EPISODE 275: What a Simple Rock Can Powerfully Teach You About Letting Go

00;00;01;22 - 00;00;27;13
Lisa
Welcome to the Full Frontal Living podcast. I'm Lisa Carpenter, master life coach to driven, ambitious humans who want more out of life without having to sacrifice themselves to achieve it. I'll share how it's possible to slow down. Take better care of yourself. Find more peace and ease. Create sustainable energy. Stop procrastination and overwhelm and fall in love with your life, your business and your body.

00;00;27;16 - 00;00;45;23
Lisa
This podcast is for you if you're ready to learn what it takes to thrive as a high performer, do less, but achieve more. Make you and your well-being a top priority, and create your extraordinary life. I'm so glad you're here.

00;00;45;25 - 00;01;13;26
Lisa
Well, hey. Hey, thanks for joining me for another episode of the Full Frontal Living podcast. And today's episode is a really special episode around letting go. And I'm going to be sharing with you a very personal story in the hopes that it will help you reflect on things in your life that you are carrying around, that you want to let go of and what letting go of things looks like on the other side.

00;01;13;26 - 00;01;36;15
Lisa
Because so often I think that we talk about letting go, like it should just be this easy thing. And it can be. But for most people, it takes time to be ready to let go of things. There's a whole grieving process that needs to go on, because if we're attached to something, in order to let it go requires that we we grieve it.

00;01;36;15 - 00;02;01;13
Lisa
Which means you're going to go through feelings of anger and frustration and maybe denial of these things even happened, or they were part of your life in order to get to a place of acceptance. And you truly can't let go of something until you are ready to fully accept it. And you cannot get to acceptance without going through the grieving process and without, doing some work on forgiveness.

00;02;01;16 - 00;02;28;01
Lisa
So I'm not in any exotic location. Today, I'm back in my office. I'm happy to be here. And, I wanted to share, though, another story from the Camino, that I actually wrote in my journal. Now, I've told this story to some clients because I'm always sharing. When you're behind the scenes. In my world, I'm always sharing kind of the behind behind the scenes of what's going on for me.

00;02;28;01 - 00;03;07;09
Lisa
My my clients get a much more in-depth view. And I do that intentionally because for many of the women that I work with, they are leaders in their own right. They are not super comfortable with vulnerability because they haven't really been taught what that looks like. And for, for any man or woman who is in a position of leadership, it's often incredibly hard to be vulnerable, because you're leading other people, and many of them haven't been in a room before where they've talked about things that they needed to talk about or shared how they're really feeling.

00;03;07;17 - 00;03;34;22
Lisa
So when I show up for my clients and let them see my process behind the scenes, it allows them to more courageously step into having compassion for themselves and talking about the things that are weighing them down. Metaphorically speaking, sometimes it's actually physical weight that, that they're wanting to, to talk about. But in any regards, you know, leadership can be incredibly lonely.

00;03;34;25 - 00;04;04;27
Lisa
And when we have a space where we can talk about what's really going on, for us, it is absolutely transformational. And it actually makes you a more powerful leader. So the more that I show up and share and I'm open and vulnerable with my clients and with you, my listeners, I'm doing it so that you can see that this is possible for you, that the things that are holding you back in your life, or maybe where you're afraid to speak up, that you can start to, or you can find those rooms where you can feel safe enough to be open and vulnerable.

00;04;05;00 - 00;04;28;24
Lisa
So today, I'm going to be telling you the story of my rock. Now I'm holding in my hand a rock. This is not the rock. This is like a pretty gold, sparkly rock. But I am going to be telling you the story of my Camino Rock. And, you know, if you listened to previous episodes, you know, I went to the Camino after having a really challenging 2023.

00;04;28;24 - 00;04;55;21
Lisa
There were lots of things that that happened in my life, that really created a lot of a pain and suffering. And, you know, when things happen in your life that you didn't ask for and they come unexpectedly as this is, this is usually what happens. And it could be, you know, a whole variety of things from losing your job, you know, the death of someone you love.

