Awaken & Empower

The transition into the new year is a powerful time for self-reflection. It’s an empowering opportunity to create space to honour the year that has passed so you can fully welcome the one that lies ahead.

In this episode, I’m guiding you through a self-reflection practice that’ll support you in your honouring of 2022 and welcoming of 2023!

Listen in for lots of journaling prompts, reflection questions, and opportunities for self-inquiry. The first part of this self-reflection practice will help you look back on 2022 and get clear on how it impacted you and your life. And the second part of the practice will give you a chance to look ahead to 2023 and envision your intentions, desires, and goals for the new year.  

The questions and prompts included in this episode are designed to spark your intuition and give you the space to hear your inner wisdom. I encourage you to approach this practice with ample time and space, an open heart, and a willingness to be with yourself fully.

I hope this practice leaves you feeling empowered and ready to move into the new year in ways that feel authentic and true to you!

The podcast will be back sometime in the new year, but until then you can always reach out to me by emailing [email protected], following me on Instagram @living.embrace, and visiting my website www.livingembrace.ca . For more information on the Self-Empowerment Coaching I offer, check out my Coaching Services at https://livingembrace.ca/coaching-services/ 

Wishing you happy holidays and a fulfilling new year!

Sometimes we can get stuck in a way of thinking, feeling, and seeing things within ourselves and in our lives that doesn’t serve us. When this happens, one of the most empowering things we can do is find a way to shift our perspective and dare to think, feel, and look at things in a new way.

I’ve found that one of the most powerful ways to shift perspectives is reading oracle cards, so in this episode, we’re consulting the cards to help us gain new insights and shift our perspective.

I used these three oracle card decks for the readings:

• Moonology Oracle by Yasmin Boland > https://www.yasminboland.com/moonology-oracle-cards/
• The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck by Kim Krans > https://www.kimkrans.com/books-and-decks
• The Rose Oracle by Rebecca Campbell > https://rebeccacampbell.me/the-rose-oracle/

To hear each reading and receive guidance from the one you picked as your own, head to these times in the show:

• Moonology – 6:40
• Animal Spirit – 12:42
• Rose Oracle – 17:20

I hope these readings provide you with clarity, a possible path forward, and intuitive insight that will help you shift your perspective to a place that really serves you!

I’d love to hear what you received from your reading. If you’d like to connect, you can always email me at [email protected], find me on Instagram @living.embrace and visit my website www.livingembrace.ca

If you’re interested in booking a Messages from Within oracle card reading and self-empowerment coaching session with me, head to https://livingembrace.ca/coaching-services/ for more information and reach out to me if you have any questions.

Thank you so much for sharing in this space with me!

It’s natural to go through times in our lives when our sense of self-empowerment is a little weak, or completely non-existent. I know what that’s like, and I also know what it’s like to not even have the energy to figure out how to feel empowered again. If you’re going through this kind of phase, this episode is the one for you.

This episode is all about 10 small things you can do to revitalize your self-empowerment. These 10 practices may be simple, but they are also effective and can leave a lasting and powerful impact on the world within and around you.  

Listen in to learn how to implement these 10 practices into your life. I also share how each of them has helped me move through times of low self-empowerment, and I provide guidance and examples to spark your inspiration and motivation.

I hope this episode helps you start to visualize your path back to your self-empowerment. It is always within you, and sometimes all it takes is baby step after baby step to reconnect with it. Often the simplest things make the biggest difference.   

I’d love to connect with you! You can always email me at [email protected] and find me on Instagram @living.embrace. To learn more about how I can support you on your self-empowerment journey, visit my website www.livingembrace.ca

Thank you for being here!  

After taking a bit of a break from the podcast, I’m so happy and excited to be back!

In this episode, I share what life has looked like for me over the past few months. It’s been a time of life-changing experiences, complex inner struggles, and creating the space to reconnect, remember, and return home to myself.

I talk about what’s been coming up for me and how I’ve been navigating and taking care of myself during this time. I also share a powerful realization I had that helped me accept what I was going through and move forward with more understanding and self-love. 

We’re all in this continuous process of healing, evolving, and rising into more of who we are. I’ve definitely been feeling the impacts of this lately, and in this episode I open my heart to you and share as authentically about it all as I can.

As always, I hope me sharing my truth brings you even just a little bit closer to yours, and if you’re also going through a difficult phase, I hope this episode helps you feel less alone.  

If you’d like to connect with me, you can email me at [email protected], find me on Instagram @living.embrace, and visit my website www.livingembrace.ca

Thank you so much for being here, I appreciate you endlessly!

Welcome to the 50th episode of Awaken & Empower!

