In this episode, Alex sits down with the inspiring Karolina Rzadkowolska! She is a certified alcohol-free life coach who helps intuitive women ditch alcohol and discover their greater purpose. She’s worked with thousands of clients through her online courses and coaching to change their drinking habit and unleash a new level of health, happiness, and potential to go after their biggest dreams. Her book Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You (HarperCollins) came out on bookshelves on January 4th. She’s the host of Euphoric the Podcast, founder of Euphoric AF, and her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, The Sunday Post, Popsugar, Real Simple, Elite Daily and multiple TV shows. Karolina’s passionate about helping you discover what really makes you happy outside of a beverage and design a life you love.
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She would love to hear from you at www.euphoricaf.com. Follow me on Instagram @alexmcrobs and check out my offerings in yoga, meditation and coaching at http://themindfullifepractice.com/.
Transcript:
Alex: Hi friend this is Alex McRobbs founder of the Mindful Life Practice and you're listening to the Sober Yoga Girl podcast. I'm a Canadian who moved across the world to the Middle East at age 23 and I never went back. I got sober in 2019 and I now live full-time in Bali, Indonesia. I've made it my mission to help other women around the world stop drinking, start yoga and change their lives through my online sober girls yoga Community. You're not alone and a sober life can be fun and fulfilling, let me show you how.
[Music]
Alex: Hello hello everyone welcome back to another episode of sober yoga girl I am really happy to be sitting down with Carolina Jad kowalska who is the author of euphoric AF and she's an alcohol-free life coach and she leads Retreats for women and she actually most recently we were just chatting before the interview started that she recently was here in Bali leaving a retreat so that's super cool so it's really nice to finally meet you Carolina how are you doing?
Karolina: I'm doing so good thank you so much for the warm welcome. I am so excited to be here today.
Alex: Well it's nice to finally meet you. I feel like I've been connected with you for a long time on social media and been following your journey as an author and it's just amazing to see other women doing impactful things in the sober and alcohol-free world.
Karolina: Aww, well thank you so much likewise for you too. It's just so cool to see Globetrotters and just the mindful lifestyle really painted in such an inspiring way.
Alex: Thanks so, I was wondering if we could get started and you could tell me a little bit about your life pre-sobriety like what was it like?
Karolina: Yeah um, such a good question because it wasn't that bad like I think you know we all, we often have this, this image in our mind that everything was horrible you know. When we're drinking and then the light comes on and things like that and I have to just say I lived a very mediocre life. It was kind of boring. Um, so what my drinking really looked like was when I was much younger, when I was in college and grad school I partied so hard like that was my identity. I just lived to go out. I probably went out almost every night, like I just was drink, drinking so much but as I got older I started to settle down. I got into a career, I got married, I bought a house you know, like I'm getting into my later 20s and alcohol starts becoming something that I reserve for the weekend and so basically I lived this like very cookie cutter lifestyle Monday through Thursday and I was getting into more health and wellness and mindfulness so I started incorporating things like yoga classes and meditation and mindfulness and yet still alcohol came knocking every single weekend and I would over drink and basically wake up on Monday morning feeling like hell, feeling crappy, feeling like all that healthy progress I made through the week was just completely washed away by the weekend and just kind of like a maniac going through the same cycles week, after week, after week. My job was fine, my marriage was fine, like all the things in my life were just like totally okay and according to the standards of other people I would say I was checking all the boxes. I had gotten my MBA, I was working at a university that I you know fairly enjoyed and it was just this kind of status quo, I lived in I'd also though like long time ago given up on a lot of these childhood dreams, like for example I love people who travel, I love to travel, I love the idea of freedom and impact in your life and so none of those things were in my previously. I just went to my job nine to five Monday through Friday and the highlight of my week was literally that bottle of wine. That was waiting for me on Thursday or Friday evening and that's kind of the pattern I lived in week, after week, after week, after week. I didn't miss, notice how much fulfillment and meaning and purpose I was really missing from my life. Um so, everything changed when I decided to reevaluate the role of alcohol on my life and I think it was like this like awakening process that really shifted everything for me because not only am I awakening from this identity of I'm someone who you know, can't wait for drinking or loves to go out or like likes to have wine or whatever it was. It wasn't just that part breaking apart, it was like all the other self-imposed stories I had put on my life. Of what was possible, what was reasonable, what I could have in this lifetime and I shook all of it upside down and I said no, this is a chance to reimagine everything in my life which is literally what I've been doing for the last five years and my life is now night and day difference. I quit that day job that wasn't giving me the fulfillment I was really looking for. I launched my own business, I wrote my own book, I now travel the world all the time working from my laptop and, and really make an impact in other women's lives which was really something that was missing for me as well you know. I was so just apathetic with life before and now I can really truly say that I get high almost every day because I feel a sense of fulfillment almost every day.
