Michelle Vandepas is a best-selling author, TEDx and Keynote speaker and workshop and retreat leader attracting clients who know they want to dig deeper into or do more with their lives and businesses. She works with those who need a bigger audience, have a message to share, and know that now is the time.
For Michelle, it’s not about who you are, but what you’re here to do.
Her online courses, live mastermind programs, and VIP retreats have attracted thousands of people who now understand how to “BE” in their DO-ing, clear about their PURPOSE and filled with the SPARK of life.
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The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
Hey, thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.
I’m your host Slade Roberson. For eleven years, I’ve been a professional intuitive and the author of the blog Shift Your Spirits, where I try to write about spirituality with fewer hearts and flowers than most New Age blather.
I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.
Today, I’m sharing a conversation with Michelle Vandepas about aligning with your purpose.
And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.
So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.
And to tell you the truth, I am personally really looking forward to what that message is going to be! You may not realize this, but I use them for myself.
It’s Friday, October 13, 2017 as I record this, and it feels a bit like the sky is falling. We’ve got wild fires in Northern California, people starting to die in Puerto Rico from drinking water out of creeks and ditches, going weeks without power or cell service… and millions of us in the US are about to lose our healthcare coverage.
I really don’t know how much to address current events on the podcast, because the majority of you are listening from the future. Thousands of you. I want the content to be evergreen—meaning it can speak to you at whatever point in time you are listening. There is great power in the synchronicity of when you receive these messages.
And even if I try to be super current with events in the present, they’re going to be a week behind, at best. So much changes, day to day...
So, if I seem like I’m saying too little, not saying enough, or seeming to ignore something that happened this morning or went down in a big way yesterday, it’s just because recording is a snapshot in time, but the messages transcend time, to come and find you in your now.
I am attempting to make content that has that ability.
I am admittedly dancing around this. Awkwardly. If you have any input about how you’d like me to handle timely events, I would love to hear your suggestions. Shoot me an email.
If you’re fine with my making these episodes entirely timeless, email me and let me know that too.
Before I forget, I want to say a quick thank you to Merrie Kisch, my newest supporter on Patreon. And also thank you to Ann Luke-Montez who raised her pledge amount.
I appreciate all of you who have pledged your support and I’m really excited to see the new names each week. It demonstrates that you’re enjoying the show and want it to continue. That’s very encouraging to me, thank you.
Listen, I’ve lost a lot of people who are angry that I am communicating in audio. I have gone to great trouble to make most if not all the episodes available as a written transcript — today’s episode with Michelle about aligning with your purpose does indeed have a full transcript. For the record, there are eleven years worth of posts — hundreds if not thousands of articles — available on my site.
Go to sladeroberson.com/archive
There’s a search feature and tons to read.
But I’m still getting emails from long-term followers who are disappointed. They don’t like the change. They want me to go back to short blog posts once a week. And you know, this platform has to grow and evolve. I needed to make this new and exciting and to breathe new life into Shift Your Spirits with this audio.
Working with me is essentially talking to me, and I know from the feedback from those of you who love the show that it is authentically aligned with my voice.
I’m telling you this because I want you to know that pledging your support on Patreon is one of the ways that you tell me to make this show for you and to ignore those who are sending me, well, hate mail for making this show. Some people do not like change.
Change is the only thing in the world you can rely on.
You gotta be a change surfer. You gotta learn to adapt and be flexible in all areas of life…
But to wrap up this rant — it’s not just a “pledge drive” when I tell you about Patreon. It really literally is you saying “Slade, I love this podcast. I’m out here listening. I find the shows meaningful and helpful. Please keep sending me episodes."
…I will. I plan to.
Listeners who support the show on Patreon can access bonus Q&A episodes, where you guys send in questions, I record answers to them, and they go out to patrons of the show exclusively.
I just released a bonus episode “How to Manifest a Relationship” as a tie-in to the show on soul mates. You guys who are supporters will find that download in the posts section on Patreon.
You can edit your pledge amount at any time, like Ann did, if you decide you want to access the bonus audio. I’ll put a link in the show notes on how to do that.
