SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to Undoing. Women on the Threshold in the Journey and Beyond. I'm your host, Jamie Duncan. This is a space for the brave and the becoming. Women who are redefining success, power, and purpose on their own terms. Each week we step into honest, unguarded conversations with women who have dared to pulse, pivot, or completely unravel what no longer fits. These are women who are standing at the threshold. They're deep in the messy metal, and they're emerging with something truer, deeper, and more aligned than what came before. Together, we explore what happens when we let go of old identities, untangle the narratives we've inherited, and choose to trust the parts of us that are still taking shape. Because courage isn't about holding everything together, it's about letting yourself unravel so what's real can rise. This is undoing. I'm so glad you're here. Joining me on Undoing today is Mindy Worges, founder of Mindy K Counseling and Coaching in North Carolina. Mindy has this quiet, gentle presence that exudes wisdom and a beautiful realness. She speaks of a deep inner attunement and shares a glimpse of her life story with us, responding to her internal knowing time and time again. She is the embodiment of betting on yourself even when it defies all logic. Today, Mindy is a national board certified counselor who specializes in anxiety, stress management, grief, and trauma processing. This is a recent career transition for her. As her four children have grown up and launched, Mindy felt a pull toward counseling as her purpose in life. This mid-career calling led her back to school, completing both her bachelor's and master's degrees and opening a private practice soon after. I imagine a wide appeal to this episode. But especially if something's tugging at you and you're on the edge of answering that call, Mindy has a courage that is contagious. And I believe you'll walk away with your energy and passion stoked. Well, hello, Mindy, and welcome to Undoing.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Hi, Jeannie. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

It's great to have you here. Thank you. So, Mindy, we've been talking about this topic around betting on yourself.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

When I when I say that to you right here, right now, what comes to me is it's like I'm I'm at the roulette table. Oh I have my chips and I just slid them onto the number. All of them. All of them. Yes. But what comes up for you when you think about betting on yourself?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Well, as you said that, I just got full body chills and uh took a deep breath. So if there's the visceral reaction, right? Yeah. Equal excitement and and fear, terrified, all of it.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

I love that you just named that. Well, like those two polar opposites, those polarities.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

I'm thrilled and I'm terrified, and I'm all in. All in, all of it, equally at the same time. How does that happen? Isn't that life? Right. Yes. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how this has shown up in your life, this idea of choosing yourself, even when it might make everyone else around you uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Even myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Especially yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yes. Okay. Um, yeah, I'd love to. I oh gosh. I have a few things that come to mind, a few stories that this theme runs through. And as we're speaking here in hindsight, I can tell the story, and you'll hear confidence and you'll hear oh yeah, that almost more of an ease because it happened and it worked out. And I hope through the story, and maybe through our conversation, I also kind of normalize the part that nobody knew I'd be talking about it in the successful aftermath, right? The the normalizing the difficult um that comes with it. And for me at least, imposter syndrome and fear and doubt and all the difficult part of the emotions along with the excitement. Again, holding both at the same time. But there's something special, there's something magical about choosing yourself and betting on yourself and finding out that you were probably stronger than you ever gave yourself credit for going into something, but you wouldn't know that until you did the thing to find out that you could do it.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Oh, I'm intrigued. You said it's it's magical. What's magical about it?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Oh wow. Oh, that's a good question. For me, the magical part is this almost mysterious but undeniable inner knowing, right? And really having a pull to what I would experience as a pull, a knowing that doesn't always make logical sense. Um something I feel drawn to or really almost certain that I have to do, despite the fear, despite despite all the logical reasons I can come up with that I shouldn't be doing it, or now's not the right time, or people are gonna think I'm losing it.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Tell us tell me about tell me about the inner knowing. Like when you say that, what is that to you? What it how do you know?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah. Boy, I don't know if I'm gonna nail this question, but I will tell you.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Um, because there is no right or wrong answer. It's whatever it means to you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Inner knowing, gosh, to me, it's this undeniable, like silent noise almost that comes from my heart center. It I feel it all through my chest, and it really requires me to tune into myself. It's it's a feeling, but I don't always know what it is. I don't always know what I'm supposed to be doing with it, but it is a call, almost a call inward to connect with myself. A check-in, if as I say that out loud, I don't know if that's so true. It's basically something I cannot ignore. It is is it is a direction. I'd almost say when you're driving with your GPS and it's saying turn left in 250 feet, turn left in a hundred feet, turn left now, and then you don't turn left, and it's like beep beep beep, beep, beep, beep. Turn around. It does feel like that. Yes. And if I am not listening, I don't feel right. I'm anxious, I'm not settled, I can't feel content, I can't relax. I it really feels that I'm out of alignment, really.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Wow. It sounds sounds like you have a lot of body sensation around this. You said first I feel it in my chest, and then this energy moving through your body and that internal GPS of I don't know, just those body signals is what I'm hearing in you right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Correct. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Almost like a somatic experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Very much so. Um, until I dig into the emotion. And once I'm sitting with the emotion, the the somatic will go away for me. Um but really that's where the hard work starts because I I have to sit with the emotion. And that's not always easy, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:01