00;04;55;24 - 00;05;16;03
Lisa
I mean, there's so there's so many different. There's so many different things that can happen. A car accident, an injury, infidelity, like, you name it, you name it, things will happen and they will happen out of the blue and they will knock you off center. And depending on the severity of what has happened, it's going to impact you deeply.

00;05;16;03 - 00;05;48;27
Lisa
Because you are human. You are not a cyborg. We have feelings, we create interpretations, and, you know, we have to make sense of our world. And as a human you cannot avoid pain. So although we also have the capacity to experience great amounts of joy, you actually can't reach the height of of joy and authenticity and love if you're not also willing to go deep into the pain, the sorrow, and the suffering that life is going to hand you sometimes.

00;05;49;00 - 00;06;16;26
Lisa
Otherwise you're just going to stay in this like beige middle. So as much as I don't enjoy grief, and I certainly don't enjoy pain, I do appreciate the gifts that they bring into my life. So I wanted to share with you kind of my journey of letting go of my pain. So in in walking the Camino, in going to Spain, I knew that I did not want to come home.

00;06;16;26 - 00;06;41;12
Lisa
The same person that I went. Now, I did not want to put expectations on myself, that I was going to have this profound spiritual awakening and everything was going to be changed in my life. You know, I knew something would shift for me because I'm just a person that lives from this growth mindset. I'm always looking for opportunities and metaphors in life to help me with my own learning and understanding of things as they're occurring in my world.

00;06;41;14 - 00;07;04;22
Lisa
But, you know, it could have just as easily been a long walk, albeit it was a very wet walk, but I trusted that I would get what I needed. And that was what, was most important. I wanted to let go of the pain that I'd been carrying around, but I didn't know what that would look like for me.

00;07;04;25 - 00;07;28;29
Lisa
And when we get attached to things like our pain, like our suffering, when we hold on to something, it's we're holding on to it because it starts to get embedded in our identity and it starts to become valuable, familiar and safe. So when people say to me, like, Lisa, why would I hold on to this? Like, I don't want to hold on to this thing.

00;07;29;06 - 00;07;59;17
Lisa
It often comes back to the pain that you know is easier than the pain that you don't, and the familiarity and the certainty that comes with what you know is powerful enough for us to stay attached to things, even though it hurts, even though it's holding us back from stepping into our future, we will cling to it with a death grip because we're so terrified of who we will be, or what might happen to us if we let it go.

00;07;59;19 - 00;08;14;07
Lisa
So letting go of whatever you're holding on to is also also means you're going to be letting go of the value that that pain was giving you. So.

00;08;14;09 - 00;08;40;08
Lisa
What happens is, you know, we sit in fear, we hang on to the pain and our past because the uncertainty of the future is just too much. And all I can say, you know, in all honesty, you know, I was so blindsided by what had happened in my life that that uncertainty of what the future held without that pain to protect me was just unbearable.

00;08;40;08 - 00;09;00;06
Lisa
I don't know how else to describe it. It became my pain became the thing that was protecting me. You know? It's like, I don't know if you ever had this experience, but something bad happened to a girlfriend in the past, and then you become, like, a fierce protector, or you're like a mama bear with your kids, and it's like you do everything to try and protect them from that, ever hurting them again.

00;09;00;09 - 00;09;17;13
Lisa
But in the process of trying to protect them, you're actually robbing them of experiencing their future or learning the lessons. And this is what our pain and suffering can do to us. It robs us from actually being able to step into that future. So.

00;09;17;15 - 00;09;38;03
Lisa
While I was walking the Camino, I was aware of, you know, this this thought about like, what is it going to look like for me to, to let this go? And a thought popped into my head while I was on the Camino and I realized, like, man, I don't I don't want this here. I don't want this thought on my experience.

00;09;38;06 - 00;09;53;20
Lisa
This doesn't get to be here. And I don't know if you've ever had that happen to you where you realize, like, you're ruminating over something all the time so it doesn't matter where you are. It could be out for a great night out with your friends, and all of a sudden these thoughts will pop into your head of this thing you're holding onto.

