Transformation Beyond Loss: Interview With Karen Chaston

Season 1 Episode 7 of the Women's Dream Enlightenment Podcast hosted by Megan Mary of Women's Dream Analysis.

Moving Beyond Loss For Transformation features Karen Chaston, beyond loss expert, international bestselling author, international speaker, and co-founder of The Chaston Centre, and explores the secret to moving beyond loss to live a life filled with clarity, joy, love, laughter, meaning, and fulfillment.

Trigger Warning: This practice may include references to death, dying, and the departed. The interview includes the story of Karen's tragic loss of her son.

Music: An Mhaighdean Mhara, Margot Krimmel, solo harp from Ever the New Time Comes

Transcript

You're listening to Women's Dream Enlightenment.

Dream decoding,

Deep discussions,

And spiritual stories of self-discovery to inspire your personal enlightened journey.

I'm your host,

Megan Mary,

Founder of Women's Dream Analysis.

Let's bring in the light.

Welcome.

So,

Karen Chaston is our special guest today.

In July 2011,

Karen's life changed forever when her 27-year-old son,

Dan,

Suddenly and unexpectedly passed away at her back door.

Within 15 months,

She chose redundancy,

Laid off from her much-loved CFO role,

And began a personal,

Professional,

And spiritual journey,

Culminating in becoming a beyond-loss expert,

International best-selling author,

International speaker,

And co-founding the Chaston Center.

Thank you for joining us today,

Karen.

Thank you,

Megan.

It's so good to be here.

Exciting.

Yes.

You are doing so many wonderful things,

Helping women and everyone with loss.

I want to talk to you today about that,

As well as about your own personal journey.

My first question is,

What does enlightenment mean to you?

Be aware,

To know who you are,

Inside and out.

I don't think you can have enlightenment without doing that deep dive within yourself,

To truly know who you are.

We all wear so many masks,

We wear so many hats,

And until we know who we are,

Truly know who we are,

We can't become enlightened.

Yes,

I couldn't agree more.

It's that connecting with your true purpose,

Your higher self,

Understanding what you're really put here to do,

Through all the trials and tribulations that you might encounter,

And finding the meaning in those moments of your life.

Totally.

Which is why the Chaston Center is all about meaningful living.

You can expand on even further than what you've said,

Which is so beautiful,

It's like you're connecting your three brains,

Your mind,

Your heart,

And your gut.

When we listen to all three of them,

That's how we live that more meaningful life.

Yes.

I know you had a pivotal moment,

And I touched on that in your introduction,

But please tell us the story about your pivotal moment and your enlightenment journey that brought you to where you are today.

Yeah,

Thank you.

It took me 15 months to even realize that possibly it was a pivotal moment.

What happened was my 27-year-old son,

Dan,

Who is a twin,

He has a twin brother,

Josh,

And an older brother,

Ben,

And an older sister,

Kim.

He went out,

We thought a healthy 27-year-old had gone out the night before,

And unfortunately he came home,

And for some reason he'd left his key at home,

And he'd rung his girlfriend who'd gone out separately.

She said,

I'll leave the key out for you,

And then he bent down to pick it up,

And everything shook up when he fell over.

He had drunk way too much,

But it wasn't that that killed him,

It was actually his lungs that failed him.

When he fell over,

He went to catch his breath and he couldn't,

And unfortunately he passed.

When we found him,

Probably around four hours later,

We thought he was still alive because he was in the fetal position with saliva coming out of his mouth,

But unfortunately,

When the paramedics arrived very quickly after,

They said he's been dead for several hours.

So yeah.

That is such a horrible story.

It is a horrible story,

But it's especially,

I guess it highlights to me,

I follow the age-old advice,

Keep busy,

Give it time,

Everything will be all right,

And that's exactly what I did.

So this is how,

I like to say ignorant when it comes to loss,

And I actually now call it most of us have a lack of loss intelligence,

And I was very ignorant in knowing what to do.

Literally,

He passed on the Sunday morning,

And on Tuesday morning,

I decided to go into work just to tidy things up because I wasn't going to be in for the rest of the week,

But I can remember consciously thinking,

Just go into work and just get everyone commenting over,

And then they don't have to say it again,

Which is so ridiculous.