Can you think of a time that you've done this?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I can. You probably hear me um talking as if I've got one in mind, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:10

I'm curious, yeah. Because it it would be fun to take this that kind of inner knowing and take it through a story. Yeah. Of a time that you've had that inner knowing and that you've set with the emotion.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah. Okay. I think there's two that really come to mind, but let's start with the earlier one because I think it's where I got really good at knowing and following this trusting, I should say, this inner knowing. If you met my husband and I now you would never guess that at one point we were separated and drawing up divorce papers, but that was absolutely the case. We had not been getting along. We decided it was best to separate. At the time we had three kids, so that's no easy decision to make. He has a job that he absolutely loves, and at the time I had just started a company and was finally doing pretty well. We were through the the building blocks, and it was starting to actually be successful, and it wasn't just me. I had a couple of partners in it as well. As we separated and were working through this the separation and separating everything, financial stuff and kids stuff, and figuring out how this was gonna work. My husband got a job offer in the Philippines, and it was a job he'd been after for a while. It was a really meaningful job to him.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

And where were you living at the time when this came up?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, the good question. And the time we were uh at the time we were living in Utah, where I had been, I was born and raised.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Um Philippines, that's a huge that's far.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Huge, yeah. That's a big deal. I had never left Utah, I'd never planned on leaving Utah. Most of my family has always been there. Very few of us left the state. And so it was big consideration. Big, yeah. So he takes this job because he felt it was right. And so now we're working through the everything changes at that point. How do we share kids across the world? How do we all of that? And really, I didn't know, but I wasn't concerned either. There was just a calm, a strange calm, that we were gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

So you were separated at the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yes. We had been separated for a few months, really surrendered to it and dropped into it. I felt like a very clear epiphany um occurred of I need to go. I need to go.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Now tell me, why on earth would I do that?

SPEAKER_04 11:08

You're probably like, okay, universe, wrong answer. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna sit with this a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I have a company that is, you know, with other people. So this impacts this has huge impacts on other people, not just me, to walk away from this and and three kids, and everybody I'd ever known is in Utah. All my networks are in Utah, and I'm supposed to move to the other side of the world, the place I've never been, never visited, don't know very much about the culture with a husband that I'm planning to divorce. That makes no sense.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Wow. And so not only for you, like what you're feeling, but I can only imagine being in the town where you grew up and your relationships, your friends, your family. I can imagine what some of them may have been saying to you, filling your ears with, like, are you what all of that? You're thinking about this? Are you crazy? Are you serious? I mean, did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Oh, yeah. From some of my savest people. I had to hold a bunch of things, conflicting things, um, in the same space at the same time. And like understanding why people would say that, understanding that they were saying it with my best interest in mind, and knowing that I was still gonna do this, that it was right.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Because like what were some of those things?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I think I I skipped over a really important part here. When I surrendered and I felt this moment of I just decided to like practice saying it out loud, not to anyone, I wasn't commit committing, right? Just okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to the Philippines. An immediate peace washed over me that I hadn't felt in a long time. Undeniable, really undeniable, to the point where I knew at that point I wasn't I wasn't seeking permission from anybody. I was asking for support and understanding if nobody could give it to me because this was a very weird situation. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Okay, I just got chills like literally all over my body when you said I didn't ask for permission. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Right. I would not have been able to live with myself if I felt that type of peace. And I really feel like that's the only I I'm a big believer in source and higher powers, and that kind of peace comes from that right deep connection of yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