Alex: That's so incredible and there's so much that I can resonate with in your story because I think we're reading really similar paths in, in the sense of I, I kind of was able to do this adventure from a young age. Like, I was working as an expat through my 20s through my partying days but definitely within that like, I was living in Abu Dhabi and it was just like this nine to five hamster thing and I was partying all the time and now I just have so much freedom like, I could just decide like oh next week I'm gonna go spend a bit of time in Dubai with one of my friends and I can like easily pick up and move there which is really incredible and a freedom that I didn't have before.
Karolina: Yeah and that's like one of my biggest values and if you think about it, like this, the alcohol lifestyle robs you so much of that freedom you know, like you're in control by a beverage, you're in control by the mental chatter of like should I drink? Should I not drink? Like, it's just so much of that freedom that's missing and so I think that when someone else values freedom whether it's in their lifestyle and their travel and their career or just thinking about am I really free from this beverage or does this like literally a fermented beverage control me and my predominant thoughts it's just such an interesting exploration to really align your life according to your values like freedom for example.
Alex: So interesting and so what does your partner do because you and him just were working remotely in like Europe for a month right this past summer? So, what does he do that, that he's able to work remotely as well?
Karolina: Yeah, so we were actually there for three months um and so very interesting story. So, you know, when I ditched alcohol I was, I was personally chained to my corporate nine to five job. Well, I worked for a university so it wasn't quite corporate but really similar, right? Um, I was chained to that and so I would look at the people that I was jealous of I was jealous of online entrepreneurs, I was jealous of authors, I was jealous of coaches, I was jealous of thought leaders and I was like, why can't I have what they have? You know and I think it was really the shock of like hey, I can go 20, 50, 100 days without drinking that was really like why couldn't I do what they did and so I started putting the pieces together of really designing this life that has this ultimate vision in front of me. A life of freedom and impact and so I worked really hard on launching my business and growing it and about a year and a half into my business I was able to leave my day job and go full time into my business and then you know continue to like build this vision. So, right away when I left my day job I started traveling more, I started like really just seeing the world but I'd often go without my husband because he did have a job that chained him back at home. So, it was so interesting, I was like okay I'm getting this stream life, I'm working on it, I'm doing it, I'm doing the travel but I kind of wish he was here yeah I kind of wish he was with me. So, I remember this next goal that I put on my vision board was to retire my husband. Was to retire my husband from his job and have him start working for the company, my company and that way he wouldn't have to be you know, have any other kind of restrictions or limitation on his travel abilities either and I remember I put on my vision board for like a long time, like I was looking at it like we thought I was hoping he would like leave his job a whole year before he actually was able to but it kept being this reminder and this reminder of what we're ultimately building our dream to. So, this may 2022 I retired my husband.
Alex: Wow.
Karolina: He joined the company we left to spend three months in Europe and you know since then I've been just traveling almost non-stop. We went to Europe then I went to a speaking gig in Chicago. I was just in Bali and now I'm hosting another retreat in Puerto Vallarta and he's joining me. So previously he was in mortgages to answer your question but now he is the Chief Operating Officer of Euphoric team, euphoric and this is just like, like this is what perseverance and consistency can give you, you know, like never in a million years, five years ago could I see having a company that sustains me and my husband and allows us to have this lifestyle and travel and it's just like all I've done is just take one baby step after the next baby step, after the next baby step, after the next one so that was like a huge goal of mine. Thank you so much for asking and I'm just so glad that we're like, we made it and it's still kind of scary and freaky but we're here.
Alex: That's incredible, that's so inspiring. So you started Euphoric five years ago, is that what you said?
Karolina: I had dished alcohol almost five years ago and you forged about four years ago yeah.
Alex: Okay and so what was that like in your first year of sobriety? Like how did you get started into Euphorics and you were, you already a life coach? Did you start doing life coach training or like what was that journey like?