00;09;53;22 - 00;10;14;01
Lisa
Maybe it's hating on your body or something that's gone on with your partner, something that's gone on with your your kids. But it's like, God, I can't even go out and have fun. And now I'm thinking about this thing again that is just so toxic to me. And in that moment when that thought popped into my head, I realized, like, I didn't want this to be part of my experience on the Camino.

00;10;14;04 - 00;10;37;07
Lisa
I did not want these thoughts following me along. I did not want to ruminate on them. I did not want to process them or work through them. I just didn't want them there. Period. And I realized that I was the one that was choosing to let them in and become part of my experience. So in that moment, I picked up two rocks.

00;10;37;10 - 00;10;59;13
Lisa
Two rocks, and both of them represented things that were causing me pain in my life. And along the Camino, there's always markers that mark your way, and people typically will leave things behind on those markers. They might be loved ones or, you know, something they're working through. Everybody on the Camino has a story. And I mean, you don't even have to be on the Camino.

00;10;59;13 - 00;11;17;18
Lisa
I think everybody just has a story in general. So that's what I kind of thought. That's what made me think, like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to pick up these rocks. These rocks are going to represent these two specific pains in my life, and I'm going to carry them until I'm ready to let go of them.

00;11;17;20 - 00;11;29;26
Lisa
So I walked, carrying each rock in my hand, focusing on them and pushing all of my anger, my sadness, my grief, and my memories into each of the rocks.

00;11;29;29 - 00;11;57;03
Lisa
It was almost like I could feel them swelling in my hands. Now. The first rock I know, like I knew with every fiber of my being it needed to go and I needed to be done with it. And the truth is, part of me didn't want to put it down because I know that carrying around, carrying that around, carrying around that specific rock that represented a very specific pain in my life was actually easier for me.

00;11;57;05 - 00;12;23;04
Lisa
It was awful and it was painful, but it was easy. And again, like the the certainty, you know, what was I getting out of that pain? The certainty, like it was like this. But I know this pain and it allowed me to sink into self-pity. And part of it was attached to protection. Like, if I don't hold on to this pain, if I don't hold on to this, I like, what if I get sideswiped again?

00;12;23;07 - 00;12;46;02
Lisa
What if I get hurt again? What if the pain next time is even worse? And there was a part of me that needed that attachment for as long as I did. But ultimately, I made a decision that I needed to put that rock down. And that's when things changed. So as I said, letting go takes as long as it takes.

00;12;46;02 - 00;13;16;22
Lisa
You get to decide when you're ready to put something down. But when you put something down, that's when the work really starts. Because when you choose to let something go, what you're really doing is making a commitment to what you want moving forward. And that commitment in part, is to not go back into the pain. So I knew that if I put down that rock that I was saying to myself, Lisa, no more, no more obtrusive thoughts, we're not going to dwell on this.

00;13;16;22 - 00;13;34;14
Lisa
And I didn't have expectations that I'd never have a thought about it again. That would be unrealistic. But the difference was I wasn't going to let myself go down into the gutter with those thoughts. I was going to say, Lisa, like, we're not doing this anymore. We let this go on the Camino and we are moving forward.

00;13;34;17 - 00;13;57;07
Lisa
So that commitment on the other side of letting go, of not tolerating or allowing my thoughts associated with that pain, that's the work. That was the work. And I knew and letting go that that was the commitment that I was stepping into. So, you know, I had some tears, which sounds really weird because I really wanted to let go of that pain.

00;13;57;07 - 00;14;15;07
Lisa
But, you know, like I said, when you acknowledge what that pain represents and what you're actually putting down and what you're committing to moving forward, it's a it's a big deal. But I did put it down, and I have stayed true to my commitment of not going into that pain. And I'm really, really proud of that. It's been an active practice.

00;14;15;07 - 00;14;39;11
Lisa
When I make a commitment to something, I don't half ass it. To me, commitment is 100% committed. And then that brings us to the second rock. Though. The second rock was a different story. That rock, that pain. I was really attached to. That rock represented all the pain that I felt and all the pain that I was holding onto.