And from nowhere else. Yeah. So you just you had that knowing that was beyond all explanation, understanding, human understanding, like just don't ask me how I know that I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

It sounds like was where you were.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Okay. So what came next? So I started letting people know the hardest was to sit with my parents and tell them um that I was gonna leave. Uh my mom took it really hard. It was really hard to watch her cry to their credit. Both her and my dad were probably devastated um and didn't make it about them, right? They really tried to support me as best as they could and and trusted me. And I think that was such a blessing to me that um they must have been in so much pain, but they trusted that I was doing this for a bigger reason that only I understood and that that that only that that was enough. And I then took it to my uh business partners and understandably it didn't go well. They did not yeah, yeah, I think it I think there were some personal attacks, like you know, about being a bad mom and You're doing what? How could you do this to your kids? You've never seen that place, you never have gone there, and one particular comment that still kind of rings in the back of my head, you're going to be hanging your laundry from um from the window. Are you okay with that? I was like, okay, well, I don't know if I'm actually gonna be doing that, but anyway, this story takes a a deeper turn. So we um I did I did let my husband know that I'm considering this. Um I knew that I was going, but I didn't want to, I didn't really want to throw in all the chips yet. I guess I was still in a little denial and um that I was considering this and um so he we had decided that we'll start dating again. We'll see if we can begin to repair our relationship at least enough to see if this is fixable or if I'm just moving there as a co-parent and we're figuring things out from there. Um so we started to date and we started to get to know each other and things um went well. Fast forward a little bit, and uh we had he had moved back in and we were getting ready to to leave. Um I had my final med check to make sure that everything was fine, and they told me I was pregnant. Of course I was, right. We had given away all the baby stuff. This was not planned, and I remember looking at her and thinking, hmm, this is not funny. You no, no, this is no, this doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Wrong answer.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yes, wrong person. Um, but no, not wrong at all. So then going back to let people know, not only am I moving to the Philippines, I'm now going to have a baby there. Our fourth one.

SPEAKER_04 17:27

And Mindy, how long, okay, so I know you were separated at the time, but how long had you been married at this point?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh, at that point, um it was 2009, nine years.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Just wanted a very yeah, that's important. So by the time all of this took place and we were moving, moving, it was about our 10th year anniversary.

SPEAKER_05 17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

That was the first story, right? And I have to tell you, I am so glad. I am so glad I listened. In hindsight, it was the best thing for me personally to grow in myself and to grow in this knowledge that sometimes my head doesn't know what's best for me. And I am connected to something larger than me, and I do have intuition for a reason, and it's a powerful one, and it not only serves me, but it serves my family and serves those that I love, and it serves my purpose here. And that move to the Philippines really helped us, and my husband and I start on a clean slate.

SPEAKER_04 18:37

I can only imagine. It's literally on the other side of the world. Yeah. And what I'm hearing in you is this attunement, like this noticing. Because I think all of us have this inner knowing. It's in there, it's happening. I think the difference maker is the degree to which you're tuned into it. And once you tune in, do you actually act on it? And you're doing all of these things. And all around you are all these other voices that are probably meaning well but trying to protect you and keep you safe, and but it comes across in ways of You're gonna hang your laundry, aren't you? Or are you what are you doing to your children's lives, which is just so much that we carry as moms, and I don't think people mean it this way, but uh for me anyway, when people say things like that, it feels like a kind of shame or like when I yeah, what am I doing to my kids' lives? So we have a lot to deal with around that. You just said that you're so glad you did it. It was one of the best things ever in your life. So what were the things that came from you taking that huge leap?

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Oh, so many. Let me give you the top of the chart. I'll go back to the the blank slate. You know, we had nobody but each other when we landed in the Philippines.

SPEAKER_05 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

We had to learn the culture. My husband is Filipino, but he but by ethnicity, right? He was born in America and only been living in America at that point. There was a cultural piece that I think I didn't understand about him, um, that I really got to know when we moved there, and inevitably that cultural piece is important for our kids too. So there was a lot of learning, relearning about each other and about ourselves, how we acted in new places, how we acted when we were uncomfortable, whether we tended to turn towards each other or away from each other and isolate. How we grew as another thing is how we grew as a family. Well, we're the parents and we're protecting the kids, we're now in a position where we need the kids' eyes and ears too. It's so they're incredibly observant, maybe more so than I ever gave credit for. And when we moved there, I really learned that wow, I have so much to learn from my kids. It's not just them learning from me.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