How to edit your pledge amount in Patreon
To find out how you can become a patron, support my time in producing this show, and access the extra audio content, please go to patreon.com/shiftyourspirits
Okay. Let’s get to this week’s interview.
Purpose. It’s one of our favorite subjects to talk about. And I’ve found someone perfect for us to talk to.
Michelle Vandepas.
TRANSCRIPT of INTERVIEW
Slade:
So, by way of introduction, for those of you out there who may not have heard of Michelle Vandepas, Michelle, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do.
Michelle:
So... Wow. I am a - so that's a great question, right? I suddenly realize I don't know how to put myself in a box of who I am and what I do. So I'm an author. I write. I'm a coach. I'm a business coach. I'm a book publisher. I'm a TEDx speaker. Those are all my accomplishments.
But really who I am is someone who is highly concerned about the energy in the world and how I believe when we all are connected to our authentic self, when we're on purpose, when we feel alive and we feel aligned with who we are, that we can help change the planet to be a better place.
Slade:
Well, you know, in the time that I've known you, and we were just chatting before we started recording, about how we've known each other for probably ten years. And in that time, I've seen you do all the things that you're talking about. The TED talks, courses, workshops, masterminds, in a lot of areas that obviously are connected and make sense. But I'm wondering how did helping people align with their purpose become your purpose?
How did you identify - how did you land here?
Michelle:
Yeah, good question.
So what's really interesting is I've always been doing this in my business coaching, and back 20 years ago when I owned a business, a manufacturing business, it was a lot of coaching the employees and the staff members about how they could contribute the best in the work place. So I feel like I've always been coaching other people to be on Purpose. How I kind of came full circle and decided to devote the next few years of my life to helping people with it is I think when we're not feeling aligned with our own Purpose, everything else is just slightly off kilter or out of whack.
So it's very difficult to run a business if you don't feel like you're doing what you're here to do. It's difficult to raise a family if you're always in stress about it and you don't feel aligned. So no matter where you are in your life, it comes back to understanding who you are at the core and then I know you relate to this. You write about Purpose all the time, Slade, so I think there's something fundamental that when we can accept who we are, know that we are here for a reason, that we can feel on Purpose with our lives, it helps everything else unfold. It helps all other areas of our life. So I think that's where I feel I can make the biggest difference.
Slade:
Okay. So Life Purpose. You hear those two words together a lot. It's a tricky thing to identify. I can tell you right now that this show will get tons of downloads just from that keyword or phrase in the title. I've seen it before. As you said, I do write about Purpose and speak to people about it and it's probably in 99% of the conversations I have with people when I do readings.
So the thing is, back to the idea that it's a little tricky to identify. For a lot of people, it gets mixed up with creative passions, hobbies, jobs, career tracks, maybe it's a little of all of those things. Just tell me how do you define Purpose?
Michelle:
Yeah, I love this conversation.
So the way I view Purpose is you're already living it. Everybody is already living it. Even if they don't know what it is. It is just something that is inside of us. And Purpose is how we express out into the world. In the very biggest picture, like the hugest picture, is how we express our love into the world. But that's difficult because love comes with so many romantic notions that it's hard to always wrap our brain around that.
So let me give you an example. I like to work with archetypes when I'm talking about Purpose because I think it helps us relate a little bit easier. Most of us can relate to feeling like we're a teacher, we are a leader, we're a caregiver, we might have mom or dad energy, we might feel like we're a nurturer. These are energies. These are expressions of a way to give back or to live our life. But they don't have really anything to do with a vocation or a hobby or a job or a passion.
So if you identify with, let's say, the caregiver archetype, you enjoy helping people, you like to nurture other people. You may or may not become a nurse or a hospice provider. You might be able to live that archetype through being a teacher or through being a barista or through blogging. That archetype can come through many many ways. And that's usually something that we're born with. That's an essence of our soul about how we express out into the world. If you don't feel identified with that archetype, if you don't feel like you're a caregiver, it's not going to be the first thing that is expressed out while you're out in your world.
So to bring this back around, if you have a job in - let's just say you're a blogger, you will naturally tie into your gifts that you were born with, such as teacher or leader or inspirer or caregiver, through your writing, when you feel more connected with the archetype of your individual purpose.
Does that make sense?
