EPISODE 295: How Making 2024 The Year of ME Changed My Perspective

Lisa Carpenter [00:00:02]:
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. 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.

Lisa Carpenter [00:00:46]:
Well, hey hey and thank you for tuning into a brand new episode of the Full Frontal Living podcast. This is my first episode in 2025 and if you've been hanging out with me for a while, you'll know that I have been MIA with any type of new episodes for I don't know how many months now. However, this was a very strategic decision in terms of me really wanting to make sure that I was taking care of my emotional well being, which I'm going to get into a little bit here. So we have been, my team, I should say, has been beautifully repurposing episodes and with over, I don't know, we have over 300 some odd episod. I'm sure you haven't listened to every single one. So my hope is that while we've been putting out these old episodes and repurposing them again, that you've been able to hear something that maybe you didn't hear the first time you heard it, or it was an episode that you'd never heard before or you were able to go deeper on an episode. Because we're constantly changing as humans and what we're able to hear in one moment is going to change based on the the context that we're working from. So if you've been doing a lot of self development work, you're going to find that you're open to hearing lessons messages that you maybe weren't open to hearing before.

Lisa Carpenter [00:02:09]:
I know that's been true for me in many ways. I mean, I remember a version of me that thought meditation was for like tree huggers and grounding was this like ridiculous practice that only woo woo people do. And you know, now these are things that are are part of my life because I understand the importance of connecting to the universe, whatever you want to call it, but getting quiet within myself and being able to hear and that life isn't about being a Human doing. We're here to be human beings. We're here to have this human experience. So I'm blessed that I get to do a lot of amazing things that I love. But I've also learned that just being human, enjoying life, slowing down, doing less, finding more joy, peace, ease, fulfillment, which is probably why you're tuning into this podcast, is so imperative, because if. If accomplishments really made us feel the way we want to feel, I wouldn't have any clients.

Lisa Carpenter [00:03:08]:
So I work with a lot of really ambitious, driven, achieving men and women, and it doesn't matter what they've accomplished in their life, they've still never felt like it was enough. There's always needs to be more. Bigger, more money, more accomplishments, more certificates, more races, more whatever it is, in the hopes that they're going to find that feeling that they're seeking. But these are the same people that really struggle to sink into even feeling proud of themselves for what they've accomplished. So, you know, you can only tick so many boxes to realize that it doesn't matter how many boxes you tick, you're still not feeling the way you want to feel in your life. And that. That's why I started this podcast, which I think we started back in 2019, was one of my first episodes. Maybe it was even earlier than that.

Lisa Carpenter [00:03:58]:
Oh, it was probably earlier than that, now that I think about it. Maybe it was 2017. Ooh, I'm gonna have to go, like, back into the archives and look. But, you know, I started this podcast because I wanted to give myself a platform where I could come on and talk unedited, just be honest, just share what was on my mind in the hopes that something I said would be of service to other people. And a lot of things have happened and changed in my life since I've started this podcast. It's become a very big platform for. For my business. It's allowed me to connect with everybody in a much bigger way.

Lisa Carpenter [00:04:35]:
It's allowed for me to really find my deeper message and. And really speak to the men and women that I'm here to speak to. And there's been many bumps in the road and, you know, 20, starting in 2020, when. When Covid started happening and, you know, the world just changed so much. I, you know, if I could go back in time. The 2019 version of me was so naive to so many things I've had to learn, so many lessons that I didn't ask for. There have been so many moments in my life where I thought things were one way, and then I discovered that things were completely different. I've learned so much about politics, both in Canada and abroad.

Lisa Carpenter [00:05:19]:
I've learned so much about different cultures and people, and I've had to look at the beliefs that I have about myself, the world, basically. There have been no corner or no closet door that I have not opened. And I also recognize that there's going to be more doors for me to discover and explore. So I needed to give myself permission come 2024 to just hit the pause button, because in 2023, if you've been listening for a while, you know this. Some pretty major things went down in my personal life, and I haven't talked about it, and I'm not going to get into it on this podcast. I'm going to just kind of, you know, share the. The basis of it. But in 2023, I ended my relationship with my partner, called off my engagement, and went into a place of having to look at what was true in my life, what I believed to be true, what was actually true, what was going to be true in the future.

Lisa Carpenter [00:06:30]:
And I started down the path of really deep healing. And I tried really hard in 2023 to find my way within that relationship. We tried living together, we tried living apart, and I just couldn't make peace. I just couldn't make peace with it. So by the time we hit the end of 2023, going into 2024, I knew that something had to change for me. And I'm so grateful that there were many circumstances that transpired that allowed for this shift. But going into 2024, with the help of my own coach, you know, I made the decision that it was really going to be the year of Me. Now, you've heard me talk on this podcast a lot about how to prioritize yourself.

Lisa Carpenter [00:07:16]:
And if you go back, we have a private podcast that is called Sustainably Strong. This is the foundational pieces to help you move through anything that life throws at you. And I recorded that series in 2023 when I was really living in integrity with my work. Like, the foundational pieces sometimes were the only thing that I could stand on. And so I recorded that podcast for you. We'll put the link in the show notes. I believe it's Lisa Carpenter CA Strong. And you can go listen to that private series if you'd like.