And it really served it defined, it was a defining point in my parenting style where I changed and decided to to trust them, right, as much as I could and and appropriately because they are kids after all, but but I think we grew closer as a family. It gave me time away from work where I could just focus on being a mom. And I don't think that I had realized how much shame I had internally that I wasn't paying attention to for the time and effort that I put into my job. Because if I'm really being honest with myself, it was more than I was putting into my family. And in doing that, I felt out of alignment and It was a big reason that my marriage had failed. So it gave me time and space to reflect on what direction I had been heading and what I wanted to change, and now was a perfect time to change that and not hold myself in this space of shame, but really uh give myself compassion for the fact that I had been doing the best that I could. And I can always change. I can always change when I've decided that something now needs to be different.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Um It's amazing what happens when like you were you were so in it, it sounds like you couldn't see it until you made this leap. You're uh living in the Philippines now with your family, you don't know anyone. They have no relationships but one another. Obviously he moved there for work, so he had those colleagues and relationships. It sounds like it allowed you to see what you hadn't been able to see until then.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't know that I would have seen it because I had so many supportive people in my life. There was so much good to focus on. It actually offered a distraction from all the things that I wasn't aligned with that was easy to not pay attention to.

SPEAKER_04 23:16

Like your comfortable surroundings, your known, yes, even your routine, your work, and how that can uh like be a mask. Yeah. Yeah. It can be a veil between you and that knowing until it gets stripped away by something like what you did.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Right. And not to say that any of that was bad, right? Some of these masks are really good things that someone would think, why on earth would you give that up? Why would you leave that? This is great. And I thought so too, but the knowing said differently. So we moved and we ended up living there for six years, almost six years. We got to travel, we taught the kids how to travel, we learned the language and the foods, and I fell in love with the Filipino culture and this, you know, importance on family and just hospitality and some of the happiest people I've ever met, and it really rearranged my own priorities of what I want to be important to me moving forward.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

Beautiful realization from another culture. And your kids were you had four children under the age of ten, is that correct? Yeah. I mean when you first moved there. Correct, yeah. So you were there for six years, so they that's a lot of their growing up life.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, it was a significant part of their life. In fact, my oldest son still says that's home, that he was raised in the Philippines. And as we speak, he lives in Hawaii with a high concentration of Filipinos because that's where he feels at home.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Such such an impact on their lives. Right. Yeah. And yours, of course.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

But you can see it's worked out. And I guess I I think that's what's important to hear is we hear these stories from a situation or a point of view of, yeah, it worked out, but what if it doesn't? As if that what if it doesn't never happened to the person that it worked out for, right? But we're just it wasn't a story at that point. It was a life. It was a personal decision, it was a personal reckoning, and it was terrifying and inconvenient and not logical, and I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't know if I could be that vulnerable or that authentic with myself or face these people that I didn't want to disappoint. I had all the real human feelings. And it was hard. It was hard to believe in that knowing, trust it, and choose it.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

Betting on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:59

Yeah. That's Yeah, that is. I'm just sitting with the reality of how hard that really is. It's one thing to say, Oh, bet on yourself. Believe in yourself. Right. No, I'm just thinking about all the forces you had around you that were challenging that and pushing back on that, and it makes you question and it makes you doubt. It makes you waver. And yet you had that inner knowing that was higher than all of that. None of the other rose as much in you because you had that knowing that peace and you took the leap. And learned so much from it, and not just you, but your relationship with your spouse and obviously your children. Okay, and so you were there for six years, and then I you you're here now. We're in North Carolina. Yeah. By the way, to our listeners. So you found your way back here.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

We did, and it maybe this leads into the second story that came to mind. Okay. But right shortly after we'd moved here, I we were house shopping. We only had two days because life gets lifey. And we were scrambling around with the real estate agent day after day. But so on the second day, we had not found anything that really would work. And long story short, our real estate agent said, Hey, I knew of a house that just barely went off the market. And if you're serious about buying something, I'll call and see if we can tour it. It had been a neighborhood that we had driven in before, and as soon as we drove in the neighborhood, I had that feeling, that peaceful feeling again. And I had told my husband, this is it, this is the one. But we were looking at a different house at the time. And then when the house did not work at all, I was like, I'm so confused. This was the knowing. But when this real estate agent called the people, it ended up being a house in that neighborhood. So we went back and put an offer on the house that day. It was perfect. It was everything we needed. But us in the knowing, I knew something different. This wasn't just where we were supposed to live and supposed to land, but that something here and someone here was going to be very influential on my life. I know how weird that can sound, right? But it's the truth. I just had this knowing. I sometimes call it the knowing without learning. There was nothing that I learned. I had no inclination whatsoever logically, other than I just knew this. And sure enough.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