Karolina: Yeah, I had nothing. I remember being so confused and just so intimidated about what the next steps were. Um, and I remember kind of thinking almost like let me just dip my toe in this you know, because I talked to a lot of women actually. I help women ditch alcohol but my forte is really to help them find their deeper purpose. Once they've ditched alcohol, so I have special programs that are just reserved for alcohol-free women to find their deeper purpose and go for it and so I really have to think back like what did I do that helped me be so successful and I remember first of all is allowing the belief that because I've changed my relationship with alcohol I can literally change anything. It was really crucial because it gave me the belief and the confidence to go after what I wanted but I didn't just go like full force ahead and just be like blazing into it. There was a part of my subconscious that was like yeah but really? Can we really do the things? So I remember really just dipping my toe at first, like the literally the first thing I did was buy a website domain you know, and at that time I wasn't a certified coach. I just like knew I had something that was valuable and that was like basically advice and I was like, I could blog, I could share this advice, I could put it up on the internet, I could start sharing mocktail recipes on social media, like nobody needs a certificate to do that and that's kind of where I started. I just started sharing advice and like really just putting myself out there on the online space. Um and then even I remember like registering for an LLC. I was like, why don't I just like, why do I just do it? Just so I have it. Like I didn't even really think there would be a business necessarily. I was just like, why don't we just register for it? Just to see and like the pieces just the cards kept moving forward and so you know I did get certified pretty quickly, into you know, um, launching my business because I just felt like that would really help me um you know, work the, with the women I wanted to work with. I got another certification on top of that, that really helped me do the alcohol for your life coaching and it just really was all this like consistent little baby steps of really just showing up online, building relationships with people, sharing advice and I've completely pivoted a lot of times with the kind of programs I offer or what I like do or the formats and all that kind of stuff. So, it's like when you start, you might not know what you really like or what you really enjoy or how it like pans out for you and you're allowed to change. But you have to start with something. You have to just dip your toe in and get started with the very first baby step like forward and I'm very, very grateful to all the incredible mentors that have kind of come before me to help teach me, you know. Personal development is one of my highest values. I invest a lot into my personal development because guess what? I had no idea how to launch a business. I had no idea how to write a book. I had no idea how to grow my beliefs enough to even believe I'm worthy of this kind of Lifestyle. I have been doing the personal development work behind the scenes to be able to attain all of that.
Alex: Thank you so much for sharing. That, that's so inspiring and I love how you talked about, like taking these little steps and that's really what it is and I think sometimes people will look at someone who has built a company or built a business or community and think it just like happened for them overnight, when in reality it's just like these small steps every single day and then also the element of like pivoting like the amount of times. One of my favorite things is when I get these Facebook memories that pop up that are like two years ago you posted this and I was promoting something like completely different than what I do now, you know. Like, I try to do like yoga for kids at one point, like I was doing yoga for expats, like I was doing the most random things over the course of the you know the two and a half. Three years that I've been building up to this point and it took a really long time for me to like try things and fail and realize like this is what's really resonating with people and I just, I love that you emphasize that because I think people think they fail once and think oh I'm just like not meant for this entrepreneur thing or it's gonna be too hard but it takes a bunch of small steps and the resilience to Pivot and try again when things fail.
Karolina: Absolutely and I love those reminders even sometimes we can see online some of the most incredible thought leaders like super famous people who are on Oprah sometimes you can find their beginning online and they're beginning sucked. Like they literally started from scratch. Just like we all do, you know what I mean and it can be really inspiring to be like everyone starts at the beginning. Everyone starts here and it's just a matter of taking action and being consistent with it and like you said, you don't have to be married to something. Like you know, maybe yoga for kids wasn't your ultimate purpose but if you didn't do that you would have probably never landed where you landed so it's like taking action I think is really important too.
Alex: So true, yeah and so how did it come about writing your book? Were you writing prior to writing the book or how did that get going?