00;14;39;14 - 00;14;45;03
Lisa
And,

00;14;45;05 - 00;14;54;04
Lisa
There was so much that that specific rock represented.

00;14;54;06 - 00;15;02;12
Lisa
That rock for me represented the past and.

00;15;02;14 - 00;15;25;11
Lisa
As I said, you know, holding on to the past, we often use holding on to the past as a way to protect us from ever getting hurt again in the future, ever feeling that pain again in the future, which, the irony is, is no amount of holding on to the past will protect you from or save you from any future pain.

00;15;25;14 - 00;15;56;09
Lisa
But as I said, it will absolutely prevent you from accessing joy and happiness. You can't create a new future if you are dragging around the pain of the past, because you're going to find yourself constantly living in the past. So knowing all of this and realizing what I gained from my pain.

00;15;56;12 - 00;16;15;21
Lisa
I still couldn't get myself to give up that rock. You know, the goal was that when I got to the end of the Camino in Santiago, when I hit marker zero, that I would put that rock down and I would have the celebration and I would be free of that pain. And I got to marker zero and I couldn't do it.

00;16;15;24 - 00;16;44;06
Lisa
I couldn't do it. And this is where the story gets really good. And this is where the, the metaphor that I really hope lands with you listening, is so powerful because, you know, I took that rock into my fanny pack and I carried that fucking rock to my workout. I carried it all through Morocco, and then I carried it back to Spain.

00;16;44;09 - 00;17;11;12
Lisa
And not only did I carry it around, I would make sure that the rock was still there, and I would almost have anxiety if I couldn't find it in my fanny pack. So think about this for a minute, right? It obviously wasn't a big rock, but it was a rock. It had some weight to, it had some density to it, and it represented a pain that I had been carrying for over 14 months, and it was like a barbed hook in me.

00;17;11;19 - 00;17;36;10
Lisa
It was a weight. It was a literal and metaphor. Yeah. Metaphorical weight I was carrying around. It was becoming a piece of me. Right? That pain was starting to become my identity because I was so attached to it. I felt the weight of it every day. And just like my my my pain. Right? Like the rock I was looking.

00;17;36;12 - 00;18;02;15
Lisa
Like I said, I looked every day to make sure it was still there. How crazy is that? I think about that. This is something I want to let go of. Yet I would actively go and make sure that that rock was still in my fanny pack, and it made me think about how many times in a day or in a week that I would, consciously go into my pain, go into the thoughts that I was holding on to to make sure am I still hurting yet?

00;18;02;16 - 00;18;14;10
Lisa
We're good. We're still hurting. We're not ready to move forward yet again in this, you know, feeble attempt to protect myself. So.

00;18;14;13 - 00;18;37;10
Lisa
I knew when I got back to Spain and I went to, where was I? San Sebastian was my final week in Spain, and I really thought about how I pack that rock so many kilometers with me, and I knew I didn't want to bring it home. But I also knew I wasn't going to force myself to let it go before I was going to let it go.

00;18;37;12 - 00;18;53;29
Lisa
But I also knew I had to ask myself the question of like, well, what is it going to take, Lisa? What is it going to take to let it go? Because the longer you hold on to this, the more it's going to become part of your identity and the more you are robbing yourself of the future life that you want.

00;18;54;01 - 00;19;16;02
Lisa
That was the bottom line. So, you know, I went down to the beach on the day before I was I was leaving, San Sebastian to go back to Madrid. And I sat on the beach for probably about four hours, and I held that rock, and I squeezed that rock, and I looked at that rock and I journaled, wrote, wrote in the sand to myself.

00;19;16;02 - 00;19;37;11
Lisa
I did a post on Instagram, and I sat there until I felt complete, until I was ready to really acknowledge what that commitment to myself was going to look like moving forward. If I release the pain, what was I going to be committed to moving forward? And I'm going to I'm going to share that with you.

00;19;37;13 - 00;19;49;14
Lisa
I asked myself what would be possible if that pain, if that rock was no longer part of my story?