Slade:
Hmm.. oh yeah! Actually I really love this. I love the archetypes, and that's a good filter to view this from. Because it's sort of like an ingredient, like you said it's an essence, and you can put that essence in a lot of different places. Right? Like it sort of comes out of you no matter where we put you. If you're a nurturer, or a natural cheerleader, it doesn't really matter if you're literally on a sports team or you're just working in a bank.
Michelle:
That's right.
Slade:
It's gonna kind of express itself to the people around you, right?
Michelle:
Right. And where I see people get a little disrupt or feel disengaged with Purpose is when they're trying to chase it around their work. So if you know that you're a caregiver then you're suddenly like rolling your eyes and thinking, 'Ah, I gotta go be a nurse.' Well what you said is totally on point. That no, start with what you're already doing in your life and notice how caregiving shows up. Or notice how cheerleading shows up.
When you start noticing what you're already doing in all areas of your life, you'll feel more connected. And as you start feeling more connected, then you're willing to express it more. You're willing - because then you have proof that yes, this is who I am, right? The world becomes our mirror and we go, 'Yes, I am a cheerleader.' This is awesome. People respond to this. And then we do more of it naturally.
Slade:
Hmm... So what else do you think people tend to kind of get wrong when they go looking for their Purpose? Like you said, when they go chasing it and they get off track, what's some other... 101 bungles...
Michelle:
Yeah. I'm the perfect poster child for this, right? We always teach what we learn, or we teach what we need to learn, whatever that saying is. So a great example is, I had a period of my life when I became very engaged with my artistic side of myself. And I loved painting, and doing all kinds of creative endeavors and I spent hours and hours... I had some luxury of time back then, and spent a lot of time developing my creative self and my artistic self and I went to workshops and I had some shows and I suddenly had this light bulb - wow this must be my Purpose.
And so I decided, I set up shop, I set up my own art exhibits, I suddenly was investing in getting things framed and having to sell things and then I was asked to do a couple of commissions and I'm like, oh man, I hate this so much. It's like, my passion and my creative expression suddenly turned into a job. Because I had mistakenly thought my Purpose was related to my passion. And I can have a passion for art that isn't necessarily my Purpose. My Purpose is more about inspiration, teaching, leading, and I can do those things through my art, but the art itself was not my purpose.
Slade:
I'm actually kind of comforted to hear you say this because I live an entirely second life as a fiction author. So I have this, these two worlds, or two roles, and sometimes it just makes me uncomfortable trying to have to make them both be about the same thing. And I really just learn to kind of let them be two things and in my mind, my Purpose feels like it's related around Shift Your Spirits, it's what you know me for, it's very much what you do as well, inspiring, enabling, coaching, supporting people, teaching, telling stories.
And then, you know, the other thing is an art. It is a passion and it's a hobby. It's also business but it doesn't have to be - everything doesn't have to be in one box, right?
Michelle:
Um hmm... let me ask you a question.
In your fiction writing, do you feel as though you're bringing any of your inner Purpose like inspiring, and leading, and those things through any of your dialogue or your characters? I'm just curious. Could be yes or no.
Slade:
Yeah, I actually ask myself this question a lot because I feel like it's not so on the nose that I feel like my stories have to be inspirational reader's digest type fiction or something. Or like some - I don't write stories about people who are on a spiritual mission or anything like that. So I have asked myself this question and I think it's more about a deeper emotional kind of journey. The ability to give someone another life in another world to experience, which is so much of what I get out of reading fiction, and I think that there's a case to be made for story-telling being such a huge part of so many areas of what we do in the world whether it's ministry or teaching or just entertainment.
Stories are big business and they're big soulful enterprises in and of themselves. So I think where I come down with it is I feel like my magic comes in the form of words. And I have always had a gift for storytelling and sometimes that includes hosting someone like you and creating a platform for you to tell a story. You know what I'm saying?
Michelle:
Yes, that's beautiful.
Slade:
Yeah and I can make a case that we're all storytellers and, I do tell some of my intuitive training students a lot that I think intuitives - storytellers make great intuitives. People who speak symbolic language have an ability to take that vocabulary into a lot of different vocations.
