew the answer, what would it be to, also to give the space for that answer to emerge. It can't get you know, if if everything in your life is so tightly packed, like bricks, or books or whatever, there's not a space, well, maybe one sheet of paper is going to get in there. And maybe that's all you're going to, you know, if you think you build start building from there, but this I, in music, I think of this idea of making space as listening. Go to a concert hall, it is a big, empty space that is meant for listening. And I think if I could, you know, give people one message out of this is to create your own concert hall inside your heart. Go sit in the front row. And listen, when you ask that question, what what is next for me, and the conductor is you the conductor may turn around and explain to you and how it is, this is what's going to happen. But one of my, one of my teachers taught me to when I'm learning a song, get the original version, go back to the beginning, and then sit down and listen set aside 30 minutes, or 33 00, she says, actually an hour, but I know you won't do an hour, so 30. And listen to this song, back to back over and over for 30 minutes without commentary, without getting up without making notes without anything. And just practice listening. So for so many of us, we art, we never stop talking because there's our culture. And if we can, if you can practice, I just I'm making this up right now. You could just you could practice listening, by picking a song that you love or piece of music that you love, and put it on back to back for 30 minutes. And then go out and then turn it on and then turn it off and say alright, what did I just hear? Because if you go back, you know, if you you're I know you're a theater person have a theater background. If you go back and listen to it again, you're going to hear something different. And the third time you're going to hear something deeper. Maybe the next time you hear something more, and this is true in your own life purpose. So when I first opened that catalog, okay, I heard one thing, Dad on your upon us.
Sounds like an alarm bell. Oh, no, we're late. late, late for a very important date. So I but then as I've gone back and looked again and again and again, at what the harp itself means, where it came from, what the stories are, what is the harps purpose, my harps are all living beings. And they all have their have their own purposes. And each time it's like you're talking about earlier on Susie saying that we're spiraling around these topics, we come back to them, and we revisit them in a deeper way. And that's true of purpose as well, that okay, your first inkling is the end, this is what I teach is, the first inkling is okay, that early childhood thing. What's the next turn around the circle of that? What's the next turn of the circle around that? What's as you age, as you gain experience as you meet other people as you share your purpose and share your vision. It continues to evolve and grow and then it gets to that point where you cannot hold it to yourself anymore. And you have to tell somebody, you have to tell lots of somebodies and that's the purpose getting out into the getting out of it. Sometimes it leaks out first, then it gets out in a big way.
It starts to make its own path. At times. You're ready, we're ready. Let's go
I I think that's a really important piece of it too that hearing that internal voice or voices it's okay to have multiple like multiple voices going on talking to each other in my head Yeah, we're ready let's go and the purpose voice the purpose is like yeah, I've been with you since the beginning. Gotta catch the more recent parts of you up to speed on what we're doing here.
Oh, I'm glad you're all on board. I definitely speak to an inner committee as well
yes, I was just reading the New York Times article about the importance of the inner committee I'll look for that one. Yeah, that there is some value in speaking having your committee speak about you. It because it moves you out of the spotlight just for a little bit and then you're the observer position you know the Buddhists call the observer position or your
yes which is so helpful I come back to that a lot in talking about how we can start to understand or unravel the stress how it lands on us right? Because when we're under the tide, we can't see it but when we can get curious bring in that committee then we can get a little perspective
sometimes they're you're underwater, but they've got a boat so they can see what's going on.
So I and I love you know, along those lines and where our emotions and when we're not in resonance with our purpose, we'll just rock all the musical analogies we can how how does that add up to impact us? Or how do we become more resilient when we are aligned with our purpose?
Oh, it's kind of two different questions. Yeah, sorry,
choose their favorite one.