00;19;49;17 - 00;20;15;11
Lisa
Because as much as I am loving telling you this story, I just thought, like God, I really an impact and stupid fucking rock back to Canada. Like is this how I want to integrate back at home? Like spent a month away and then to come back and be like, well, nothing changed for me. I still have this pain when I knew now that it was me choosing that.

00;20;15;13 - 00;20;37;16
Lisa
So I wrote down, you know, my commitments and I'll share those with you. So after I listen to music got grounded in kind of the future that I wanted, and I got myself to a place of deep gratitude, to be perfectly honest. And if you would asked me, you know.

00;20;37;19 - 00;21;09;14
Lisa
14, 15, 16 months ago, if I could ever have gratitude for what's happened in my life, I would have been, I would I would have struggled to get to the place of gratitude. And now I really do have so much gratitude for what's happened in my life, because it really cracked me open to so many lessons that I needed to learn for myself around, you know, having an open heart around things like letting go and attachment and even different levels of commitment and boundaries.

00;21;09;17 - 00;21;45;05
Lisa
It taught me a lot. And that stupid rock, the actual physical carrying around that stupid rock taught me a lot, and it's going to serve my clients well in the future. You know, my pain ultimately taught me about love and what having an open heart means. And I'm not necessarily talking about an open heart for other people, but having an open heart with myself where I wasn't loving myself enough, where I felt like I needed to have that pain to protect myself, where I wasn't trusting myself, where I wasn't listening to my own inner knowing and intuition.

00;21;45;07 - 00;21;48;07
Lisa
So.

00;21;48;09 - 00;22;17;02
Lisa
It taught me how to live a fully aligned life and what my purpose is. There's a saying that I love that is our pain often becomes our purpose. I don't know if that's true for everybody, but for me, it strengthened. It strengthens my resolve as a leader and how I'm here to support men and women discovering who they are beyond their stories that they've been told, beyond the pain that they've been carrying, beyond their past history.

00;22;17;04 - 00;22;34;03
Lisa
How resilience. Resiliency isn't about strength, but the courage to let go, and how letting go is only one step towards, redemption.

00;22;34;06 - 00;22;44;25
Lisa
So living a life committed to yourself and.

00;22;44;28 - 00;22;51;11
Lisa
Ash, this is so hard.

00;22;51;14 - 00;23;25;06
Lisa
But I'm here to support people who want to live a life committed to themselves and nurturing their hearts more. And so many of the people that I work with really struggle to do that. They struggle to meet themselves with compassion. And I know that I've had to really deepen into this even more for myself. So after this four hours of reflecting and journaling and crying and laughing and feeling like my heart was going to crack open with gratitude and listening to songs like, written by Natasha Bedingfield, and just thinking like, this is a moment.

00;23;25;13 - 00;23;47;15
Lisa
So this is the moment that you get to release your past and fully step into whatever future you want, and it's okay to be afraid and it's okay to be uncertain, and it's also okay to be excited about that, but that you can. I knew that I could navigate the uncertainty because the truth is, whether I had that pain or not.

00;23;47;21 - 00;24;12;16
Lisa
I'd been navigating immense uncertainty for years. So I walk to the water, I put my feet in the sand, and I let the wash roll over my feet. And the ocean has always been a powerful place to transmute energy. I could tell you countless stories of me standing in the ocean crying and just saying, like, please just take this from me.

00;24;12;18 - 00;24;41;04
Lisa
And I believe it's her job to wash our wounds away when we're ready. That's the power of the earth, and that's the power. Our oceans and waterways. I cried because I knew I was saying goodbye to my past, goodbye to my pain, and committing to my future, which, as the song said, is yet is still unwritten.

00;24;41;07 - 00;24;47;11
Lisa
I threw it in the water.

00;24;47;14 - 00;25;18;21
Lisa
I threw it in the water, and I felt the weight fall away and that freedom wash over me. I literally could feel that blank page before me. So, you know, I don't know what will happen in the future. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I do know that I'm committed to living free, loving myself deeply.