So, again, not to get too much in the weeds about myself personally, but we're coming back to this idea that it's an essence that you already have and it's something that you can take into anywhere we drop you. Right? Like, ultimately if you're wiling to.
Michelle:
That's right. And I just want to circle back around with you because you also blog and you write and you've been doing this a long time and obviously these podcasts. So you have a gift with words and that writing and podcasting is just one way you're choosing to express that gift. You could choose to express that gift maybe in song writing, or maybe something that I haven't even thought of. Writing copy. You're just choosing to express your gift of a way with words in these platforms right now. Doesn't mean blogging suddenly is your Purpose.
Slade:
Right, yes. Exactly. And I have had periods where I was a song writer and I was a - I've done different kinds of artistic pursuits just like you were talking about. The difference between kind of your creativity and your passion and your art and then you can, you can or you can not choose to express that in combination with a Purpose or in combination with a job.
I tell people all the time sometimes the greatest way to ruin your passion is to turn it into a business.
Michelle:
Yeah! Like my art! Exactly.
Slade:
So when I was thinking about the fact that I was going to be talking to you today and I thought, you know, this is an area of expertise for you, that you've gone even deeper in than I have, but I was trying to think of my listeners and kind of where they fall on this question. Because like I said, it's nearly always a component of any reading that I do. And I was trying to think of, how can I ask questions that the people listening would ask if they were sitting here in front of the microphone and I kind of identified - there's a few different people that are at different stages of asking themselves this question.
So I wondered if you would indulge me and let me ask you kind of a question, there's kind of three different angles. And I wanted to ask for advice for each one of those people.
Are you game for that?
Michelle:
I'm game!
Slade:
Okay!
Michelle:
Let's see where it goes!
Slade:
So, the first one is the person who has no clue what their Purpose is. They really feel like just the canvas is blank, and that's a very terrifying feeling. You know, the blank page and you don't, something's supposed to be written on there and you don't know what it is. So what do you say to that person who has no clue what their Purpose might be?
Michelle:
Yeah, great. So and this comes up a lot with the people I work with, who maybe their kids are now gone, or their job is over or they're retiring and they feel like, now what? But it can happen with people of all ages for a variety of reasons. And the first thing that I want to tell the listeners is really to reassure them that it really doesn't matter if you know your Purpose. It's like it doesn't matter if you can see the ocean. It's still there. Your Purpose is there. Now you may feel a little frustrated that you don't know what it is. You may feel disconnected to it. But it's there. It's inside of you.
So I would encourage listeners who are in this space to just breathe in to the fact that they are alive on the planet, they have a Purpose even if they don't know what it is. And allow it. Allow the expression of their Purpose to be shown to them over some time. In my book it's a 28-day process of journalling and asking questions. But the first stage of that is to live with the affirmation that I am already living my Purpose.
Slade:
Okay. That's awesome.
What do you say to the person who kind of already has a clue what it is, right? They know deep down in their heart what their Purpose is. They feel that calling but maybe they're in a state of fear or procrastination, you know, they're sitting in the cubicle at work and they're dissatisfied with what they're doing and they know what their heart wants to do or what they're being called to do in some way. What does she do next? How does she get started?
Michelle:
So first I would encourage not the DOING of it. And I would really encourage the BEING of it. Because I think what happens is we skip steps. We're like, 'Okay I know that I'm supposed to be out there speaking to the world.' Well speaking again is a doing. It's not a Purpose. So is the Purpose really that you would like to inspire people with the message? Is your Purpose that you feel like you're a leader, that you have a calling to change other people's lives through leading or through inspiration or - it's tricky because it's like you have a gift for speaking and that's the gift and that could be how your Purpose is done and expressed in the world but we gotta go first underneath that - what the BEING is.
And so, I would encourage people who know deep inside that they're supposed to go speak, that comes up a lot with my clients. "I know I'm supposed to go speak." Be out there on stage. Be more visible. I'd encourage you first to tap into what is it that your call - what is it that calls that part of yourself? Are you feeling like you're here to lead? And then keep going into that energy and express it more and more in what you do right now.
So if you are called to lead, do that in the job you have right now. Do that with your family. Do that as you move about the world. And as you're deepening that confidence in yourself, it's amazing how opportunities start opening up to allow you to do more of how you want to express that feeling in the world.