Karolina: Yeah uh my book is still like a pinch me moment. I had been wanting to write a book ever since I was a child. I'm a huge reader and so I've just really loved books all of my life and what was really interesting was when I was younger as like a kid and adolescent, I used to write quite a lot. I would write little short stories, little poems um, little novel ideas and it's so interesting that as soon as I go to college and really pick up my drinking, my writing dries up. I stop writing. I completely stop writing. I stopped journaling, I start, stop doing creative works, like it just completely dries up and so this bothers me obviously because I always wanted to be a writer and I'm like I can't write. I have writer's block, I have no creativity and so I remember every single New Year's Eve for like the last five years before I stopped drinking. I made this New Year's resolution, this is the year I'm gonna write. I'm gonna write for you know, half an hour every single week until I get this novel done. I had so many different novel ideas and every year I would write for one week in January and that was it. Every year nothing happened and so I felt so defeated. There was like a point where I'm just like this is not gonna happen for me. This is not in the cards for me, right? And so the year I go alcohol free the first thing I notice is like all of a sudden I'm journaling again. Like that power is coming back to me. I'm like scribbling. I'm renegotiating all the beliefs and assumptions I had around alcohol and just completely changing my world view and mindset around it and I'm like wow, I'm really prolific. Like, a lot is coming out of me and I remember being at the beach one day in Hawaii and I was just having this beautiful realization, the sunset was happening, crowning the sky, all these people were like kind of running around to get to the bar and get like a drink you know, to enjoy the sunset and I was just like this is good enough. Like, I don't need a drink to enjoy this. This is the most freaking beautiful thing I've ever seen and right in that moment I heard this word euphoric and I was like two months alcohol free and it was like euphoric, you're meant to write a book and I was like whoa like I had not felt creativity or any kind of flashes of insight for years, you know. Desperately asking for them and now all of a sudden I'm two months alcohol-free and this book idea comes to me literally like less than a month later. I get all of the chapters just like in a brain download. Just literally, no creativity, writer's block for years and all of a sudden every single chapter idea comes to me. Now I'm so early in my alcohol free Journey, I'm still like in the four months, five months but like something else all of a sudden gave me this vision that I meant to write a book and so at first it was really small, baby steps. Again I was just like okay can I write for 15 minutes most days of the week and this time I would actually wake up with that alarm and do it and before I could talk myself out of it and before I judged what I wrote, I just wrote anything most of it was crap. A lot of it I never used but I just wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and like days, after days, after weeks, after weeks I started recognizing that hey I think I have like 40,000 words here 50,000 words. There's like a, a saying that a book is around 60, 70, 80,000 words so like as soon as I recognized I was actually writing so much that maybe there was a book here. I was like I can write a book, I just basically wrote half a book. I can do this and from that process, I started to just take the next baby step. So, I wrote a guide or a non-fiction book so this type of a book to get traditionally published would need to um have a book proposal that you send out to agents and then eventually get a book deal. So, I was like okay how do you write a book proposal? I looked it up. I bought a course on it and I just started the baby steps on writing that book proposal. Every little thing that happened on this book journey was like a miracle because I took that step. I sent my book proposal to agents, like one of the first agents that I love, she's my favorite person. She wanted to work with me, she's in New York. She's amazing and you know, then she did her magic and she got me a six-figure book deal from Harper Collins. Like I'm not a celebrity, there's no reason why I should have gotten a book deal and yeah it just goes to show that the things we believe about are what is possible in our lives. We can completely defy them and our like most crazy dreams are actually probably what's really guiding us most to fulfill our purpose and so you know, I got this book deal, you know. Then the serious work of really getting it together started. It was amazing, the book came out in January. Had all this fun marketing it and just like getting it to as many people as possible and I now have a like bigger and more dreams than I ever had before because before if you would have talked to me seven years ago at a party when I was a little tipsy I would have told you the one dream I have in life is to write a book and I would have told it to you with such desperation and such depression because I didn't believe I was ever gonna do it. So, I can say check mark. I've done that the book is here and it's on bookshelves and like that is just a story I wanted to paint of how much is possible when we question the limits we put on ourselves and especially when we change our identity around alcohol. This book now you know, I wrote it for the past version of me. It's all about how amazing it is to take a break from alcohol, from your body, mind and soul perspective and then give someone an eight-week guide to follow to take their break from alcohol and just completely kill off that romanticism we have for it. I love hearing from readers. I love hearing from women all over the world getting the book. It is just such a testament to like the destiny that I was put on this planet to do was to write this book and it was really having the faith over the fear to take all those steps and listen to that guidance to achieve it. So, I once read that 82 percent of Americans at least want to write a book. Um, I'm pretty sure that a lot of your listeners want to write a book, you know. It's just something that is a dream that is in a lot of us and I just want to tell every single person listening to you, I can't wait to read your book and it's going to happen. When you take the consistency and the perseverance to make it happen um and I think that everyone deserves to follow through on their dreams like that.