00;25;18;23 - 00;25;53;01
Lisa
Listening to my intuition, breaking the rules and finding more joy and fulfillment than ever, and leaving other people to do the same. Leaving other leaders to let go of the things that are preventing them from stepping into their highest level of leadership. And I truly feel like this year has been my initiation into my own leadership, self leadership, and elevating the other people who are meant to lead in a bigger way.

00;25;53;04 - 00;26;17;02
Lisa
You know, in the last thing I put under this journal entry was and she lived happily ever after in a fairy tale designed by her. And that is the commitment, right? Life is part of the fairy tale. Life is knowing that you can create whatever you want in the world, but you cannot do that if you are bogged down by your past history.

00;26;17;04 - 00;26;45;19
Lisa
So what are the commitments to myself moving forward? Because again, if you want to let go of something, you have to know what it is you're being committed to. So this is what I wrote down, that my values are always first in all areas of my life. I must be aligned, including any partnerships, whether they be with clients, friends, colleagues, romantic or otherwise.

00;26;45;22 - 00;27;06;17
Lisa
You don't have to share all my values, but my most important values. We have to be aligned. There has to be a level of commitment, of integrity, connection, the things that are most important to me and, you know, personal responsibility. I can only be surrounded by people who are willing to be responsible for how they're showing up in the world.

00;27;06;17 - 00;27;27;01
Lisa
And it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect or you can't have your moments. But when you know what it means to be personally, personally responsible for everything that's happening for you in your life and your role in everything that's happening in your life, it just changes the game. And those are the people that I need to be surrounded with.

00;27;27;04 - 00;27;50;05
Lisa
Number two, I won't hesitate on living my purpose, even if it feels like I'm leaving people behind. My commitment is to myself first and to my dreams. That's what I'm stepping into. Number three I will listen to my intuition, even if it doesn't make sense. I can trust myself and I can trust my body.

00;27;50;08 - 00;28;09;13
Lisa
Looking back right? Hindsight is always 2020. And I really believe that when things happen to us, there is zero point in going back and looking at the past and saying, wow, I wish that had been different. Or if I'd only listened to my intuition because the truth was the truth is that if things could have been any different, they would have.

00;28;09;13 - 00;28;35;25
Lisa
And they weren't. They happened the way they happened, and they happened exactly the way they needed to happen for my growth. And what it has taught me is that on an even deeper level, I need to be dialed into my intuition. And so often our bodies are listen, our bodies speak to us every single day. But so often women in particular, we feel something is off, but then we override it.

00;28;35;27 - 00;28;57;00
Lisa
Or what's worse is we think that we're the problem and we might not be the problem. You might be the problem, but you also might not be the problem. But when we stop listening to those signals from our body and just be curious about what else might be going on, man. And that is powerful when you can lead from intuition.

00;28;57;02 - 00;29;15;13
Lisa
And again, even if it doesn't make sense, that's okay. It doesn't have to. Intuition isn't about, your cognitive 3D brain. It's it's that deep sense, that deep inner knowing. And I know that everybody has experienced that in some way, shape or form.

00;29;15;15 - 00;29;29;03
Lisa
Number four. No more wasted time. Zero tolerance, zero tolerance for anything that is outside of,

00;29;29;05 - 00;29;34;17
Lisa
My values. So.

00;29;34;20 - 00;29;53;28
Lisa
Yeah, I'm just going to leave that one at that. Like, I am here for people who are willing to show up 100% and be in this life with me. So that goes for clients too. If you're going to work with me, if you want to get in a room with me, you better be ready to play fallout 100% because I am going to challenge you.

00;29;54;01 - 00;30;16;10
Lisa
I am not here for some pussyfooting around, you know, babying you. I am not going to stroke your suffering. I am not going to ease your pain. So am I going to acknowledge your pain? Am I going to be with you in your pain? Yes. Am I going to understand and have deep empathy for your pain? Yes. And I am also going to be the coach that is like, okay, we're going to do this.

00;30;16;10 - 00;30;42;11
Lisa
We're going to figure out how you're going to put that fucking rock down, and we're going to figure out what needs to happen for you to claim the future that you want for yourself. No ifs, ands or buts. Number five is I will go slow even if I feel like I want to speed up. It is so important to me that I slow down and that this is really profound.