Slade:
Okay. These are good. I'm having some epiphanies around this stuff.
So I've got one more. It's a little challenging. And I can actually think of a couple people that I know that are peers that are out there who might be listening, who - okay, what do you say to the person who knows what his Purpose is, maybe he's been doing it for awhile, who's been working at it, and then suddenly he's not seeing the "success" with it that he had expectations for? What's going on with that person, when they feel like they're, they know what they're supposed to do, but for some reason it's not taking off the way that they think, "Oh! It's my Purpose. I'm doing it, therefore the wings should just spread open and I should fly."
What do you say to the person when that's not happening?
Michelle:
So, Purpose is being, and Purpose is not success-driven. So Purpose is back to how do you express your love in the world? How do you express yourself out into the world? If you were then taking that and let's just pretend that you're here to inspire other people and your chosen way to do that is to become a public speaker, then you have to learn the business of speaking, you have to learn the nuances, you have to understand how to book gigs, how to write contracts, you have to then go learn the pieces of running that business if that's choosing, if that's how you're going to choose to express your Purpose of inspiration out into the world. But again, and then I do business coaching as well, so I can speak to this. Your Purpose is how you're expressing in the world in all areas of your life and so if you're putting, 'OMG, my Purpose is all wrapped up in this business,' you're going to have heartache and downfall because business has natural ups and down cycles. And so you've got to come back and be grounded in who you are.
I want to come back for a minute because I think there's a piece here that we've tiptoed around a little bit, Slade. And that is, people feel scared of their Purpose. Like if Slade, you know, think back ten or twelve years ago and if you suddenly knew that you were here to inspire people about Purpose and how they can become intuitive, you may not know, have known how to do that. All those years ago. And there might have been some fear for you.
Slade:
Oh yes.
Michelle:
And so... Right? It's all of us. And so if we can go into what is it that we are expressing and continue to do that every day we strengthen the muscle of accepting who we are. If someone were to tell me that I'd be on the telesummits with thousands of people and coaching some fairly well-known names out there, ten years ago, I would've been terrified. And go, 'No, I don't have those skills. That's not me. I don't have that confidence. I don't have that knowingness,' right? And so we start by giving ourselves either small steps or big steps, whatever it is, but confirmation that we're on the right track. Because that builds that muscle that gives us our own acceptance.
I think when we don't accept the gifts that we were born with, it's really difficult to go be - feel successful, but feeling successful is a life, not just a business. It's how do we feel in our life? Do we feel fulfilled? So I think I want to come back around to - it's the feeling of being fulfilled that I think we chase, and money seems to represent that and business success represents that.
But let's come back to how are we expressing, how are we ful - being fulfilled, how are we helping, how are we serving, and then maybe it's business coaching that this person really needs.
Slade:
Great advice. Thank you so much.
So tell us about Spark. What is this?
Michelle:
So I think you know I've played a lot with this idea of Purpose, passion, fulfillment creativity, and the word that sums all of that up for me is Spark. And so I've created a system for helping us all keep that spark alive inside. I don't know how you feel, but you know we're just on the other side of another mass shooting here in the United States, we've had hurricanes, there's fires, there's wars all over the world. It feels like it's pretty difficult sometimes to stay grounded that we can even make a difference with all these world problems.
And so, getting in touch with our own spark is the beginning of feeling alive and then feeling like we can help in whatever way that looks like to us. Big or small, helping the local food community, helping a stray cat, helping stop genocide and wars, wherever it is that you personally feel like you're called to help. It starts with connecting with that spark inside of us. Because when that flame starts dying out, it's really difficult to even just get off the couch, right? We become glued to the news, we get into overwhelm.
So the system I've created are always different areas where we learn to connect in with our own spark so that we can express more fully our authentic selves. And, like I say in this book, Purpose book, which is the first step of the system, how can we not be authentic, right? We are authentic. We just don't always recognize what that is. And then we try to cover it up, or we have our baggage or we eat too much or we do all kinds of self sabotaging things because we don't really know who we are.