It's a greater sense. A greater sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

That's a great way to put it. Yeah. So fast forward we move in, and a couple months later, I get I'm looking for a job and just something part-time and flexible. And I get I start asking the preschool director, because that's the only person I know here in North Carolina. Again.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Again, you're in a new place. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

And she says, Oh, I used a nanny for this woman. I think she's looking for uh an assistant part-time. I'll put you in touch. So she does, and we go back and forth for a while. This woman is very busy, and it takes us a little while to connect. And when we do, we figure out that we actually have this entire time lived four houses down from each other on the same street. What?

SPEAKER_04 29:36

She's literally in your backyard.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Literally, I can see her office window from my back patio. Yes. What? Yes. Oh my gosh. And so we had been trying and trying to find a date where we could get for coffee or anything. And she says, if we're in the same neighborhood, let's just go for a walk. Are you available right now? I said, Yeah. So we go for a walk, and by the end of it, just hit it off. One of those situations where you feel like you've known someone forever, an immediate connection. And I ended up working for her for seven years and loved every minute of it. I loved the work that she did, and you're familiar with her and coaching in the coaching world. And but more than that, more than the work she did, I just loved her. She's so authentic and so genuine. And the reason I'm not saying her name is because I think she gets embarrassed with shout-outs, but such an authentic person. And the thing that always struck me was just what a wonderful model that was of just living a genuine, authentic life. And I love that. I loved that. And I strived to do that in myself, to be the safest person I knew so that I could foster that authenticity in me. Um speeding myself up to stop expecting more of myself than I do of other people, just to really develop this relationship with myself.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Sounds like love to me. Yes, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Like, how about loving myself?

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Right? What a crazy concept.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

We put so much out for everyone else. And I I hear that in your story too, of caring so deeply about others. How about turning that on myself and really embracing who I am?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

In the end, I'm the only person that I cannot ever get away from in this world. And for better or for worse. Exactly. You talk about true commitment. Maybe I better foster that relationship.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Great place to start. But she became a really trusted friend. We had a unique relationship because she was my boss essentially and a neighbor and became this deeply loved and trusted friend. Still is, still is. And one day I really would have worked for her forever. I literally loved the job and loved working with her and being around her. And one day the knowing came back.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

Oh no. Here it is again.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

That that. Oh no. That's exactly the pit in my stomach starts, the chest ickiness. And I'm like, dang it.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Dang it. It feels really good.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Those things you just named.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

It's wonderful. Can I just name it? It actually really sucks.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

Can you pull up a chair beside someone else, please?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Right. I've had enough.

SPEAKER_04 32:39

This time.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

But no, here it is. At the time, yeah, I had been, I just I'd gone back to school and had finished um my bachelor's. And the plan was that I would start working with her as a coach. Okay. And we'd been flushing that out. And then the the knowing the poll came.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

And you had a plan.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

I had a plan. We had a plan. And I did not want to disappoint her. Not that I would have, but I felt, you know. I just felt I felt something towards doing this with her.

SPEAKER_05 33:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Um anyway, we went on a walk, and I was able to say her famous phrase, which I I borrow and still use to this day, is just think out loud. Just just think out loud. Let's figure this out together. So we're doing that. We're walking around the neighborhood, and I'm thinking out loud, and some of it's rambling, and some of it's making sense, and and we get to this point, and I said, I think I'm supposed to be a counselor. And both of us stopped and just looked at each other, and there was it was like someone hit the pause button on a movie, and we both knew, yes, that's it. That's it. I'm supposed to be a counselor. So I had I'd actually been thinking about it for a long time in my moments of hindsight and wishing what I would have done. I'd always said, if I were younger and could do it all over again, I just I think I've always kind of had that personality. And um again to the Philippines, I held a job with the State Department at the time that was not a counseling role, but something similar, just supporting the families that are trailing the diplomat, the person coming there on official business. And it was not the same, but similar. A taste of it, and I loved it. Um so as I'm thinking out loud, and that comes out of my mouth, it was again, it reminded me of that moment that I just let myself say, I'm gonna move to the Philippines. So, so so quiet. But instant peace and an instant knowing that that is absolutely undeniably the direction that I'm heading.