00;30;42;11 - 00;31;05;29
Lisa
And I really want you to hear this, that the destination that you want to get to is yours. And when you know the destination is already yours, time doesn't matter. You will get there when you're meant to get there. So we don't need to rush. We don't need to push. We don't need to hang on to things. We don't need to fight our way there.

00;31;06;01 - 00;31;38;15
Lisa
We can learn to stay in the process and stay in the journey of becoming the best versions of ourselves every single day and the destination that you want, the outcome that you want. If it's meant for you, it will come to fruition. So my question for you as you're listening to this, or maybe you're watching it on video, if I asked you to write down what rocks are you carrying around, and then get honest with yourself about how long have you been carrying around those rocks?

00;31;38;17 - 00;32;11;15
Lisa
How often do you tell yourself, like, oh, I've got a mindset block here, or I'm working on this thing, I'm working. Go of letting go of this thing. Well, how long are you going to spend working on letting go of it versus becoming committed to letting it go and looking at and being honest about the value you're getting out of hanging on to it, and what kind of commitments that you're going to have to make to yourself if you do let it go, because often those are the things that we're avoiding those commitments moving forward.

00;32;11;15 - 00;32;34;19
Lisa
Because again, like once I threw my pain in the ocean, I knew I wasn't going in there. It was cold. I wasn't going into the ocean to retrieve it. It was saying, like, I'm done with this. This is not coming home. I'm not spending my time here. It doesn't erase what happened, but it means that I'm no longer holding on to it and living in that pain every single day.

00;32;34;21 - 00;32;57;18
Lisa
We're talking about closing the wound, allowing it to become a scar on my life. Part of my story, but not my identity. And I want you to ask the same thing. And then what I'm going to challenge you to do. My dear listener, when you've got that list of things that you're really attached to, that you're really holding on to, that you keep telling yourself you want to let go of.

00;32;57;21 - 00;33;33;29
Lisa
I want you to go pick up your own rocks, because there's something profound that happens when you have to physically carry around something that represents the bullshit that you are holding onto, the weight of it, the looking at it every day, but turning it over in your hands, the seeing it sitting on your desk. I want you to carry around those rocks, and I want you to carry around those rocks until you, my friend, my dear listener, are ready to write out the list of the things you're going to be committed to when you put it down, when you put those rocks down.

00;33;34;02 - 00;33;50;17
Lisa
So be honest with yourself. What are the rocks you're carrying around? What are the things you don't want to let go of? What are the value you're getting out of those? And be honest. Be honest with yourself. Right? I had to look at the fact that I was, you know, self-pity. I got to get into self-pity. I got to feel loved.

00;33;50;17 - 00;34;01;03
Lisa
Because if I brought up my pain, I would feel very loved and taken care of by the people who love me. Right? Because nobody wanted to see me in pain.

00;34;01;05 - 00;34;19;06
Lisa
Enough to move forward. I didn't have to make any hard decisions. There were a lot of reasons that I was staying attached to that pain. I needed it for protection, or so I believed, right? To protect me from ever being hurt again. And if you've ever been hurt, let me tell you, that's, a reason why so many of us keep that pain.

00;34;19;11 - 00;34;32;26
Lisa
The certainty. Right. I knew the certainty of this, you know, a colleague of mine and good friend and previous client was on the Camino, and and I remember her saying, like.

00;34;32;28 - 00;34;46;28
Lisa
The hardest part is letting you know she'd been working through things for a long time, and I'm not going to tell her story, but she's like, why would I want to hold on to this pain? And I looked at her and said, because you know the pain, it's certain you know what you're getting when you wake up in the morning.

00;34;46;28 - 00;35;11;06
Lisa
You know what you get when you're going to bed. And if that pain isn't there, who are you? Without that pain? What's going to fill your time? What's going to fill your thoughts? What's going to motivate you and drive you forward if that pain isn't there? So please understand you are getting so much value out of whatever you are holding onto, and until you get honest with yourself about what that represents, you're going to have a hard time letting go, right?