Lisa Carpenter [00:07:52]:
And if it's the wrong link, check the show notes and the team will put in the right Link. So in 2024, I really had to step up my game around what is it going to look like to make this the year of me. Because I need to detach from my relationship, from my role as mom, as all the things I just need to step out. I needed perspective. I needed perspective on my life. I needed to figure out who I was now that so many things in my life had changed, now that so many things that I thought were true were no longer true. You know, you can't go back in time and rewrite. So even coming to a place of acceptance around some of the things that had transpired in my life was such a journey.

Lisa Carpenter [00:08:41]:
So I made the decision with my coach slash therapist to take a year for me to take a year where the only focus was on what I needed to feel better, how I could support myself in feeling better, how I could live my dreams, how I could create space and time and distance. And that's what I did. So other than seeing my clients, which, you know, if you're one of my clients and you're listening, like, I hope you know that I got so much from just being present with my clients. I don't think that my clients realize how big of a part of my healing journey they were, having that space to do the work that I love, to support the phenomenal women and men that I work with and, you know, really feeling their love and support back. Because my, you know, my clients understood and knew what was going on in my life. They're in my inner circle. So I don't pretend like my life is okay to my clients. They know what's going on in my life.

Lisa Carpenter [00:09:43]:
That's. That's the nature of the relationship that I cultivate. And it's not because I'm asking my clients for advice. It's nothing like that. I just believe in being honest and being transparent. And I also believe that whatever lessons that I am learning, there is going to be something that my clients are going to learn from what I'm navigating. So 2024, I pulled my dreams closer. I stopped living from that place of when, then.

Lisa Carpenter [00:10:12]:
And honestly, I didn't even realize that that is what I had been doing. But I had been telling myself for years that I wanted to travel and then giving myself all the reasons why I couldn't. And one of the biggest reasons was because my partner wasn't in a position to be able to travel with me. So 2024, we decided that I was going to travel as much as I wanted. I was going to say yes to whatever opportunity came my way, and I was going to see the world. And if that meant being away every Single month. That was okay. He was going to live here while I was away.

Lisa Carpenter [00:10:46]:
And then when I come home, I would live in my home and he would live elsewhere. And this is. This is how we made things. This is how we made things work. And it was a hard decision. It was a hard decision because I knew I'd be leaving my kids a lot. But I also knew that I couldn't be the best mom, the best business person, or even potentially the best partner, whether it was with my partner or with a new partner. Because here's the thing about healing.

Lisa Carpenter [00:11:12]:
Whatever's going on in your life, you can leave the job, you can leave the marriage, you can pretty much leave anything. But you can't leave yourself. You are going with you on your journey. And whatever you choose not to look at or heal in your own world, whatever you choose to avoid, that's going to follow you around and it will come back up again. And usually the lessons get harder and harder the more you try and avoid them. This is why I'm such a big believer in not stuffing down what we're feeling, not trying to just cope our way through life, but actually facing it head on so, you know, the only way out is through. The only way out is through. And I knew.

Lisa Carpenter [00:11:56]:
I knew that the more time and space I gave myself, I did not know what the outcome was going to be, but I knew that the more time and space I would give myself, I trusted that I would find the clarity that I needed. And there were days where I didn't know if I would ever truly feel like myself again. And that's why I paused the podcast, because I just didn't have the extra bandwidth to come on and share things that I wasn't ready to share. I didn't feel like information was flowing through me. And here's the thing that I want you to understand. When massive things happen in our life, it changes us. And our brains don't operate at the same capacity. So we'll call it little T trauma.

Lisa Carpenter [00:12:42]:
You know, when your nervous system goes offline, you just don't have access to the same type of life force energy. So as the podcast used to be so easy for me to record, I'd just sit down, turn on the mic, like, I'd get this hit of inspiration and it would just flow through me. And it had to come through me when it needed to come through me. And what I found was trying to sit down and record my thoughts. You know, the thought, the energy that the message that I had to deliver 20 minutes later, I couldn't even access it again. Massive brain fog because my. Because my nervous system was so offline and, you know, I'll share more on coming episodes. I've worked with many different practitioners to support me through this time.

Lisa Carpenter [00:13:25]:
You know, some of it has been talk therapy, some of it has been energetic help. A lot of it has been somatic work. I don't believe that there's one end all, be all type of healing modality. I believe it's a combination and your willingness to explore different things. But our bodies always know and we cannot override. We cannot just override what we're feeling. So I suppose you can stuff it down and cope. But I knew I didn't want to go through life while drinking my problems away or getting stoned 24 7.

Lisa Carpenter [00:14:01]:
I don't do drugs at all. You know, I didn't want to get into overworking. I. And I didn't want to feel it, to be honest. But I knew I had to feel it. I knew I had to embrace the pain. I knew I had to make friends with my grief. And I knew that in amongst it all, I still had to find joy.

Lisa Carpenter [00:14:21]:
I still had to find my way back to me. I wanted to feel okay. I didn't want to spend my life coping. And I've talked to so many women specifically who have had major things happen in their life, and then they've just coped their way through life. They're on antidepressants or they're drinking too much wine. And I didn't want that for me. I didn't want that for me. I didn't want to go on antidepressants to numb out what I was feeling.