In this special milestone episode, we’re honouring the past, embracing the present, and trusting what lies ahead in the future.

Listen in to hear me share my thoughts on what this podcasting journey has meant to me, the ways it has challenged me and helped me heal, and how it has contributed to my creative and personal growth.

I also reflect on the summer conversation series, share an honest and vulnerable life update, and talk about what’s coming next for me and my work.

If you’d like to receive the Living Embrace Letters, sign up at https://living-embrace.ck.page/734d7d230b. And as always, you can contact me at [email protected], connect with me on Instagram @living.embrace, and visit my website www.livingembrace.ca 

Thank you so much for being part of this journey with me. Your presence means a whole lot to me and I’m so grateful that I get to play even a small part in your journey of awakening your authentic self and living an empowered life!

We’re wrapping up the summer conversation series with a discussion about divine connections and living a spiritual life between me and a woman I consider to be my soul sister, Wairimu Njoroge.

Wairimu is a Healing Conversationalist, Strategist, and Therapist whose specialty is in supporting individuals, families and communities in identifying and closing gaps in their mental health, to facilitate restoration, healing, and recreation of sustainable meaningful living. 

We talked about so many soul-centred topics, including…

• What sparked our divine connection a few months ago and how our friendship has evolved in intentionality since then
• Occupying the space of “becoming” and embracing the uncertainty of life
• How Wairimu serves others as a therapist and a healing conversationalist
• Wairimu’s journey with spirituality and how it has supported her and impacted her approach to life in empowering ways
• Our experiences of leaning into our spirituality to understand, navigate, and heal anxiety
• What it feels like to make a divine connection, how to recognize that you’ve experienced one, and what these connections can bring to your life
• How to attract, welcome, and nurture divine connections in your life
• Wairimu’s words of advice for anyone who wants to live in deeper connection with their spirituality

Wairimu has so much wisdom and light to share. I hope our conversation helps you find solace, connection, and a pathway towards the most peaceful part of your soul.

Check out Wairimu and all her amazing work on Psychology Today at https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/wairimu-njoroge-toronto-on/838359 and on Black Therapist List at https://www.blacktherapistlist.com/find-a-therapist/gid/100770/wairimu-njoroge. You can also connect with her on Instagram @wairimunjoroge49 and LinkedIn

As always you can reach me at my email [email protected], on my website www.livingembrace.ca, and on Instagram @living.embrace

Thank you so much for listening!

Teaching and learning are two integral parts of any human’s lifetime. I believe teachers are such an important part of our society, and in this episode of the summer conversation series, I sat down with one of my favourite people, who also happens to be a teacher, my friend Kendall Smilde.

Kendall received her Bachelor of Education from Brock University in 2020, and she is now an elementary school teacher. She has a passion for working with youth and a strong desire to inspire change in the younger generations. She also enjoys living an active lifestyle through things like sports, hiking, and volunteering in the community. In her free time, she enjoys reading, being with family and friends, and spending time with her beloved French bulldog Fred.

In our conversation, we talked about things like…

• How our friendship has evolved since we met in high school and what we love most about our relationship
• What (and who) inspired Kendall to become a teacher, and how she knew this career was always meant for her
• Kendall’s experience of completing teacher’s college and starting her teaching career during the height of the pandemic
• Navigating the unknown in life and choosing to sink deeper into trust
• The challenges Kendall has faced in her journey so far, and how she has overcome them and learned more about herself because of them
• Having faith and believing in yourself as you work towards living your dream
• The immense privilege and responsibility that comes with this career, and Kendall’s thoughts on how we can all better support teachers
• The power of choosing to trust each step in your journey and believe that things will happen the way they’re meant to happen

We’ve all been impacted by teachers in some way, and I hope what we talked about in this episode expanded your understanding of what it’s really like to be a teacher. Much thanks to Kendall (or as she’s known to her students, Miss Smilde!) for sharing so openly and for all the work she does to teach and inspire children!

As always, to get in touch with me you can email me at [email protected], follow me on Instagram @living.embrace, and visit my website www.livingembrace.ca

Thank you so much for listening!

No matter what you’re going through in life, you can benefit from trusting your intuition, believing that what is meant for you will find you, and having faith in your Higher self. All of these concepts are touched upon in this episode of the summer conversation series, which is a chat between me and one of my oldest and dearest friends, Emily Peart.

Emily currently lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia as a community support coordinator, which is an occupation that focuses on health and wellness and individual empowerment. She has an educational background in psychology and business, however she found her passion in healthcare working with elderly individuals and helping them thrive within the community. From this experience she has gained a lot of insight on the multidimensional aspects of health and wellness. She has also learned life lessons on the importance of spirituality and its relevance on the mental and physical realms.