Alex: You know that was so inspiring and I just feel like I was like meant to meet you and like sit down and have this conversation with you because I actually wrote a book when I, in the beginning of my sobriety journey. I wrote a book uh, I was about a year sober and the funny thing is it happened almost exactly like you described, as like, I just got this download of like these chapters, these table of contents, the stories. The weird thing was that I actually one day, I was in this like Yoga Nidra class and I all of a sudden realized that I had like started writing the book years before and it was like on my Google Drive. Like, it was so crazy and I pulled it up and it started at like almost the exact same moment in time and I wrote the book and I worked on it with a book editor and I started pitching it to like agents and doing all this stuff and I just kept getting rejected and the book has now just been sitting on my hard drive for like over a year and I'm at the point now where I'm like pivoting back to it and the great thing about it is that I do feel that it wasn't meant to be published at the time that it was finished because there was so much of my journey that still hadn't yet unfolded and so many different changes that have happened since like at the time when I finished the book. I was still you know, a teacher in Abu Dhabi and I hadn't quit my job and done this thing full time but anyway, um, I share that to say that like I've written this book and I need to just keep taking the baby like, get back on the baby steps of getting it published you know, and so I feel like we're often meant to meet the people that were exactly meant to meet to like hear the messages we're meant to hear, you know. What I mean and um so thank you for sharing that, that Journey. That's just, it's just so inspiring.
Karolina: Oh and thank you so much for having the wisdom to see that life is happening for us and not to us and that like maybe you were not meant to publish that book a few years ago and it wouldn't have been an accurate presentation or the message that you were meant to deliver because the story needed to conclude and all these things even today sometimes I'm like I, I wrote like I would have written this differently today, you know what I mean? So, it's like it's so interesting how it works, like that and I think back too like I once had this vision where like the first time I ever really let myself visualize from this alcohol-free platform like really feeling like anything was possible. I was like, okay I'm gonna get a book deal in 2018 and then I'm gonna go on a book tour in 2019. Thank God none of that happened on my silly timetable. Thank God, like I was not ready for any of that, you know what I mean? It would have been a catastrophe. Like, I've had to build this business and even my book launch process took four years, four years. I started in 2018 it got published in 2022 you know, so thank God some of these things arrived slowly and just through a process and failures and pivots and doors closed here because I turned into the person over that time that I needed to be in order to you know, release this book into the world or to have the message that I'm meant to share and I can really feel from you that, that same thing is meant to happen for you, you know.
Alex: That's so powerful. Thank you. Wow, your story is just so inspiring. Like, I'm just so amazed at the transformation that you've had from your time pre-sobriety until now. It's just amazing. So what is your vision for your community and your business in the future like where do you see euphoric going?
Karolina: Absolutely, so it's so interesting, especially like when you look at the alcohol-free space. It used to be such a novelty, you know what I mean? Like talking about life being better without alcohol was like really something that wasn't said, like it was either you're in like traditional recovery circles or you didn't talk about it and so like what really happened maybe seven years ago, it was like we started all talking about it and it was new and it you know started you know growing all these grass movements of helping people quit drinking and more dry januaries and alcohol-free beverages sales went up and just all of these communities. I mean I'm so glad I found you, like we're all doing these amazing things but I really recognize over time that yes I'm passionate about helping people like change their relationship with alcohol but it's because it's for a bigger purpose. Like, I care about helping someone let go of what no longer serves them. So, that now we have the playground to play with to achieve their deeper purpose and I think that, that's something that I really, really like put my stake in the ground with my community. Like you know, there's some amazing um alcohol-free companies out there and really some amazing programs that really just help you stop drinking and change the way you think about alcohol and I'm like, if I did that all day every day I would actually be bored because I don't really care about alcohol at the end of the day. That's not what it's about for me. It's about helping women unleash their greater power. It's about helping women become empowered to re-believe in the dreams that they lost a long time ago and to go after them and so I really see my company and my brand being a place for alcohol-free women and