Lisa Carpenter [00:14:51]:
I wanted to fully experience it and transmute it and learn my lessons and move forward with an open heart. I didn't want to close myself down. It's my work, and I had to stay integrity with my work. How can I lead other people like you may be listening into how to connect with your emotions, how to expand your capacity for discomfort, pain, grief, joy, if I wasn't willing to do that work myself. So I kind of took 2024 as the year of I'm going to say yes, and I'm going to. I'm going to walk through whatever comes up for me. And I trusted that every place I traveled, I would leave something behind and I would bring something home. And it was a wild ride.

Lisa Carpenter [00:15:41]:
It was. It was a wild ride that took me to every continent except Antarctica. I ran out of time. And let's be Honest, I'm more of a beach gal than I am a arctic type of gal. But I knew, you know, if I just said, I'm going to take a whole year, which at the time seemed like so much time, like, holy, a whole freaking year. And now that the year has passed, I'm like, wow, that seemed to go by so fast. And in fact, it's been almost two years now since all of this transpires. And I'm like, some days it feels like it was yesterday, and other times it feels like it was a decade ago.

Lisa Carpenter [00:16:22]:
So, because all these different circumstances change in my life, I gave myself permission to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I prioritized myself in my healing and living my dreams. And maybe you can. Maybe you can relate to this. Maybe there's things that you're waiting on that you're using other people as excuses as to why you can't do these things. And this was my excuse for travel. So come January, I'm going to give you the rundown of all the places that I went to, in part because I'm just, like, reminding myself, and I will go into more detail about some of the lessons I learned in these specific places and on these trips. But for now, you know, I started out my year in January with a girlfriend, helping her heal from her explant surgery, which I had had mine at the end of 2023, I think in October of 2023.

Lisa Carpenter [00:17:12]:
So I helped her, went up to Kelowna and started my year spending time with a really dear friend. Then I had the pleasure of heading off into Arizona to spend some time watching my son play rugby, hit the Grand Canyon in Vegas. My partner was along for that trip. So like I said, this was not a conventional, like, we're going to take a split. We're never going to see each other. We really, like, wove this beautiful narrative of healing together and healing apart. And it has not been easy. I will say that it has not been easy, but I'm so proud of the fact that I didn't put rules around it.

Lisa Carpenter [00:17:49]:
But I also was unapologetic about asking for what I needed. Then I did my first kind of dream bucket list trip, which was to go to Bali. And, you know, I visited Ubud and Nusa Dua. We, you know, swung out over the rice field patties. I took my youngest son with me and a girlfriend. We ATV'd. We ate amazing food. We went to the Monkey Forest and we just sat on the beach.

Lisa Carpenter [00:18:16]:
I surfed A little bit in Nusa Dua. It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable to take a trip that I had been dreaming about that had been on my vision board forever. It was the longest trip. It was the longest flight I'd ever taken in my life. I'd never flown, like, overseas like that. And to be doing it with my youngest son was really, really cool. It was just.

Lisa Carpenter [00:18:39]:
It was phenomenal. And that really, like, kicked off the year in such a phenomenal way. And then I said yes to walking the Camino in Spain. We started in Syria, and this was in end of March. So February, I was in Arizona. March, I was in Bali. So sorry. April.

Lisa Carpenter [00:19:03]:
Then that's when I hit Madrid. And what a cool experience, because that trip from Syria to Santiago de Compostela, I think is how you say it, that was a trip that I got to take with clients, with my best friend, people that I'd never met in real life before. And, I mean, we stomped the city of Madrid so hard, I think I could find my way around there blindfolded now. I just. I loved it. Walking the Camino, if you watched my Instagram stories, last year, was something else. I am from Vancouver. It rains a lot here in the fall, winter, and it was like walking my nightmare.

Lisa Carpenter [00:19:48]:
It rained every single day except one. We were soaking wet. We were leaving in the middle of the night. And there were so many lessons that came out of that. And I did an earlier podcast about that trip. From there, I went off to Mallorca, spent another week with a client, and the goal of being on Mallorca was to see the most beautiful beaches in the world. And we did. And she was such an amazing hostess.

Lisa Carpenter [00:20:12]:
I stayed at her home. She rode shotgun with me every single day in the car. Her job was just to direct me, and she just indulged every fantasy I had about white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water. She was just such a good sport with just wanting to hang out on the beach with me. From there, I flew to Morocco. I went to Marrakesh for the first time. I can say that Marrakesh was the only place that I traveled to that I was like, I don't love this. So, again, I was with another client that I'd never met in real life.

Lisa Carpenter [00:20:44]:
So we headed out to Asoria, which is on the coast. Beautiful beaches, unbelievable. We stayed in this old stone. I don't know what you would call it. Like a. Like, they use it in war. Like a. Not a castle, but they.

Lisa Carpenter [00:21:05]:
There was, like, off in the distance. It was part of where they filmed. Not Lord of the Rings, but. Oh, my goodness, it's lost on me. Maybe it is Lord. No, not Lord of the Rings. What's the other one with the dragons? I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It'll come to me.

Lisa Carpenter [00:21:22]:
It'll come to me. 20 minutes into this podcast. So that Game of Thrones. Thank you. I know. I could hear you yelling it to me. I picked it up psychically, Game of Thrones. So it was like this stone fortress, so to speak.