I'll answer them both. But I'll start with what happens when you're not in alignment. And in its I can't this isn't maybe a driving analogy where you kind of drift out of your lane just a little bit you don't go careening necessarily across all six lanes of taking everybody out with you. But you've just drifted a little bit so it's a course correction and that's when it's really helpful to be able to go back to that four year old version of yourself and say, Okay, what was I doing again? Oh, right. Okay, so for me the how that has manifested is I of course I love to try all kinds of new things. Oh, that looks like fun, bright shiny object itis is definitely something I have going on. And I've gone down this path and tried that and tried gone down that path so when COVID hit and all of the performance opportunities dried up I thought I had several friends who are insurance agents were like you're gonna love this and so I've dipped my toe into being an insurance agent and oh my gosh, did I feel out of alignment I mean as a business person I could probably here's here are things to be on the lookout for that are not in alignment. So as a business person I probably could have made it work that's a phrase I could have made it work or I should be able to make this work or make it work is like the kiss of death to the purpose make it work I'm doing it for my friends. They said it's a good idea that kind of thing. So yeah, there were still friends but they I pretty quickly understood that was not not going to be my path and then I was reminded of a technique that I use with myself and with my clients which is to look in your calendar and see what it is that you regularly already show up for. What is it that gets cancelled? And what do you show up for and so for me I can always make it to a heart thing always doesn't matter I can always make it to a heart thing and so I follow these guys around like Pied Piper. And when I drift away from it feels back to the driving analogy. You know if you've ever been driving on a dark country road and drifted off to the right a little bit he goes okay, feels a little bit like that inside like everything's vibrating but not in a good way like Hey, wake up, wake up. You've drifted off the road a little bit. And it's a little scary, though, I will say. But the some of the other committee members like but that's a safe path. You go kids hips insurance. Everybody needs insurance, right? Yeah, everybody needs insurance. The harps are like, stop. Follow us. There's a hole. So I left insurance. But I'm glad that I did go down that path. I want to say that to your list. sinners that every path you go down teaches you something. And I learned, as I said, I'm not an insurance agent. But I also learned a ton about insurance that I didn't know, which makes me a smarter shopper and a better and a better understanding of what I need and in the insurance world and you know, much more sympathetic to my friends who are doing this work because it is hard work. And it's involves a lot dealing with a lot of people's issues. And so I feel that insurance agents who do this work for their life our and our angels in disguise
might need some healing harp music.
Oh, they definitely need healing Harvey's, like healing heart music, and I bless them, because they're amazing people to do this incredibly difficult work. So that's one. So that's the answer to one question is like, what happens when you when you drift off? And then what it was is what was the second question you asked?
How does being in alignment with our purpose help us to be more resilient?
Oh, that's also an outstanding question. So let's talk about resilience first. So resilience is inner strength, and the ability to make continue to make choices for yourself in really difficult or awkward situations. So to be able to do that, you have to be able to know where north is in your inside yourself, you have to know where your center pole is your and again, this is back to the purpose. So then, when you're in your purpose, I think that you can can this is a cumulative thing, that as you practice your purpose, you become more resilient at it. And I saw a wonderful quote, go by on Facebook a couple of days ago that said, have so many opportunities going on, that anyone know is not going to ruin your day. So being in your purpose means that you can selectively choose a lot of choices. And if they don't work out, so like bubble, wrap, a couple of them pop, they don't work out, the rest of the bubbles are there to to hold your this delicate, fragile, wonderful thing that is you. And yeah, then as you continue it to your purpose, one of my friends said, life is like a video game, which is great for kids. So as you advance in levels, you also advance the knowledge and skills and tools. And so as you're moving through your purpose in life, you're going to, if you're if you're actively living in your purpose, you're naturally going to grow more into bigger versions of this purpose. And you'll have the resilience to do it to continue to make good choices in the face of some bigger opportunities. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's really powerful that as we continue to move along our path, more opportunities are going to find us at the point at which we have more skills and resilience to and that wisdom to say, yes, this is aligned, or we'll try that and we'll let that fall away. And continue to refine our course and maybe deepen the groove, right, really, really lean into we are on the right path.
Right and then, so when you're deepening the groove, I like that image. So when you get, you know, at the root of the group, it's it's quite deep, but as you branch out, it, you know, the groups get smaller and narrower, like, like, like, like a tree. And, and you keep choosing some of those branches and keep following and deepening that group. But each one wasn't what I started to say was that the it's kind of like when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Yes, it's caught. It's kind of like when the student is ready, the purpose appears, or when the when the person is ready, the purpose gets bigger. Hmm. And that's what happened to me. So when I first started, I thought my purpose is to be a harpist and play healing music for people that's pretty noble and a big, it's a big job. And then as I became it became clear that I needed to teach I thought, Oh, well, it's okay. Yes, of course, I'm supposed to play heart but I'm actually supposed to be teaching harp. And then that grew from teaching heart to teaching purpose, and who knows What it's going to be, you know where it's growing and going next. But the fascinating thing is, for me just in the last few months, as, as I'm launching my own podcast and talking with you, I'm finding that I'm actually spending more time with the harps composing. And playing as I was originally playing, when I was, you know, 14 years ago, when I and so in a way I am now spiraling back to I'm a harpist. My purpose is to play healing music for people, but now I've got much bigger stages. And that doesn't mean abandon the other purposes. They're not they're all interwoven together. And they need to be because people need to see me living my purpose in my concerts, and then they need to work with me to develop their own. And you know what, I'm totally happy to be living as an example of how I'm doing it, and then invite anybody who's watching me or participating with me to leverage heavily? Or is because I would say steal, you know, ideas that are that seemed useful and helpful to them. Let's all go. Let's all go together. Let's all rise up together.