I just wanted everyone to say,

Oh,

Sorry for your loss,

Which I used to say before,

But I never say that now.

It's such a tick-the-box response.

You watch any show where the police have to go and inform someone of some sort of loss,

And they just say it,

And they just say it like it's on remote or something.

It's just like,

Sorry for your loss,

And you just think,

Oh,

It's such a horrible thing to say.

So yeah,

I didn't know what to do,

And so I followed that,

And I found myself eating too much,

Drinking too much,

Definitely working too much,

Not wanting to go home because Dan and his girlfriend lived with us.

At that stage,

They'd be with us for two years.

They were ready to move out when that happened,

And his girlfriend ended up staying with us for another year,

Which was good because the three of us were grieving together,

And the three of us saw his body there.

No one else saw it in our family.

So it was good to be together,

Even though we all grieved very,

Very differently,

Which in itself is okay,

But most people don't think that.

They think,

No,

No,

This is the line you've got to follow,

And if you're not following it,

What's wrong with you?

And it's not the case at all.

And there's so many different kinds of loss too that you have come to help people with,

And I think that even ones that we might not consider losses.

Yeah.

There are over 40 different loss events,

And when you look at the list that you're putting up now,

The main ones are a death of a loved one,

A divorce,

A separation,

Your job loss,

Your health,

Your wealth,

Your pets.

But if you look back over the last few years that we've all lived in worldwide,

A lot of the minor ones came to the forefront,

Loss of freedom,

Choice,

Status,

Identity,

Changing work conditions,

Recreational and social activities.

And see,

Most of them,

Because we don't see them as loss,

We don't see them as a grief causing situation.

So when they come into our lives and we can't pick ourselves up as quickly as what we expect ourselves and our friends expect us ourselves to pick ourselves up,

We start to think there's something wrong with us.

We start to go,

I just can't get over this.

And it's because you're not doing the grief process on whatever that loss was.

And it could be a person,

A place or a thing.

And when you honour yourself and you honour the person,

Place or thing that you've lost,

That's when you go through that process and you come out the other end,

You're going to be completely different.

But that's OK.

That's why that loss came to you.

You're like,

I am completely different to who I was before Dan passed.

And then when I chose redundancy for my much loved CFO role,

I looked at myself and I just thought I don't even like who you are,

Like who you've become.

And I truly had lost my identity.

And it's funny,

Loss of identity comes up every single time I work with someone.

They may come to me for something else,

But that will always come up in the process.

And when you think about it,

We do slowly lose who we are just through growing up and then through a workplace or from a marriage or any situation where we're not being authentically ourselves,

We lose a little bit of ourselves along the way.

Yes.

And I think the identity piece is really key there because women in particular go through so many transitions,

Regardless of job changes,

Just with our bodies changing and things that happen to every woman that happen regardless of our other situations with our relationships or our career or anything like that.

And to think of menopause as a loss is really a profound thing because we often think of only death as being loss,

As qualifying that category.

But we very much do transition to a new identity when we start to go through changes that women start to go through.

And that can be as early as mid-30s and go for the rest of your life,

Really,

Because there are so many things that happen and society just doesn't really acknowledge that as a loss or as the significance of that transition as they do other transitions that are more supported.

Yeah,

You're so right.

And isn't it funny that women's,

I guess,

Things that happen with our fertility is the words actually start with men,

Like menstrual cycle,

Menopause.

And you just sort of think it's interesting that they were named that.

But when you think,

Well,

Menopause,

So men on pause and you sort of go,

Yes.

But more importantly,

It's you're putting the men on pause so that you can actually start to find you.

You know,

And more than likely at a similar time,

You're also becoming an empty nester,

Which is another grief causing situation,

Another major loss event that isn't as recognised as it could be.

You probably have ageing parents that you're dealing with.

So you have all of these things coming to you as well as all these changes in your body happening.

And the thing that I really do love about,

You know,

My daughter's about to turn 50 at the end of this year and I'm pretty sure you're a similar age from our talk.

And,

You know,

I've been saying to her probably for about 10 years,

I can't wait for you to get to 50.

And she's like,

Stop ageing me,

Stop ageing me.

I'm like,

No,

No,

No,

You don't understand.