Lisa Carpenter [00:21:36]:
And what was so cool about that? We were sitting there. I remember one day having lunch, and a lady walked up to me. I mean, we are literally in the middle of nowhere, Morocco, right on the coast. And a lady walked up to me, and she's like, Lisa Carpenter. Oh, my God. And she was a student from inside my mentor's program that I coach in. Like, what are the chances of that? Like, it was just such a surreal experience and so awesome to be able to leap with her because she travels all around the world. She meets people and gets them to, like, leap and do these fun jumps.

Lisa Carpenter [00:22:06]:
So we did that, and then from there, we went to the Orica Valley, which is more central Morocco, beautiful area. Hiked, ate delicious food, had amazing conversations. Like, my heart was so full. My heart was so full. And then that took me back to San Sebastian, where I spent another week solo. My first week solo. So I was gone an entire month in Spain and Morocco combined. So I spent my last week in San Sebastian by myself.

Lisa Carpenter [00:22:36]:
Learned lots of lessons, and I actually recorded a podcast episode around my trip on the Camino, specifically around my pain rock. So if you haven't listened to that episode, I will link it in the show Notes. I highly recommend listening. Really talks about the lessons that I learned during that time. And it's an exercise I've now incorporated in with. With many of my clients to. To visually represent the weight that they're carrying around. I carried this freaking rock with me that represented the pain I was feeling through all of the Camino, through all of Mallorca, through all of Morocco, and then back to Spain again.

Lisa Carpenter [00:23:15]:
So I'll let you go listen to that episode. I'm sorry, I don't have it. The. The episode number off the top of my head here. I should have written it down before I started recording. And then I came home after a month and realized, like, a lot had healed in me and there was still more. Right. It's like wringing out a cloth.

Lisa Carpenter [00:23:34]:
I'm like, wow, I feel so much better. And then when I integrated into real life, I was like, oh, there's still so much here for me. So, took another trip up to Kelowna, celebrated my girlfriend's birthday, had an amazing time before I jetted off to my next big trip, which was to Melbourne, which another, like, dream trip. I have so many clients in Australia. It was amazing to touch down in Melbourne and go to Noosa. I got to connect with, you know, clients, colleagues, friends, sleep in people's houses that I know, dine at their table, you know, like, I can't even express to you. And I made a reel about this that I posted on Instagram. It was so amazing to go to these beautiful places, but for me, truly, every single hug was so healing for me.

Lisa Carpenter [00:24:23]:
So Melbourne just held such a special place in my heart because, again, I have so many clients there. My friend Lisa Kordoff set up a speaking engagement for us and I got up on stage and it was the first time I really told my story forward facing. So the women who were in the room got to hear what I'd been navigating for the year. And I just talked very openly and honestly about what that experience had been like for me up until that point. And that was very healing for me because, again, you know, I'm not ready to share it all forward facing. And I am somebody who heals by talking. I process my emotions through my words, whether it's my writing, speaking podcast with my clients in coaching. And it was such a big part of me to own my story because up until that point, I had felt like my story was owning me.

Lisa Carpenter [00:25:18]:
So it was another really massive healing moment for me to share that with the people that were there. And the whole reason that I went to Melbourne in, in, you know, end of July, early August, which is a crazy time to go to Melbourne because it's like Vancouver. Winter was like I left summer in Vancouver, which is the most beautiful time to be here. August, September. And I went to Melbourne, which is like Vancouver's February, so it was crazy to go there. But, you know, I was so excited to meet my clients. And one of my clients in particular had a massive moment just so to see her complete a project that she had been working on for a very long time that I had the privilege of standing with her. Obviously I didn't do the project with her, but supporting her as she went through this massive undertaking and to really understand her world and then to see her work, her piece performed on stage by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was just.

Lisa Carpenter [00:26:19]:
I mean, it took My breath away. And I sat there watching this with the people that I loved, with other clients and colleagues on either side of me thinking like, this is my life. This is my life. For all the things that have not gone the way I would have scripted them, I could not have scripted all the things that, that also have gone so right, that have been so amazing, that have been so expansive. It really helped me step into my work and my role and my responsibility for my life in a whole new way. I don't even have enough words to explain how it felt to be in rooms with people that I have been supporting for years and watching how they've changed and watching the connections that they've made with each other. Community has been become such an important part of my journey. And I'm going to do an episode just around kind of sisterhood and sisterhood wounds, like I used to hear that word, sisterhood.

Lisa Carpenter [00:27:19]:
And I would literally have a visceral reaction and cringe. So I'm going to do an episode around that because it's become such a big part of my work. Creating community for women who have always kind of felt like they have to support everybody else, but they don't get to be supported. And now I have programs like my reclamation program to support women coming together in community, especially high achieving, driven women, so we can have the conversations that we need to have to destigmatize some of the traps that we get into to let go of things like perfectionism and control and over functioning and allow ourselves to open up and be vulnerable. Which for most of my clients, being vulnerable feels incredibly scary because they learned that vulnerability wasn't safe for them. So being able to talk to other women who get them, who are so similar to them. So I'll put the link to our reclamation program in the show notes. There's different tiers of membership that are available.

Lisa Carpenter [00:28:18]:
And I'm going to be talking more and more about this in the future because I'm really passionate about expanding this work and really giving people a place and a space to come into my world and to come into the world of the other women that I support. So that was, that was August. That was just like unbelievable. And I flew home from Australia and I think five days later I was on a plane for a massive dream vacation. A holiday that was gifted to me by my partner's family for all of us. To Tanzania, on safari, to Africa. I mean, mind blown, Absolute mind blown. I have so much gratitude for this trip.