I can help you get there if you're not alcohol free yet. We have stuff like that you know, all the time. We have programs for the more beginners, but really it's a place for alcohol-free women to discover and then unleash their deeper purpose. So I've been just really playing around with that. We have a really signature program that's launching soon called become Embolden, that's exactly to help women discover and unleash their deeper purpose. Pretty soon, I'm going to be launching a certification program for those people who feel called to become coaches them, ourselves to really lend that career path to other people and then lastly I also do almost all my coaching these days is business coaching where I help other coaches or alcohol-free entrepreneurs build their businesses and I can really just see it's like I'm helping the same woman but she's growing along this like journey and the spectrum and that's really what I love my company to do. So, I just really want to develop in that later stages, it's like once you're alcohol free, once you've really renegotiated that what is that deeper purpose and you know there's so many people talking about that these days but like marrying those two together is just something that I love to do and I love you know, leading retreats. So, I have more books inside of me for sure. I definitely want to write a book about really discovering your purpose after you've awakened from a relationship with alcohol. I want to continue leading retreats around the world. I want to grow, I want to have an empire, you know what I mean? Like, I love intimacy and I love really being there one-on-one with people and I believe that I can create structures like that to maintain that but I want to vastly grow. You know how many people we are able to help change their lives and discover their deeper purpose? I'd love to meet Tony Robbins one day. He's like my hero. Um, there's just so much that I want to do and I dream of and it's so funny that the things that I used to dream of as my biggest dreams to achieve in life like I mentioned earlier I literally can actually take them off and so it's like what's these new visions you know, and it's like kind of scary because the other step was kind of like okay those are big dreams but you know those are fairly reasonable but now it's like who the fuck do you think you are? Excuse my swearing, but you know what I mean? It brings up a lot of issues of self-worth. What I think I deserve all those kinds of things, which is also my favorite thing to work with other women about. I mean it's all about self-worth at the end of the day. What we believe we deserve to have in this life. To even want to desire in this life. To what can we, can achieve in this life. We've been told as women for long you know, to make other, other people feel comfortable, to be there for everyone else, to be selfless, to you know, do what's safe and reasonable and I just want to live a bold, limitless life. Even though it scares me.
Alex: This is so inspiring and there's just so many things that I can resonate with. Like, I just feel like our communities and our journey and our work has been so similar. So it's really really cool to connect with you. I was wondering if you, so I have two questions for you um, if someone was curious about starting a so sobriety Journey or going alcohol-free, what advice would you give them?
Karolina: Well, I have a lot of advice but I think the first thing that's coming to me is get a journal because you are about to get to know yourself. I really think that, that's what, this is, so many people have this preconceived notion about you know, obviously. Oh, it's something you have to give up or oh my Gosh I let it get this bad and now I have to be one of those people who doesn't drink anymore I don't [ __ ] right this is an awakening. The universe has given you a gift to. Rediscover who you really are. What you really want and what really truly makes you happy because trust me it is not a chemical in a glass, right? And so I think a journal is just the most incredible tool to get and to use when you're on the beginning of this journey. Just knowing that a lot is going to be unfolding in front of you and it might feel uncomfortable a little bit, not knowing the answers and knowing that you're really facing these huge unknowns but if one thing that has always carried me and helps me move forward even when I want to pull my hair out and just go through some of the hardest or most frustrating moments is leaning into faith versus fear in my life. Leaning into the idea that I am being guided, that something out there if even just my own intuition and higher self is always leading me towards the next right step and the next right step if only I will be patient enough to listen and so I think when someone's just starting you know obviously there's all the mindset work. My book is great approach if you want to check it out, Euphoric. Did y'all call and get a happier, more confident you but truly just get ready to get to know yourself and get ready for it to be a beautiful potentially heartbreaking but mind-blowing experience.
Alex: And my second question that I want to ask you is if someone is in that alcohol-free journey and they are feeling like they're looking for their purpose and they don't really know how to go about discovering that, what would you recommend?