Yeah, let's let those let's let's let those ideas, spark more ideas and get that kind of upward trend of upward trend of energy.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it doesn't. So I will say that it's now been almost 15 years. I didn't start this way, all organized and shiny like I am now. And I just want to remind your listeners that life is like a painting. Life is like art, or like the sculpture. So I want to tell sculpture story. So when I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, I was friends with a woman named Holly young. And I highly recommend that if you're into bronze sculpture, larger than life size, bronze sculpture, and checkout Holly on her stuff is beautiful. She's done. The Queen of Hawaii, she did a whole series of monks for a place on Collider. And I have said, I want to watch you work. I this sounds so cool. I'm a musician. I'm not a sculptor, how does this work? So she brought me over to her house, she was doing a little ballerina. So she made a little tiny version that she was that she had first word from. And now she was making the larger than life size version, out of paper, vishay and chicken wire. And eventually this was going to be covered with wax and eventually turned into a bronze. But I came over at the chicken wire point. And I looked at it and I thought that doesn't look anything like sculpture at all, are you sure and he explained to me is that every art has the confusing middle step. Or she called it the ugly middle step where the, the structure of the being needs to be built. But it's not beautiful, it's structural. And most people stop there because they can't imagine what the end result is going to look like. And it's the artist who says, Okay, I know, this is the ugly middle part, I have to do this, we have to get through this in order to get to the final piece. And so later she finished the piece and you know, it all came together beautifully. But for me the the message there is that life is full of ugly metal parts. And if we can recognize that that's what's happening. That it's not a failure. It's not a falling apart of it's a structural realignment of paper machine and chicken wire. And so okay, you put on a smock, and you get a little messy. But understanding that that's the that is the juice. That is that, you know, so working with my clients, you know, we hit those ugly metal parts. And I'm like, they're like, we're here. This is where we are. We're here. And we're in the right place. And it's okay. Let's keep going. And so it's very cool.
Yeah, as the coach, you get to be the artist that holds that vision. When they're so close to it, they can't see it. They're like, Oh, I remember the vision. This doesn't look like it, I'm not really sure I'm going to bring up all those doubts and shorts and everything else and maybe the voices of the parents or the teachers, right, but the inner critic part of the committee, they're all on the committee. And you can hold that vision and say trust the process. It's unfolding, it needs more space. Right and I wanted to come back to what you were talking about in this space because we feel Like in order to do more, or to be more, we have to fill up all of this space until you can't get a piece of paper and write. And when we allow there to be space, that's when the ideas the divine spark can drop in and say, What about this? And then there's a whole new path, right? But if we don't allow space, because we feel like we should be doing more, we should be reaching these goals, you know, working for this promotion, satisfying that checkbox over there. There's no space for that to come in until we reach a point where we're like, there's got to be more. What else is there? How do I make space?
How do I Susie, if you and I just all we did was teach people how to make space? A lot of this would would fix itself on its own right? Yeah. Yeah. declutter. I love Marie Kondo declutter your life. declutter your mind.
Mm hmm. They're very closely related, when it is when it is a mess inside your environment becomes a mess, I've got a great friend who is a decluttering expert, and it comes from that she's very much about the inner work. Mm hmm.
It's, it's so true. So yeah, finding that so in my world, it's Sonic space. So you know, making music that allows people to have that space, some sometimes that making that space, that empty space is just intolerably empty. And so what I did do with music is create a sonic space where they can at least have some space that's being held by the music. And then of course, when you and I are coaching with our clients, we hold that space for them in the moment when we're with them.
And I was thinking about that, and as well, you know, we like to say things like holding space. It's exactly that. Because the the reflex is to, when more in doubt, try to fill it, fill that space in, instead of allowing the right thing to come along and have that room to grow.
Yeah, it's so true that there's a wonderful Buddhist saying that says, when you don't know what to do, do nothing. And more will be revealed. Because doing nothing is still doing something. And I remind my students of that I said, listening is something listening is not nothing, listening to something. And creating that space is something. And if we can it, we're all doers in this culture in this Western culture. So if we can convince people that they need to do space, make it into something they can action item, make space.