It's about who we become when we become 50 or around that age.

We really do start to come into our essence.

Our wisdom is so amazing that we start to not worry about what other people think of us.

We start to more or less declare to the world,

This is me,

Love me or hate me,

I don't mind,

But this is me.

And it's a pity that we can't do that around 25,

30.

But I'm 50.

It's really is a great age for us to be able to do that.

And it really is.

Not only is it so,

Just so relaxing and so like I've just lifted the world or the weight out of my body by saying,

Declaring this is it.

And we live in a world of duality.

So when we realize that 50% of the world are not going to really find us their cup of tea,

But the other 50% will.

So it's like I'm finding my tribe and that's where I'm going.

Absolutely,

Yes.

And I think that's exactly when I talk about the four stages of women's lives,

We traditionally are just given the three.

It's skipping this one,

Which I call the seeker,

Which is really that period where we start saying,

You know,

I really kind of do have an idea about who I really am.

And now I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of time.

And it's time for me to really connect with that and push away all of those other things that I've been carrying with me that told me that you can't do that or you shouldn't do that.

And I think I call that the crossroads.

And I find that as we stand at the crossroads,

Whatever brings us there,

It's a pivotal time in our lives to examine what it really is that we feel we're here to do.

And I found in my own work that our dreams try to tell us that.

Our subconscious really knows already and it's trying to tell us in stories what it is that we're here to do.

And when we can connect with our higher self using whatever modality works for you,

But dreams is one and a very powerful one,

Then we're able to step into that new identity and embrace it and begin on our new path.

I totally agree.

I totally agree.

And it's normally some sort of loss that will stop us in our tracks,

Because I like to say that,

You know,

We're all on an infinite journey where we go from from love to loss and then back up to love.

And then we continue on that journey.

Unfortunately,

Most people or many people get stuck in that loss,

In the down.

You know,

They become depressed.

The weight of the world is there.

And a great way to describe it is you're on the floor and you don't know how to get back up.

And but when you start to deep dive into that loss and you start to do the opposite,

You know,

In my five step program,

Which I call the gift of loss.

Now,

I just want to make it clear for everyone.

The gift does not come in the loss of that.

Like there was no gift in Dan passing.

I would love to have him here.

But the gift comes down the road in who you become.

If you choose to do the more loving way to find what that loss was all about,

You know,

And you have to stop.

You can't be busy.

You have to stop.

It's in the stillness.

It's in the stopping where you do go within,

Where you do start to ask yourself those very important questions.

And I've found that the quality of your life will always relate back to the quality of your questions,

Because that's where your answers come from.

And then when you get your answers,

Then you get your action steps.

And that's when you start to move into becoming that person and having that spiritual understanding and that spiritual higher self that we are all spiritual beings here on an earthly experiences to experience the world,

To experience in these challenges.

And we all fight them.

And we don't understand that they're a gift because they are guiding you to say,

Hey,

Come on,

You play too long in this sort of line.

It's time to get onto the pathway where you're meant to come down here to experience.

And,

You know,

So this is going we're going to throw this at you.

And so Dan passed and 15 months later,

I lost my job,

Which was my choice,

But because they were going to put me into a lower job.

And I was like,

No,

I can't do that.

So it was,

You know,

I just knew that if I had stayed there,

I would have got some sort of illness.

My parents between them,

They had a heart attack,

Strokes,

Type two diabetes.

So,

You know,

And that's all very stress related.

And my job was very,

Very stressful.

Not that I realized it at the time.

Most people don't remember people saying to me,

How do you cope with stress?

And I'm like,

I don't get stressed.

I'm just always the same level.

And the thing that what my my misunderstanding or my my misdiagnosis,

I guess,

Is that I was always in that heightened state.

I never came down.

So I never appeared to be up and down,

Which isn't good.

And then I'm like,

No wonder I was always angry.

I was always full of adrenaline and cortisol.

So,

Yeah,

It's really important for us to understand who we are,

What a woman's body is,

How different a woman's body is to a man's body,

Especially when it comes to adrenaline and cortisol,

What it actually does in our body.

It's so important for us to understand that I was in my 50s when I understood that.

I was like,

Why didn't I know this when I was younger?