SPEAKER_04 35:11

So when you heard yourself say that, like in that conversation with her about I want to be a counselor, that's when the peace came.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Well, yes and no. Okay, ooh. Some peace in the knowing, some peace in knowing what it was, and then instantly terrified and excited at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

There's that feeling again. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yes, because when I really thought about it logically, that meant I was gonna go home from this walk, tell my husband, hey, we have two, nearly three kids about to launch into college, and I want to quit my job. You'd already put me through my bachelor's and thinking that it was gonna be because I'm gonna start making better money any day now. And surprise, I'm actually gonna go back and spend more money in tuition and not work. Yeah, makes no sense.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Joining our kids in college.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Yeah, inconvenient, not logical, timing felt off. And again, I knew that I was not not in a bad way, I don't want this to sound bad, but I was not asking him for permission. I was asking for his support. I was going to find a way to make this happen because I could not deny it now, and I could not always, I couldn't go forward always wondering. And to his credit, he said, Okay, we're gonna figure this out. I I trust you, we're gonna figure this out.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

A real partner. Absolutely. That's so important when you're doing big things like this is to have it is to have that support, especially from your person.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. One thousand percent.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

I can't imagine doing it without that. And I know that's I feel like that's uh that's a real privilege in life to travel with side by side with someone and go through all the things of life because you're reflecting on your relationship. There was a time you were separated and that restoration that the two of you did, and how you've supported one another over time. Here it is in this situation of supporting you to return to college and your education.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Yeah, and do a big, big thing that I actually wasn't sure that I could do. I was like overford.

unknown 37:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Can I really do this?

SPEAKER_00 37:43

And to his credit, he did not go that route. He decided to stay open-minded. There's another side story to this that I need to take a detour, and I hope you don't mind me bringing this up. But do it, go. I had around that time read your book, Choosing Me, and was so inspired, so inspired. And there was something that sat with me as I read that. Of course, I was following your story and cheering you on and proud of you, and imagining all that had to take place for that book to be in people's hands, and and there was a twin, like a little something under that. I think that was maybe where the the full like pull started. Right. I think your book planned in the scene because I couldn't I couldn't really just put it down or even put it behind me, like, wow, that was a great book. It was some there was something more that had to be discovered that I had to get really curious about that was sitting and growing in me. And while it started as this fascination of how did you overcome the fear to get really vulnerable and make this change and and put your story out there and I'm saying that out of order, but and when I sit with that, what am I fighting, right? What what vulnerability and fear am I fighting and trying to ignore this polling? And so it's if I were to choose me, what what is that? What am I wanting to choose? And what am I wanting to let my life be in the next chapter that is scary and terrifying and exciting at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_04 39:33

So yeah. All those things. All of those things can be true. Yes. They feel like such opposites and it's they can all be true, a percentage of truth.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Yeah, so there was that thing in you that had been a longing but had been dormant until you made that decision to pursue it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And look at you now.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Here I am. I graduated. They actually gave me a degree.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

And then And then you didn't go a traditional route then.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Oh, I did not. No, I did not.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

Don't keep our listeners in suspense.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

I won't, I won't. I did something very unconventional. It is not common for people to go from graduation right into private practice, and there are a lot of strong feelings in the field about this, and and I agree with most of them. I'll just contradict my myself right here. I don't think it's a great idea for most. And I'm not saying that I'm special, but I am saying I knew that this was something I had to try. And I had been applying and I'd wanted to stay working with the place that I did my internship, and I'd met a lot of great connections, and just for one reason or another, they just were falling through. They weren't working. And again, I had this poll of what if, what if we bet on ourselves? What if we tried it? It's not popular, and people are gonna have opinions about it, but what if there's a way to do it? So I started pulling in the people that I trust and these amazing people that I'd connected with through my journey in grad school and internship and just people in the field already, and started asking some real questions. Do you think I can do this? Do you I know it's not recommended for most, right? Do you think it's worth a shot? And would you be an advisor? Could I be, would you be someone I could lean on if I had questions, knowing very well I was still a new counselor, but but also good at this, really good at this. And so I did. I decided to put just one step, one foot in front of the other, take one day at a time so that I didn't get overwhelmed and psych myself out and just continue to renew that courage and that decision to choose and bet on me every day. And before I knew it, we were opening an actual location. Like I had a key to a door that was mine. Look at this. I know. And I expected it to take a while to get clients in the door, but word of mouth and referrals, two months in, I was full. And it's been that way since.