Lisa Carpenter [00:28:59]:
We went through the, the Serengeti, we went through the Ngoragora crater, which is like, I don't even know how to explain this to you. It's a massive crater and you drive down into it and it's like you're. You've gone into Jurassic park or something. It's like, otherworldly. And what was so amazing is at the end of our safari, we went to Zanzibar and we got to fly over in this, like, very, very small plane and look down into the crater and really see it from above. And really, I was just so astounded by the. The beauty of this. Like, I hope one day to be able to take my adult children back there to experience this.

Lisa Carpenter [00:29:38]:
It. It truly was absolutely breathtaking. When you've got lions, like, walking beside you and giraffes right there and these massive elephants. And I will tell you, out of all of the animals that we saw, the elephants scared me the most. Like, man, you do not want to be too close to a male elephant. They let you know, like, energetically. You can literally feel them saying, back away. Just unbelievable to see a pride of lions.

Lisa Carpenter [00:30:08]:
To see, you know, three male lions all curled up together just like big house cats with very large teeth. Unbelievable experience. So we went through all of the Serengeti. We had the amazing and probably once in a lifetime opportunity to watch the wildebeest crossing, which was, like, otherworldly. You have all these trucks out there in the middle of nowhere and they're all radioing to each other, and they, they. They stay far enough away, and then when the animals go, everybody races forward. So you see this massive race of trucks to watch the wildebeest cross the river. I can't think of the name of the river now.

Lisa Carpenter [00:30:49]:
In hopes that none of them get eaten by crocodiles or whatever other predators that there are there. Right? Like, you're cheering them on. It was like being in a National Geographic movie, right? It was just absolutely mind blowing. And then we ended that trip with an unbelievable hot air balloon ride across the Serengeti. Like, right in with the animals. I don't even have words. I. I have no words.

Lisa Carpenter [00:31:18]:
We watched. I think it was a cheetah. Yeah, cheetah. And what are those. What are those little. Oh, God, it again. It'll come to me. Hyenas.

Lisa Carpenter [00:31:34]:
We watch the hyena. You know, we watch the animals literally hunting while we're in this hot air balloon with a man who, you know, the. The captain of the hot air balloon was just, like, so in love with his job. And it's so fun to be around people who are so in love with their. Their jobs. Like, he's like, this is what I get to do for a living. Like, fly people across the Serengeti, right? And then you got all the trucks chasing you so that they can. Because you never really know where you're going to touch down, right? Depends where the wind takes you.

Lisa Carpenter [00:32:02]:
So that was. That was August Tanzania and safari. So then September, I come home two weeks later, a week later, a week later or two weeks later, I think maybe it was only a week later I was up in Whistler to host my own retreat. And this was a massive milestone in my business. And this. Out of all the trips that I took, this was in my backyard, and this was one where I got to host, where I got to bring my people together and shower them with love and nourishment and play and deep conversations. And honestly, it will be a highlight of my entire life. I'm not even kidding.

Lisa Carpenter [00:32:44]:
Women flew in from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and it was just otherworldly. It was just. I flew in a private chef, we had an amazing house. We had spa days. We had. You name it, we climbed mountains, we ziplined, We. We had so much fun. We walked through the forest in the dark and saw lights.

Lisa Carpenter [00:33:07]:
We had deep conversations over breakfast and dinner. We ate nourishing food, you know, and I surprised them all at the end with a helicopter ride over Whistler, over Whistler Mountain. So all the places that we'd been exploring, and to see it from the air. To see it from the air was really phenomenal. But for me to be able to surprise them with an experience like that was just. I mean, for me, it was everything. It was everything. I just.

Lisa Carpenter [00:33:38]:
And to see the transformation that took place for the women, to see the. The what they left with, how it changed them profoundly, it was. It was my opportunity to give to my people what I'd been experiencing the entire year, which is when we. When we take ourselves out of our environment and we put ourselves in a different environment, there's so much healing that is available to us because we give ourselves the time and the space to process things differently, to have the different conversations that we need to have in order for our lives to change, we cannot. You know, there's the saying that you can't read the label from inside the jar. And so often we are so trapped in the circumstances of our lives without even realizing it, that we're trying to create new from our current identity, from our current circumstances, and something has to change for new things to Emerge. And this is why, you know, I'm so passionate about coaching, because it is so powerful in terms of changing your circumstances and the current paradigms you're working from. But I'm not going to lie to you, it takes a ton of courage to make changes in your life, whether it's to travel or get on a plane or go to a retreat or say yes to working with a coach.

Lisa Carpenter [00:34:53]:
It takes courage. It takes a lot of courage. And not everybody is willing to step up to the plate. But also, look at what it costs you if you don't. If I had not made the decisions that I made this past year, I can't imagine where my life would be right now. And it cost me time, money, time away from my business. Like, last year was not a year where my business grew. Last year was a year where my business maintained because I wasn't concerned about my business growth.