Yes.

And the estrogen,

Of course,

Which is a key thing for women and plays such a role in everything.

I like what you said about pausing and needing to be still,

Needing to be quiet in order to hear that.

And I've found that meditation and journaling are fantastic ways to create that stillness,

To allow that inner voice to come through.

What practices do you utilize in your work or personally that you find help with creating?

I've got so many spiritual practices and I love them.

And a lot of people misunderstand spiritual practices.

They think it has to be meditation or journaling or things like that.

But it could be just walking in nature.

It could be grounding yourself.

I love to ground myself and I'm so grateful that I live in Australia,

In an area called the Gold Coast,

Where we have these amazing beaches.

And if you can put your feet into an ocean or into a lake or into something,

It's with the intention of just having the stress,

The negativity released from your body.

It's amazing how grounding it is.

But it's like you're connecting your heaven and your earth sort of thing.

So you're grounding your feet down into Mother Gaia and then you're bringing in the sun god and everything into your body,

Which is so amazing.

So,

Yeah,

I love grounding.

I love meditation.

I love journaling.

I even created my gratitude journals,

The Elements Collection gratitude journals,

Where there is water,

Air,

Fire and earth.

And they're beautiful.

Like they have 99 photos that I took personally,

Except for the fire ones.

I took all of the other ones personally.

And for the earth ones,

I went out to a place in Australia,

Which is Uluru,

Where we have this amazing rock in the centre of Australia.

And it's so spiritual.

It's where our Aboriginals,

You know,

They own that area and they maintain it.

And it's so beautiful.

It's so spiritual.

You feel so connected to the earth,

But you also feel connected to your higher self.

So,

Yeah,

Reading.

I love reading.

I only read nonfiction.

I read so many spiritual books,

Which just enlightened me even more.

So there's so many different ways that you can connect to yourself.

Just breathing,

Breathing in conscious,

I call it a conscious,

Loving breath,

You know,

Breathing deep down into your belly,

Where the the nerve endings of the vagus nerve is,

If you breathe into that and it comes all the way up into your hypothalamus,

The command centre of your brain,

And you're just you're connecting it all.

So you breathe in,

Pass your heart into your gut and then you connect it to your brain and you just get that cycle happening.

It's really amazing how differently you think.

Another great way is I eat green juice every day.

I find that is an amazing way to connect yourself,

You know,

Giving yourself healthy,

Vibrant foods to awaken you as well.

Yes,

I couldn't.

I so agree with that.

I love green juice.

And that's part of the reason that I studied plant based nutrition was just because I felt so attached to the feeling that you get when you when you fuel your body with the foods it needs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you put when you put live foods into your body,

It's amazing.

And especially with conscious and you add that secret ingredient,

You know,

That four letter word love.

When you add that into everything that you put into you make for your body,

It really is amazing how different you feel,

How more alive you feel.

So what makes your approach unique?

When you were you work in the Chase Center,

Tell me about that,

How you came to establish it and what's unique about what you do there?

Yeah.

So after leaving my corporate life and I just knew I wasn't going to be an accountant anymore,

I had no idea what I was going to do.

And then life sort of took me a little bit on a journey where I became a life coach.

And originally thinking I was going to be working with women,

Helping them to remain feminine in that corporate environment,

Like the opposite of what I did,

I became very masculine,

Very angry,

As I said earlier.

But then it just didn't go the way it did.

And I and then I started to deep dive into loss.

I'd been told very early on that's what I was going to do.

But it was too close to Dan's passing.

And I didn't understand loss like I do now.

And I thought,

No,

Those people are all sad.

Like,

I'm not all sad.

Like,

Sure,

I miss Dan and I have sad moments.

But my general persona is I'm very positive.

So when I deep dived into loss and realized the expanse of it and how,

You know,

Most people have no idea what to do.

As I said,

I call it that lack of loss intelligence.

The more I deep dived into it and the more I started to develop and work with different people.

I have so many amazing trainers who or advisors that came in at the right moment and gave me a little piece of this puzzle and then another little piece,

Which I brought all together and then mix my essence to it.

And that's when I came up with my Gift of Loss program.

And that's a five step process.

And the first step,

As I said,

Is to stop.

Right.