If you need a tick box for that, we can give you one, put it on your list. Make space? Yeah. Well, yeah. And I really appreciate to I want to make sure people let this trickle in. When we're talking about purpose. It's not, Oh, now I have to give up the work that I was doing and make a complete shift and do something completely different part of your process of unraveling This is. Now how does this fit in? Is it your new career? Is it a volunteer endeavor? Is it a nonprofit? Is it a collaboration, right? That's all part of the unfolding, too. I think that there's this image or pressure that in order to be in our purpose, your career, your mission, your full attention has to be in that and I think we can find balance, like,
totally agree. So my story is kind of like a, you know, left turn, switched on, you know, bright away kind of thing. But one of my other clients is quite happy with her day job. And as we went through this exercise of what did you love to do when you were a kid, she said, I love I used to love to throw tea parties, for my friends. And all of a sudden she said, I'm, oh, I'm an organizer. Oh, I'm, I'm a, I'm a collaborator. I'm a pollinator, I'm a, she says, I already do that at work in my job. And, and I do that in my volunteer work in the evenings and the weekends. So for her, there was actually no change in what she was doing. But a huge change in the outlook that she had towards what she was doing. Suddenly, what she was doing became much more purposeful and much more rewarding. And this was a This was also a friend of mine who've been looking for a purpose and looking for a purpose and very frustrated with like trying to find a job. There's the purpose gets wrapped up with job a lot. And so she was going to recruiters and recruiters will say, What do you like to do? And she said everything. And they were not happy with that answer. And then she heard a podcast very similar to yours. One time that described people like her as butterflies, pollinator pollinators, that their purpose is to try multiple purposes, and to tell other people about it and connect them to each other. And so yeah, you can have they suddenly find out Oh, I am living my purpose, which is usually what most people find out. It's they're already living their purpose in some form or fashion. But now we can be more intentional and start to gradually make these changes and shifts so that more spaces available for the purpose, then was their forte before they can clear off the whole table.
perspective is everything. intention is everything. It's and that's right. We We also then get caught up in that, oh, my purpose has to look like this. I have to feel like this. If I'm pursuing my purpose. Like it can be as simple as it's already there. You just didn't recognize it yet. Mm hmm. I love that.
Yeah, I love that too. That's my first love. And then the light bulb goes on. That's my favorite moment as a teacher.
When the client goes, I get it. Like
pliers of angels. They have to spa all that stuff.
Exactly, exactly. I love that part. Now let's find out if we need an ugly middle step. Right? Maybe we don't.
Yeah, and so once you recognize what that is that it's neither ugly, or you know, or painful. It's like, oh, here we are. No, check.
It's all it's all part of it. Was there anything else? We could obviously continue this all day? Is there anything else that you want to share? As we're exploring these? This whole topic of purpose and passion?
Wow. I encourage your listeners to do it. Get out there, you know, put on your Dr. Seuss hat go with the heart? Or your why purpose? Are you my purpose or you my purpose? Be on the lookout for perhaps there's an ugly middle phase that you're going through or perhaps that we're all going through during COVID. And coming out of COVID coming out of this lovely middle phase into a world that we don't really know yet what's going to happen. So being open hearted, and being an going into your life with these questions, I think is gonna make the transition into all of our new purpose together a bit easier.
I love that it has been, you know, perspective is everything. And we could be frustrated with everything we feel was derailed or put on pause or taken away. However, if we look for the opportunity and say within this space, what would I now like to create? Right? We can define a new normal for ourselves. I think that's very empowering.
very new, make a new space. I love that. I love that defining the space right? to space.
Yeah, I like it. And so you are very kindly offering our audience an opportunity to connect with you.
Yes, I am. So I have a few sessions open up a free 45 minute session to talk about your purpose. We'll go through the three steps, which is to go back in time and look at it see if we can you know come up with some brainstorm some ideas for present time version, and brainstorm some ideas for what it might look like in a bigger way out in the world. And we can get that all done in 45 minutes.
Yeah, so don't fall into this trap of Oh, this is big. I don't want to open that can of worms start sneaking up on it. Put on your questioning hat.
That's right. That's right. We're not gonna we're not going to you know, send you out into the world all armed and ready to go in 45 minutes. This is just an initial conversation. Just kind of peek under the lid a little bit. See Yeah, so what's under there? Yeah.
Beautiful simmer. Lily Quinn. I am so grateful to you and your time and the space that you created for us today. Thank you for joining me on the show. It has been a treat.
Thank you Susie. I've just enjoyed talking with you so much. And I really hope that between the two of us we've inspired some people to get out there and look for their purpose and started living.
Yes, I hope so too. It's not as scary as it sounds come on in the water is fine. Thank you So much take good care of yourself. Thank you