Lisa Carpenter [00:35:23]:
I was concerned about my personal growth. And I was willing to sacrifice the business growth because I knew there would be no business if I didn't take care of me. And I was 100% committed to changing my circumstance, to changing my identity, to coming out the other side, being a transformed person yet again. I feel like the Phoenix in Harry Potter. It's constantly catching on fire and rebirthing. I feel like I've had so many rebirths, it's not even funny. But to be able to give my people this experience in Whistler, to be able to bring them all together, and everybody immediately was able to go deep because they'd all been working in containers with me and they knew that they were self. That they were safe to have the conversations that they needed to have with each other, which was absolutely beautiful.

Lisa Carpenter [00:36:15]:
So by the end of Whistler, I was pretty gassed, I'm not going to lie. And I still had more trips on the books. And I remember thinking, like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can get my ass on a. On a flight to Peru because that was my last big, big trip. And out of all the trips I've taken, Peru was probably the hardest because when I went to Tanzania, we actually stopped in Amsterdam. So I spent two, three days in Amsterdam. So we broke up the trip. So it wasn't.

Lisa Carpenter [00:36:47]:
It wasn't such a long flight. But to get to Peru, oh, my God, I have never had to take so many connecting flights to get to a place in, in my life. And then when we got. When I got to Peru, when I got to Cusco, the altitude hit me like nobody's business. Like it was. It was really unbelievable. So traveling to Peru and all of this travel, I am actually a pretty anxious traveler. But by the time I was making this trip to Peru, I really had come to realize, like, wow, Lisa, you're getting really good at navigating airports and connecting flights and feeling pretty confident about everything.

Lisa Carpenter [00:37:23]:
I never had a flight canceled. I never missed any flights. Quite proud of myself for that. I managed to book all my connections, so I had enough time, but not too much time, which I was also very proud of. So by the time I got to Peru, it was. I think I'd take four flights to get to Cusco. And then I got off the plane, and I was like. I looked at the lady beside me, and I'm like, do you feel weird? Because I feel really weird.

Lisa Carpenter [00:37:46]:
Like, the altitude hit me like a ton of bricks. And that first night in Cusco, I did not get altitude sickness, but I had a headache. I thought my head was going to explode. I had, like, a Covid, like, headache. So, you know, I just drank a lot of the. I can't remember the name of the tea, but. Cocoa. Coca leaf.

Lisa Carpenter [00:38:04]:
Coca leaf tea. So you take the. I guess they're leaves that the. The native people there chew a lot. I don't know how one, you know, Mayan person ended up going down to the jungle and realized, like, hey, if you chew on these leaves, the altitude won't. Won't impact you. But anyways, this is. This is how it all started.

Lisa Carpenter [00:38:27]:
So drank a ton of coca tea, which definitely helped with acclimatizing to the altitude. But there were many times where I did have blue lips. And this was another trip that I got to spend with a colleague of mine that I had never met. We got to spend a few nights together in Couscos and just explore, the two of us. And then we were joined by the entire crew that was going into the Sacred Valley. And, you know, we were. We stayed at this amazing resort. We visited Manchu Picchu.

Lisa Carpenter [00:39:01]:
We went to Pisac. We went to Oleantown. Oh, I can't even say it. Ole and Tam not even try. I'll let you guys look it up. Anyways, it's another set of ruins. Loved it. We went to a place called Sexy Woman as well.

Lisa Carpenter [00:39:20]:
So just seeing the architecture and just, like, huge stones that were shaped like pillows. Like, how did they do that? How did they move these stones around? How did they build these temples? And seeing the different architecture, that the architecture changed depending on which king was kind of in charge. And then seeing how you Know, the Spanish came in and basically said, well, you're all going to be Catholic now. So seeing the marriage of the belief in the elements, the earth, the sky, the air, the water, being married with Catholic religion, anyways, it was just wild to see how the white men just come in and, like, decimate cultures, so to speak. Very sad and also very humbling to see. So Peru was a really. Peru, I felt, was like my closure trip. I went to Peru really wanting to put 2024 behind me and to make a decision about my relationship and where I wanted to go.

Lisa Carpenter [00:40:28]:
I was either going to go or I was going to stay, but I wanted to leave Peru with the clarity, because what ended up happening during 2024 and what was causing me so much suffering was the decision, do I stay or do I go? Do I want this? Am I staying because this is the best thing for me, or am I staying because I'm afraid to leave? There were all these different questions that I was asking myself. And when I went to Peru, I really wanted to come home with the clarity because I knew that the clarity, a decision one way or the other was going to end a tremendous amount of suffering for me. And I also knew I couldn't get the choice wrong. But I needed to own that choice fully 100% in my bones. Not from fear, but from a grounded place of, like, I know that this is what's best for me, and that's what I came home from Peru with. I really came home feeling very grounded about my decision and knowing what was right for me. And it might not have been the right choice for everybody else. And that's the beautiful thing about life, is that we all get to choose.

Lisa Carpenter [00:41:27]:
And one of the things that I learned is that nobody has the answer for me. Nobody has my same karma, nobody has my same perspective. Nobody can be me, nobody can be my partner. And these circumstances for somebody else, it might have been a deal breaker. Every single person is unique, and even when I'm coaching my clients, I cannot project my own stuff onto them. They have to make the decision that is best for them. We get to make those decisions in our lives. So that was really.