00;35;11;09 - 00;35;44;25
Lisa
Because how can you be committed to what needs to happen if you can't first acknowledge the value out of what you're getting from holding on to it? Okay, so get your rocks. I'd love to see you. You listen to this episode. I'd love to see you. Tag me on social media, post a picture of your rocks on Instagram and tag me at Lisa Carpenter, Inc. I would love to hear your stories of what happens when you create that, physical representation and what happens for you when you choose to let that go.

00;35;44;25 - 00;36;13;00
Lisa
So I am here for you as you work through your own stories. So like I said, this was a little bit of a different episode reading, you know, excerpts from my journal entry and talking off the cuff and navigating my own emotions as I tell this, because it was emotional, it was a big deal. And, you know, one day I will share the entire story when the time is right.

00;36;13;03 - 00;36;39;01
Lisa
But I believe in sharing those stories when you're really not in the story anymore. And because my story isn't just my story to tell, it's it's not the right time. So but even not knowing what happened, I hope you can see the entire value out of what I have just shared with you around the power of letting go of your rocks.

00;36;39;01 - 00;37;02;05
Lisa
So thank you for joining me on this episode. If it resonated with you, I would love for you to share it. Like I said, I'd love for you to come on Instagram, tag me or on Facebook with your with your rocks. But please share it with somebody if you know that they're struggling with letting go. And let's have a bigger conversation about what it what it looks like to let go and how we can move forward, how we can release our attachment to the past.

00;37;02;08 - 00;37;23;10
Lisa
And, the only other thing I will let you know is that this time. So here's here's the ways you can work with me, because I got to share that. I always have to share that at the end of the episode, I still have one space available for my retreat in Whistler, I believe. Oh, I'm not sure the dates will put the dates in the I should know the dates, but they're not, you know, they're details that I don't keep in my brain.

00;37;23;17 - 00;37;52;23
Lisa
Anyways, I think it's the second week in September. I want to say the 7th to the 14th of September in Whistler. This is a luxury retreat. I am going to be pampering everybody that's there. We are going to be diving deeper into these concepts of letting go, while also going out and being in our, discomfort. Right. I'm getting everybody into their, discomfort with some of the activities that we have planned, but we're also going to be balancing that out with a lot of rest and restoration nurturing.

00;37;52;25 - 00;38;09;15
Lisa
We've got a beautiful private chef flying in to take really good culinary care of us. It's going to be an amazing week of women flying in from all around the globe to attend this. So we've got one space left. So if that's you or you think it might be you, by all means make sure you send me an email.

00;38;09;16 - 00;38;51;26
Lisa
Lisa Lisa Carpenter Dot, CA I am also currently booking, new 1 to 1 clients. So if letting go has been something that you've struggled with, if you consider yourself, you know, an established leader, and you are ready to make sure that your insides are matching your outsides. So that's what I see with a lot of my clients, is there's an inner congruency between how other people perceive them, yet how they perceive themselves, yet they don't really have any place that they can talk about this kind of integrity misalignment, like they know that they are out of integrity with themselves, but they don't know what conversations they need to have to shift that

00;38;51;28 - 00;39;16;01
Lisa
and they know where they're going. Right? My clients have a clear vision of where they want to get to in their life. They just don't know what needs to happen to get there. And I can help you get wherever it is you want to go. So that's just a conversation away. You can find the information about how to apply to work with me at Lisa Carpenter, aka forward slash WW.

00;39;16;03 - 00;39;44;28
Lisa
And I look forward to, meeting you and having a conversation about what those options are. I don't have much availability, so if this is something you are thinking about, do not hesitate because once those spaces are filled, they are filled. All right. Thank you so much for listening and, being here with me while I shared this, powerful and vulnerable and very personal story of growth, I really do hope that it serves you.

00;39;44;28 - 00;39;59;09
Lisa
That's why I'm here. That's why I'm willing to share these stories, is because I believe that in sharing my stories, it it helps other people grow and change and transform. So I appreciate you listening and I will catch you on the next episode.