Listen in to hear us talk about things like…

• Our favourite memories from growing up together since we were six years old, and how we used certain challenges to our advantage to keep our friendship strong
• How the pandemic caused Emily to pivot in her personal life and career
• Having trust and faith in a higher power when taking risks and making a big change
• Choosing courage over fear and intuition over logic to welcome in your soul purpose
• The series of unexpected events that led Emily to her dream job, and stories about her experiences of contributing to her community as a support worker
• Protecting and nurturing your energy as a helping professional and a deeply-feeling human
• How Emily has tapped into her spiritual gifts at her job and embraced her spirituality in her everyday life
• Emily’s powerful words of advice for anyone who is wanting to make a big shift in their life and live in alignment with their Higher self

I loved having this fun and deep life chat with Emily. I hope her insights have just as profound of an impact on you as they did on me!

As always, if you’d like to get in touch with me, you can email me at [email protected] and by using my Contact Me page at https://livingembrace.ca/contact-me/. You can also find me on Instagram @living.embrace

Thank you so much for listening! 

If you’re currently in your 20s and navigating all the ups and downs of young adulthood, I hope this episode brings you comfort and helps you feel a little less alone.

In this episode of the summer conversation series, I’m sharing a chat I had with one of my best friends, Rebekah Gonzales. Rebekah loves film, photography, and art. She’s also very passionate about human rights, diversity, and inclusion. Hiking and spending time outdoors is her favourite way to decompress. A little over a year ago, she created a blog called Space In Between. The name came from that transitional period of time in young adulthood where you know what you want and where you want to be but are still in the process of getting there. Her blog serves as a creative outlet where she can share her photography and also the stories of her friends and their struggles navigating adulthood.

We had an honest and candid conversation about topics like…

• How we met in high school and the ways our friendship has evolved over time
• Dealing with and overcoming insecurity, body image issues, and unrealistic beauty standards as a teen to gain confidence and self-acceptance as a young adult
• How our college/university experiences impacted our personal growth and helped us live more authentically
• Liberating yourself from the pressures of fitting in, people pleasing, and the overachiever mentality so you can become your true self
• Choosing to release the expectations of others and stop comparing yourself to other people
• What we know now that we wish we could tell our younger selves
• How to cope with not having everything figured out and make peace with your current phase of life
• Our best words of advice for anyone else navigating the messy “space in between” of young adulthood

Having this conversation made me remember that wherever you’re at on your life’s journey, and no matter how much of a mess you may feel like, there are always opportunities for acceptance, gratitude, and moments to look back and appreciate how far you’ve come.

You can visit Rebekah’s website at www.spaceinbetween.ca and check her out on Instagram @spaceinbetween_

And as always, to get in touch with me you can email me at [email protected] or use my Contact Me page at https://livingembrace.ca/contact-me/. You can also follow me on Instagram @living.embrace

Thank you so much for being here! 

Welcome to the first episode of the summer conversation series! I’m so excited to be kicking off this series with a conversation about reflexology, healing, and self-connection between me and a woman who I’m so honoured to know, Anna Kwiatkowski.

Anna is an empathetic, curious soul that loves deep and dreams big. She graduated from the graphic design program at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, and her current role is a design and marketing specialist for Anna's Garden, Home & Wellness. She dabbles in illustration, photography, and candle making. Her current passion project is becoming a certified reflexologist which will help cultivate her ideal work-life balance of owning a space that serves and provides relaxation and renewal for women.

We got into so many empowering topics, including…

• A reflection on how our coaching relationship impacted both of us
• What led Anna to follow the path of pursuing a certification in reflexology
• What reflexology is and how receiving it can benefit your healing journey and lead to physical, mental, and emotional transformations
• How being a recipient of reflexology has supported Anna in her healing journey and fuelled her passion for facilitating this experience for others
• The grounding benefits and uplifting empowerment of creating space for self-connection
• How receiving untraditional and spiritual methods of healing can help you tend to yourself in a more holistic way
• What has helped Anna the most in her healing and self-development journey
• Anna’s words of advice for anyone who wants to try healing modalities like reflexology for the first time

Anna is such a beautiful soul and I’m so grateful that she took the time to come on the podcast so I could give her the space to share her light and wisdom. To connect with Anna, you can follow her personal Instagram account @scooski and her reflexology account @blackmoonhaus

And as always, to connect with me you can email me at [email protected], or by using my Contact Me page at https://livingembrace.ca/contact-me/, and be sure to follow me on Instagram @living.embrace

Thank you so much for being here!