Lisa Carpenter [00:42:03]:
Peru was a really, really profound trip for me. I mean, the hiking, the just being connected with such an ancient society, being in a place that's felt deeply spiritual. I got to spend time with this beautiful little shaman who did coca tea readings for us. And, you know, we did ceremony with him under the moonlight. I did a beautiful outdoor bath, like this amazing stone bathtub, pitch black me and My best friend, so she was in the tub next to me and we're lying there in the pitch black with the moonlight, were covered in like flowers and herbs, like, and this bath was just like, it's so, it was so hot. And I just, I remember looking at her and saying, like, this is next level queendom. Like, this is next level queen energy that we are sitting in right now. Like, look at what we have manifested in our lives.

Lisa Carpenter [00:42:57]:
Look at what is happening for us. Look at where we are and what we've created. And it just, it really profoundly changed me. It wasn't a retreat I was leading, it was a retreat I was participating at. My best friend was leading it. So it was so fun to see her in her element doing her thing. We did yoga every morning. I'm not a huge fan of yoga, so that was a big, that in itself was, was challenging for me.

Lisa Carpenter [00:43:23]:
And then we got lots of time to just, you know, explore, stay in these beautiful gardens where we were staying at. It was just an overall amazing experience. And then of course, the trip home was again like an absolute trek. But I had the luxury of using the first class lounge in LAX where I got to shower. I didn't even know that world existed that like high level travelers can, excuse me, eat delicious food and shower in the lounge. So that was amazing. To have a shower halfway through my trip in the airport lounge. That was definitely a memorable moment.

Lisa Carpenter [00:43:58]:
So that was October, November. I went off to Sedona for my yearly spiritual trip. Spent some time with, with my shaman and my little pot of people that I, that I connect with every year, which was again, very, very healing. And it really allowed me to see how far I'd come in a year because I had something to measure against. This time last year, this is how I was feeling. And it really allowed me to see how truly broken I felt the year before. But part of me was trying to convince myself that I was fine. I was not fine.

Lisa Carpenter [00:44:30]:
No, no, part of me was fine. But that was, that was in 2023 when I was really trying to kind of keep my feet grounded and try and muscle my way through a solution. Not understanding that healing was going to take time and that the discomfort that I was feeling inside myself, that resistance, I, I wasn't all, all in and I wasn't all out. And because of that, I needed to be all out. I needed to be all out and I couldn't ignore that resistance. And, and looking back on it now, it's so obvious to me. But when I was in It, I just, you know, I so badly wanted things to be different. So that was really powerful for me to, to go back to Sedona and really reflect on where I'd been the year before.

Lisa Carpenter [00:45:17]:
And we visited a wolf sanctuary, which is amazing. If you ever get to Sedona, go visit the wolf sanctuary. Such powerful and amazing beautiful creatures wolves are. And then in December, I made one final trip back to a business conference which again, like it was a full circle moment because in 2017 was one of the first times I'd gone to this conference. It was an old mentor of mine, so to see how far he's come in his business, to see how different my life is compared to where I was back in 2016 and 2017. I was struggling so much in my business and you know, as I was boarding the plane to go to this event, I just booked my first one to one retreat. I'm taking a client, just her and I, to Tulum for four days, which, I mean I, I'm just going to put that right up with this retreat and Whistler. It was just like a bucket list thing that I wanted in my business.

Lisa Carpenter [00:46:20]:
And I know I'm going to be doing more of them because that one to one connection again, taking somebody outside of their environment and putting them into a one to one container in a different place with these deep conversations while having adventures is just, it's, it's just a part of my business plan now. So just seeing how far I've come since 2016, 2017 to 2024 was, was mind blowing for me on all levels. On all levels. And to see the stories that I'd been telling myself for years that just, just had no validity. And again, at that business conference I got to connect with so many people that I had wanted to connect with that hadn't yet connected with. Saw more clients that I hadn't met before and colleagues. I got to spend some time with one of my team members as well. You know, connect with people who, who I hadn't seen for years and years and years.

Lisa Carpenter [00:47:14]:
It was just the perfect way to end 2020 for. So why does any of this matter to you? Well, a lot of it doesn't. You're going to have your own adventures in life, but I'm going to be sharing more in episodes to come of lessons that are going to benefit you. But I wanted to share this because, you know, it sounds like such an audacious dream to be able to do that much travel in one year. And honestly, I don't even know How I did it. I look back and I'm like, how did I do that? How did I afford all that? How did I make it work? I just did. I just did. And every footstep I took, every place I went to, like I said, every hug healed me.

Lisa Carpenter [00:48:03]:
And there are so many lessons in it, but one of the biggest ones I want you to understand is that when something happens in your life that is, that is big and profound. It takes time. Healing takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. As much as the self help books want you to believe that things can just happen instantaneously, that has not been my experience. So can we prolong our suffering more than it needs to be? A hundred percent. But do we also need to give ourselves time to really heal and work through massive things that have happened in our lives? Yes. Are there many of you out there who have had massive things happen in your life that you've never really fully healed or done the work on? Yes.

Lisa Carpenter [00:48:47]:
Yes. And maybe it wasn't the time, maybe it wasn't the time. But I will tell you that anything that you have had happen in your life that you have been avoiding or is unresolved is keeping you trapped. And it's not allowing you to fully embrace and live your life and feel the way you want to feel. Unresolved feelings need to come to the surface. They need to be healed. Those hurts, the betrayals, the grief, the anger, the frustration, whatever it is for you, whether it's in business with parenting, with relationships, you know, maybe you had a child who suffered from addiction or had an accident, or maybe they were born with something that you weren't expecting that derailed your world. And in relationships, you know, maybe it was a divorce or a betrayal or, oh, there's a million things that can happen in relationships, but something that you've just, you know, walked away from maybe, and you never truly faced what was going on.