Karolina: Absolutely, just this week I am launching a ditch alcohol and discover your purpose workshop. So this is definitely fresh on my mind. Um, I definitely think it's a process because like most of the time we won't even allow ourselves to admit what we really want you know, like even me telling someone I want to write a book like 10 years ago means oh fuck now I'm on the hook. Like, now I have to really do it or face the like disappointment or ridicule that I actually said that out loud or who the hell? What are they going to think of me if I like actually voice my dreams? Or I don't even know what I want, you know. So it's like just to recognize what you want is a process of self-discovery because we've just been so conditioned not just the way we've been conditioned with alcohol in our society but also to follow the shoulds you know, and your life is such a beautiful example of like screw the shins, you know, I'm gonna pave my own way and do my own thing and try this and try that and explore and, and be a little bit more playful with it but you know so many of us are stuck in the jobs that we thought were smart careers after we graduated with this or that degree. We live in the same place we've always lived, you know what I mean? Like, we're so constrained by the shoulds. So, I think discovering your purpose is first of all, giving yourself the permission that what you want is right for you. That it's not wrong, that you're not hurting anybody, that like it's not selfish, that it's even something you should go after for your life because trust me when women go after what they really want, they inspire other women to do the same. Like you don't even have to be changing lives, saving cancer, curing someness or that disease, just the very Act of a woman going after what she wants inspires other women to change their lives. So you will be a change maker no matter what and so you know, giving yourself that permission first is key. Second of all, you know, I have a series of questions I ask to like, to ask my clients in a way of dream, dreaming about it but I'll give you two. First one is, imagine if you just won the lottery, like you just won the lottery, you have 10 million dollars let's say in the bank. You no longer have to work for a living, you could literally coast the rest of your life, most of us would probably travel a lot. Maybe go on a beautiful luxury experiences really play a lot but let's say we're kind of done with playing for a bit and we, we want to have a legacy. We want to feel like our life matters. That we're contributing to something, that we're making a difference. What at that point would you do for work? What would you do in your career? What would you want your legacy to be, you know? Money is no issue at all, you could literally do anything if you want to run an animal sanctuary in Bali you can go for it, you know. What I mean but oftentimes we don't even allow ourselves to say that because we're like oh I never make money doing that you know, what I mean, so money's off the table. You have all the money, what would you want? Another really good question to arrive at, what your desires are? Really leading to you to is to ascertain, who makes you jealous in your life? Like, whose life are you jealous of? Right, you know. So for example, if, if Alex didn't traveling in Bali and having this lifestyle of just you know doing yoga and all this amazing stuff, if that makes you jealous then that's a clue. Now, I know jealousy is often an uncomfortable emotion, it's not a pleasant one but jealousy can be a really good clue on what we want but we don't yet have the courage or the permission to go after ourselves and it really a good example of this is Gretchen Rubin. She wrote The Happiness Project Better than before, the four Tendencies. She's like a multi-new York Times best-selling author. She used to be a lawyer and when she was a lawyer she was super unhappy but she was really successful. She was actually a clerk for Sandra J O'Connor the former supreme justice court justice. So she was like living the lawyer's dream but she wasn't happy and so she asked herself like, who am I jealous of? Who in my network from my college for my high school? Who am I jealous of and she quickly found the answer. It's the people who went into writing and writing careers and so that little nugget of wisdom helped her figure out that she's meant to write and to be a writer, you know. So, personally I remember sitting in my office cubicle being very jealous of online entrepreneurs who worked from their laptop in a tropical destination. I remember acutely being jealous of that and yet that was such a good clue for me of what I really desired. I want to work from a laptop. I don't want to be chained to a cubicle. I want to travel for a living. All these things um that can be again like a cool tool to use and also helps you transmute an uncomfortable feeling into like a welcome sign from the universe of what you really want and allow yourself to be honest with yourself. Like, it's so blasphemous to even say that we want more money like obviously everyone wants more money but we would never say that right and so even just being honest with yourself of yes I have this one life and I want to have these experiences and they cost money. I do wish I had more money and then allowing it to marry with the thing that you're passionate about, trust me when you're working in the thing you're passionate about it will take a lot of failures and a lot of stubbing your toes along the way but eventually when you bring value to society, like that society rewards you back with value, you know. So, I really do believe people can make livelihoods off their dreams and their passions so those are some cute little clues someone can use to get started with this work but basically that permission one is huge because if you don't give yourself permission to even articulate it you'll be stuck with just not knowing.
Alex: This has just been so inspiring. So amazing Karolina, I just want to thank you so much. I really appreciate you for taking the time to be on the show and share your inspiring story and your journey and I actually have your book. You sent me your book and I have it and I've gotten like halfway through it. I'm more of this like audiobook type of person but after this conversation I'm like, I have to finish reading her book because I just am so inspired by what an amazing person you are so thank you so much.
Karolina: You are so sweet and there is an audio version should you need.
Alex: That would be better for me actually maybe I'll go, I'll pivot to audible. It's a good suggestion. Yeah, all right, have a great day Karolina. Thank you.
Karolina: Thank you.
Alex: Hi friend, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Sober Yoga Girl podcast. This community wouldn't exist without you here. So thank you. It would be massively helpful if you could subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast so it can reach more people. If we haven't met yet in real life please come get your one week free trial of the Sober Girls Yoga membership and see what we're all about. Sending you love and light wherever you are in the world.
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