Complete opposite.

You stop because you need to stop so that you can figure out what does this mean for me?

Like now,

What does it mean for me moving forward?

The second step is to accept,

Like,

My life is going to be different.

I'm not going to be that person who I was before this happened.

And as soon as you can accept that,

You can then more easily go,

OK.

I'm here to live my life.

Right.

And the thing that came to me as I was putting that together or probably a little bit before was you were the only person you were going to spend your entire life with.

No one else.

Do you spend 24 7 with every single week of your life?

So why are you putting yourself last and giving up on your hopes,

Dreams and aspirations?

Because you've come in here alone and you're going to leave alone.

So why is it that you're not living to your full potential?

And when that hit me,

I was like,

Wow,

You're so right.

I did.

Like when I was in my corporate life,

I was in my professional life.

And then but I spent probably about 85% of my time in that role.

You know,

I didn't look after myself physically and mentally or emotionally or spiritually.

I always had a spiritual side to me,

But not like now.

And then I thought,

Yeah,

So what?

And we all do it,

Women especially.

But when we start to realize,

No,

I matter.

And the more I look after me,

The more topped up I'll be and the more I can actually give.

But you give it from a place of essence,

Not from a place of have to.

And I have to do this now.

I've got to do this.

What about me?

You know,

You're always screaming.

What about me?

What about me?

So when you become into that acceptance and you go,

Right,

It's time for me to look after me in a loving way.

So how can I best do that?

And that's when you move on to the third step,

Which is to identify.

So you start to identify the things about the relationship that you lost,

The things that you'd like to apologize for,

The things that you'd like to forgive and the things that you'd like to acknowledge.

You also are going to deep dive into what your hopes,

Dreams and aspirations were regarding that relationship.

And you've got to deep dive into that as well,

Because you can go,

OK,

I can still have this.

It's sure it will be different,

But I don't need to just throw that dream or that hope out the window just because of this loss.

And and that's the issue with a lot of people is they think,

Oh,

This is over.

I can't do this anymore.

So they're throwing away their hopes and their dreams and their aspirations.

So once you identify all of that,

Then you move on to the stage where you complete the relationship.

What we mean by complete is that in every aspect of a relationship,

There's three aspects.

So the first is the physical.

That's the things you do,

The things you say,

The things you don't do,

The things you don't say,

The way you hang out together,

The way you touch each other.

Then we move on to the emotional,

Which is all encompassing of the good,

The bad,

The glad and the sad.

And then we have the third aspect,

Which is the spiritual.

Now,

We know that we're connected to this person,

Place or thing,

But we just don't know why we're so connected to them.

So when a relationship ends,

The only thing that ends is the physical relationship,

The emotional and the spiritual live on forever.

And it's the emotional relationship that causes us all this pain related to the physical.

Oh,

Why did I say this?

Why didn't I do this?

Why did I do this?

All these sort of things.

So we haven't completed it.

So when we complete that physical part of the relationship,

We won't have the grief and the suffering because we're not beating ourselves up.

More importantly,

We've dived into the emotions.

Now,

Emotions are your best friend.

And I know everyone's going to go,

What do you mean my emotions are my best friend?

So they're actually guiding you to a place that needs to be healed,

A place that needs to be completed.

And depending on where they come into your body,

They relate to a chakra as well.

So it's not only is the emotion important for you to deep dive into,

But also where it's located in your body is also an area for you to heal.

So that's why I say your emotions are your best friend.

And I even created a course called Your Emotional Best Friend,

Which is an amazing program that helps you to dive into different emotions.

But more importantly,

It also dives into the chakras.

And then it gives you three ways to move this emotion out of your body,

Either through writing it,

Through speaking it or through moving it.

And that's another great spiritual practice is dance.

Oh,

My God.

Especially when you get into that tribal movement of knowing how to truly move and dance and grabbing that emotion and bringing it out of your body.

And then so first of all,

You got to identify it.

Then you've got to break it up because it'll be one big mass.

And then you release it.

Then you restore it and then you rejoice.

So when you restore it,

You bring in a higher vibrating emotion,

Which is amazing exercise in itself.