Lisa Carpenter [00:49:47]:
Maybe you've been in relationships with your parents that are unhealed, or there's childhood stuff that you haven't looked at because you haven't wanted to, or you haven't had the capacity to, or maybe you just believe it's so far behind you now it's not impacting you. I guarantee you it is impacting you because it's become part of an identity that you don't even know you're working from. It has created the stories and beliefs about who you are today. So there's so much opportunity for all of you to look at how things in your life that have created these little t traumas heart are now impacting you today? It might be. You know, I look about the things that people have with money, bankruptcy, things that have happened with their parents with money that are impacting now how they view money today. I mean there's no area in your life that doesn't give you an opportunity to look at and dismantle and create new stories and new beliefs around and we get to be reborn all the time. But unfortunately, you know, if you are a consumer of self help stuff, self help will only get you so far. Because when you're trying to help yourself from inside again inside the jar, you're going to be trying to fix the problem with the person who created the problem.

Lisa Carpenter [00:51:10]:
You. Right? So we cannot, we cannot find a solution from inside the place that created the problem. We have to change the context. And that's why coaching can be so powerful. Because I don't come with your same stories and I can offer you different perspectives to walk you into other opportunities for you, different ways for you to see lives, different ways for you to frame something that may have happened to you in a way that's going to set you free versus holding you hostage. So that is what I wanted to leave you with today. The other thing that I thought was very, very profound and this speaks to your overall health and well being. You have nothing without your health and well being, physical and emotional and spiritual.

Lisa Carpenter [00:52:00]:
But right now I'm going to talk about your physical well being specifically. I hear all the time, people get on planes, I'm so sick, I get sick. When I travel, I get sick. What is the baseline that you are working from? What is the foundation of health that you are committed to? Because this year, and I will talk about this in future episodes, I obviously wasn't training the same way that I trained in the past. But my nutrition, taking care of myself, my sleep, my hydration, all of that was still incredibly important to me. I didn't just go on the road and start eating like an asshole. I still made conscious decisions about how I was nourishing my body because I knew that my body was going to be the thing, the vehicle that was going to carry me through all this travel. And one of the things I am so proud of is I did not get sick at all in 2024.

Lisa Carpenter [00:52:49]:
I did not wear a mask on planes. I just live my life. I wash my hands, I eat my food, I take good care of myself. And although I was tired by the time I went to Peru, I was not sick. It was just A thought of like, oh, my God, here we go. This is another long plane ride. And I didn't think I'd ever get to that point where I was tired of travel. But by the time I went to Peru, I was tired of travel.

Lisa Carpenter [00:53:14]:
But that's kind of the beauty of once I got there, I just, I was so happy I was there and I was so happy with the short trips that I took after that. So I'm going to leave you with that. I want you to really consider where your health and well being are. I want you to really consider the dreams that you have for yourself that you're waiting on right when this happens, then I get to have that dream. What if you could pull that dream in closer? What if you don't have to wait for like crazy things to happen in your life in order for you to do the things you want to do? What are you struggling with? Where are you stuck? And where are you not making any changes to create anything different? Because if you're going to be listening to this podcast, I'm going to challenge you every single episode around what needs to change in your life? Because if nothing changes, nothing changes. So as I enter into 2025 now, in January, I made the decision that 2025, I'm going to be in my relationship. My partner and I are reconciling. I'm proud of that decision.

Lisa Carpenter [00:54:16]:
I feel grounded in that decision. I don't know where that decision will take me, but I have so much clarity on who I am now. I have clarity on where he is and he is doing his work as well. I will say side note there, because again, if nothing changes, nothing changes. A big part of this was him also stepping into full responsibility for him, his life, his stories, his traumas, his things that needed to be cleared up. So that's where I'm working from in 2025. I'm excited about it and I'm going to continue to travel, live my life and build my business and support the amazing men and women who show up and put their trust in me to guide them on their healing journey. Through all the grief, through all the gratitude, through all the joy, through all the things.

Lisa Carpenter [00:55:07]:
Whatever it is you want, it is available to you. So if you're still here at the end of this very long episode, thank you. Thank you for indulging me as I shared. So I really haven't shared all of this and I look forward to bringing you more episodes in the future where I'm going to go into deeper lessons because I've got like 50 lessons learned in 2024, but I want to keep these episodes shorter than this one so they're more bite sized for you because I do value and appreciate your time. And listen, I'm not Joe Rogan. We're not going to be here for three, four hours. That's just not going to happen in my world. So thank you so much for tuning in.

Lisa Carpenter [00:55:46]:
I appreciate you being here. If you are one of those people that I got to hug in 2024, thank you so much for being part of my healing journey. You will never know the impact that you had on me, so I hope that in this episode you can really feel my love and appreciation and gratitude for you for being part of my journey. If you've been tuning in week after week wondering when I'm going to be back, I'm back and I look forward to sharing more of my adventures this year as I continue to travel and continue to be in this work and to pay all the lessons forward that I've learned to you so that you can live your own version of whatever an extraordinary life looks like for you. So until the next episode, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you being here. Take good care of.