SPEAKER_04 42:31

And after starting your counseling practice, yeah, your private practice, you were full. So blessed. I'm just sitting with that for a minute, Mindy, that being an an executive coach and business owner myself. I remember back in my coaching training, and just like with therapy or with counseling, you're like, Oh, how do I get my first clients? And you get your first clients, and how can I get another, how can I build this over time? And I think we go into it with an idea of how long it might take, and that usually we think it's gonna take a really long time and you are full and for two months. I think that when the universe puts something in us that inner knowing that you're speaking about that restlessness, that stirring. I don't think you've necessarily used those words, but that's what the words I use when I hear your stories. That's a great word. Yeah, is that stuff that happens in our bodies that is energetic and it doesn't come from above our shoulders. From our cognitive self. Going against the green.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Are you gonna alert what are people gonna think? This isn't natural. We're gonna be homeless. This isn't the traditional stuff.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

All of it, yes.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

Oh, you uh your journey and these stories you shared today are they're really magnificent. I don't use that word lightly. They're magnificent from the standpoint of betting on yourself, choosing you, and the different times in your life that you've chosen yourself when everything else may have encouraged you to choose differently. You really paid attention to that energy within you. And you said yes to it. And when you say yes to it, just like the counseling practice story, I've just the universe responds. You were full. Your practice was full in two months.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah, even that makes no logical sense.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

Right? When you move to the Philippines and your relationship with your partner restored, your family, the deepening of the relationship with your family and with yourself, that's you are someone who there's a trailblazing quality about you that's going against the grain. And one of the most powerful pieces of advice I hear from you, like I'm receiving this today, is one step. One step at a time, because these are big leaps you're making. And when you think about the end result, like moving to the Philippines or leaving this great job with a a boss I love to pursue my counseling degree and then opening a private practice, these are big things, and you can't look at the that end goal can be paralyzing because it looks like you have so far to go. But what you're teaching me is just one step. What's the first step? What's the first and then what's the next first step? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I mean, that is a really that is a a real theme that runs through even my counseling practice and everyone that sits in front of me, right? Let's just look at the next best step. We don't know what will happen after that. We'll get knowledge that might change the way we feel or the way we think about this, and we don't need to make decisions from a place of not knowing that part yet.

SPEAKER_04 46:15

Yeah. It reminds me of the movie Mission Impossible. It's like once you do the one thing, then you get the next message.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Should you choose to accept this.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Yes, you over and over again have chosen to accept the call. And yeah, ja, Mindy, this has been beautiful today. Thank you so much for joining me on undoing. Such a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Oh, thank you for letting me share my stories and having me here. I just love connecting with you.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

So I have something fun here as we close. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Here's a question. She's very light. Okay. So, Mindy, when you were a kid, what did you dream of being or doing when you grew up?

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Oh my gosh. I just wanted to be a mom. That's it. Yes. Yeah. I would always give these fancy answers that I think adults wanted to hear, like an attorney and a doctor, all the things. But I always knew I just wanted to be a mom. Yeah. Yeah. And it's my favorite job. It's hands down, unbeatable.

SPEAKER_04 47:23

What I know of you, you didn't just I have one son. You didn't just do one. Correct. Yeah. Four kids. And so beautiful. And I know a little bit about their lives and what they're doing in the world. And yeah, so you did it. You wanted to be that, and you did it, and you're doing it so beautifully. Thank you for who you are.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Thank you for sharing this space with me today.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Oh, thank you, Jeannie. It's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

Thank you for joining me on Undoing. I hope today's episode offered you a moment of recognition, resonance, or relief. Something that reminds you that you're not alone in your journey. This is an opportunity to tune into your inner wisdom and open to what's wanting to emerge. If you're enjoying this podcast, please share it with a friend or colleague, leave a review, and follow the show. Until next time, what's the undoing that needs to happen in you?