And then from there,

You move on to the pivotal,

The pivotal part,

Which is the fifth step of the gift of loss,

Where you do deep dive into all areas of your life so that you can say,

OK,

This is where I am now.

This is where I want to be.

How do I close that gap and close that gap and close that gap?

Not just overall in every single areas of your life,

Because the more you concentrate on all areas of your life,

The more that you are going to live and love your life because you're rolling along.

If you think of your wellness wheel as a wheel on a car,

If it's not rolling along nicely,

You're going to have a really hard road.

Most people's wellness wheel is not smooth running.

It's very lumpy and bumpy.

And that's what the issue is.

So once you smooth out the ride,

You have a really good life.

Does that all make sense?

Yeah,

It sounds like an amazing program.

And I think I think all of the steps there are crucial to recovering from any sort of transition or loss.

But also just the integration that you're talking about is is is really important because you want to figure out what it is that you've lost or what you what there is to gain and how you can transform this situation to your advantage.

And I think that it also is very much reflected in the whole dreams.

I was thinking about the whole time you were talking because all of those things reflect in your dreams as well.

And being being ready to figure out those steps and take the deep dives,

Which sometimes are,

Of course,

Not easy to do.

That's why we have recurring dreams.

That's why we have nightmares.

That's why we have distressing dreams.

And in the phrase,

Emotions are your friend,

Is is very important when you're considering those,

Because when we dream,

Our logical brain is turned off,

But our emotional brain is turned on.

And that's why when they can be so emotional and they can really feel so real.

And the emotions are actually the key to figuring out the meaning.

And that's that's part of my method is identifying,

OK,

How did I feel when this happened in the dream?

And then how did I feel when I woke up and and really owning those emotions?

Because that's where the true meaning lies.

Yeah,

You are so right.

It really is.

And most people can't even name their emotions.

You know,

Brene Brown did a study only about 16,

17 years ago now,

And she dived into people identifying and they came up with three.

Happy,

Mad,

Sad.

And you just sort of go,

That's all they could come up with.

And you think,

No,

It's so important to dive in to get and get the true meaning of,

You know,

What what am I feeling at this time?

So you can name it.

And at the moment,

My grandson,

My four year old grandson,

His mother bought him this like placemat and it lists 16 different emotions,

You know,

With a lot of little emoji with them.

And it's so good because we're going through it with him going,

You know,

What's this emotion?

What does that mean?

So he can understand it for to be able to grasp the emotion,

Because it is.

I learned this really great acronym,

Which is NURSE.

And excuse me.

And so the first one is to name the emotion.

So you've got to name your emotion.

The second one for you is to understand it.

Like,

Why are you feeling this?

What does this relate to?

The R is to respect it and to because a lot of time when we we berate ourselves for having that emotion,

But no respect it and take responsibility for it.

The S is for silence and for support.

So,

You know,

What sort of support do you need while you are having this emotion?

And then the E is to have empathy for yourself.

So it's a really great acronym is to remember nurse and whether it's for yourself or when you are speaking to someone else is to get them to name their emotions.

You know,

After I created the Gift of Loss program and I started working with so many people,

I really started to get this inside of me.

I imagine if I understood people the way I understood profits in my corporate life.

Like,

How different would have I been?

How different would the workplace been?

You know,

As being like a very senior manager in the organization.

You know,

We can obviously direct the way things happen.

And I was like,

I wish I could understand that.

So that's when I created my people profits connection programs to take it into the workplace so that people can start to really connect to their people,

To value them as their greatest asset.

And more importantly,

To create that team dynamic workplace.

And when people do understand their emotions,

They not only do when they understand themselves,

But they understand other people.

They will have those conversations.

You know,

So often we're scared to have conversations.

Well,

They might get angry at me or they might cry.

Like,

What am I going to do with that sort of thing?

But when you know who you are and you know how to to comfort yourself and to be there for yourself,

You can then be there for others and you're willing to have that conversation.

Someone gets angry.

You know,

The best advice is for you to not take it personally.

Do not tell them to calm down,

Because that will only make them even more so.

But you start speaking really quietly to them and say,

What is this about?

Let's discuss it.

I'm here for you.

But,

You know,

You just become really calm with them and say,

I'd like to understand why you are so angry.

Please tell me.

And then they'll talk and then you say,

Is there anything else?

And they'll keep talking.

And then you keep asking,

Is there anything else until they say,

No,

There's nothing else.

And then because you've been listening to them and not interrupting them,

You can really they will start to come down and they'll start to go,

Oh,

Wow,

You actually do care about me.

Because a lot of time in a lot of workplaces,

Most people don't think their managers or leaders do care about them.

So when you start to show that you do care for them and you can reiterate back to them,

OK,

This is what I heard.

Is this correct?

And then they'll say yes or no,

And then you work through it.

And then eventually you'll come to a stage where you can say,

OK,

Let's create a plan together on how we can resolve all of this.

And isn't that so much better than just two people screaming at each other and then walking away with a huff?

Mm hmm.

I think it's great that you translated that approach into both the personal and the career arena,

Because obviously there's value in both.

And I think that that's we spend so much of our time doing work for others that to maintain that meaningfulness in in both arenas of your life really brings that full circle.

Yeah.

To be quite honest,

We should be exactly the same people in all areas of our life.

You know,

So often we put on a professional persona and we're completely different.

And you're like,

Sure,

You can wear different clothes.

Like I'm not telling you where to say,

But I am.

You know,

Be the same person.

And that's when you're always authentic.

And it's amazing how everything seems to just flow so much more easier when you become that true person.

So what's next for you in this journey?

What's next for the Chase and Center?

Yeah,

Well,

We're always creating programs.

But what I found,

Which I really love,

Is I'm really starting to get into so many more collaborations with people.

And,

You know,

I thought about it a few years ago,

But I think I was still a little bit too much in my ego.

But now I'm really,

Whether it's the last three years that we've all been through or what it is,

I really love working with other people,

Like creating things together where it's a true collaboration.

It's 50-50.

You know,

We've been creating workshops,

I've been creating retreats,

Live and online with so many amazing different people.

I've got so many in the works and I really love it because being in business by yourself is lonely.

It's hard.

And it's you need someone to,

You know,

Be there with you and to when you're up,

You know,

They may be down and you know how to,

You know,

Help each other with all that sort of stuff.

And you just don't go into overwhelm as much.

And when you're in overwhelm,

You end up doing nothing.

So I really do appreciate it.

But I look back and I sort of go,

Hmm,

I could have made my journey a lot easier,

But there's always lessons.

And it's always amazing to find lessons.

You know,

I started breaking down words.

I don't know how this happened.

You know,

I love my numbers,

Of course,

But I started breaking down the words early on.

And lesson is a really great word to break down,

Because what I've found is when you dive into anything that is happening in your life and look for that lesson,

It's less on you.

So the words telling you just find that lesson and then your life will have less crap.

Well,

That's that's a great insight.

Yeah,

I think I think that might be the one that we leave with our listeners,

Because I think it's very,

Very that one.

There's another one to love to share.

OK,

Most people go into blame when loss comes in.

For some reason,

Whatever the blame is,

You know,

Just look at divorce.

How often do you hear either party blaming the other?

Whereas it's really important for everyone to understand that in any relationship,

We all do and say things that are ideal and we all do and say things that are not ideal.

And it may not have been you that that did whatever it was that broke the marriage.

But there were things along the road which caused whatever to happen.

So when we take responsibility for ourselves,

We're not in blame.

But when we are in blame and let's break down that word,

There's blah and there's me.

Most people in blame are in the blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

And they've forgotten about me.

So they're not taking responsibility.

So if you find yourself blaming anyone for anything,

Just stop.

And go,

What about me?

What did I do?

And it's not easy.

It's confronting.

It's horrible because we all like to think we're perfect,

Especially if they were the ones that ended the marriage through whatever.

You need to sit back and you need to find out about you,

Because if you don't,

You're going to continually repeat this scenario with someone in a different body because the lesson was there for you to learn.

So get out of blame and start to really learn that lesson.

So I've connected them both for you.

OK,

Yes,

That's that's excellent.

And that's really good food for thought there.

Thank you.

Well,

Thank you so much,

Karen Chaston,

For being here today.

I really appreciate all of your insights.

And it was wonderful speaking with you today.

And likewise.

And good luck with your series.

It's going to be so amazing.

Thank you so much.