And so this system takes us through some self-reflection. I'm not here to tell anybody who they are. It's all inside. We just have to uncover it. We have to recognize it. We have to love who we are, you know? It's that thing that we gotta love ourselves first. And it's true, but we have to learn who we are so that we can love ourselves.
Slade:
So the book part component of this that you're talking about, it's a new book you have out called Purpose: The Alignment Guide : 28 Days of Inspiration, Reflection, Intention and Creative Expression. Now this sounds more like a program than just a book. So explain to us how this book works.
Michelle:
Yeah, it is. It's 28 days. Each day, wel, each week there's an affirmation. The very first one is 'I am already living my Purpose.' And there's coloring exercises ,activities, writing prompts, and the book takes you through my thoughts about why I believe we're all already living our Purpose. Just a short chapter on that. And then it encourages you to reflect on how you are living your Purpose day to day.
There are daily affirmations, daily questions, the book takes you through how does the earth energy affect you? I'm finding it very interesting right now with things like fires and hurricanes and so forth to not be affected by that, and I think a lot of us are affected by intense weather or even just a big snowstorm. And so, how does that affect your day to day living, and does that make you go more internal or does that cause you to be angry in the world? And just having a place to write down and explore these feelings helps you understand and learn more of who you really are. Who we are at the core.
So the book is a 28-day exploration with writing prompts for every day. Journaling and loads of cool coloring pages and there's also a coloring book that you can download at no cost or purchase to go along with this with all the really cool images. And the images are a little edgy. They're not like flowers and butterflies. They're what I call kind of galactic images with weird eyes and the sun going sideways because I think that's how I feel right now. Like everything just a little big sideways. And so I want to acknowledge that and express that.
And the Purpose is just the first workbook in a 9-month system. So there's 8 more books coming out, each one exactly the same format. So it's a 9-month program that I have on helping you connect back in with who you are.
Slade:
So why is it 28 days specificially?
Michelle:
Yeah, so there's a couple of answers to that.
It is a nice system of every week you look at a new affirmation and in this case, a new area of Purpose. And then we all need a day or two or three to just rest. So it's not like a month-long system. You can start this in the middle of the month, you can start it in the middle of the week, you just work through the days and then you, at the end of the 28 days, it's a moon cycle, it's a natural cycle. You just rest, let it all integrate, allow your subconscious to process everything you've been thorough. It's like savassana in yoga. You just incorpirate everything that you have learned and thought about and doodled and processed over the last four weeks. And then after a few more days, you can start again on the next book. Day 1 and go through another 28-day process.
Slade:
Very cool. It actually would be fun to do that with the moon cycle if you wanted. I'm a bit of a witch so I like to do everything like ritualized around the moon calendar. It just, it gives it a certain kind of structure that feels, I don't know, it feels empowering, so I like to play with that. That's very cool.
Michelle:
Yes! Yeah!
Slade:
So, not to compare this to anything in any way other than a compliment, but I really, as I was looking at the material, it appealed to me in much the same way that the artist way appealed to me. I think that there's a certain type of person who may have done that years ago back in the day who would really be turned on by your book.
Thank you! Thank you. I actually mention Julia Cameron in my dedication. She's a huge mentor of mine. I have interviewed her a couple of times. I've been to a live workshop of hers. I bow down to her as one of the creative goddesses of the world, so thank you, I take that as a huge compliment.
Slade:
Oh, that's very cool. We share her as a hero for sure. Yeah, so I definitely think that you can make a connection with the type of work that you're doing and so if there's anybody who - because I know once you've done something before, maybe you don't really want to go back through that process again, but this would be something new, and it's a little bit shifted of course, around this idea of aligning with Purpose, but the experiential part of it feels similar. In an exciting kind of way.
Have you had any ideas about doing like a group around it? Like a Facebook group or something?
Michelle:
Yes! So - thank you for asking. Yes, and I have one going right now. So theSpark.love group on Facebook. You can come and join for free. No charge. There are people uploading their pictures and their doodling and I answer questions in there, and so thespark.love is also my website. That's the name of the group on Facebook. So just come join and then obviously I offer paid classes and I have a live retreat coming up in May, so obviously I'm doing this also as part of my own coaching business, but everybody come and join at least for free so we can get to know each other and I can help you through the process.
And then if there's a next step, happy to talk to you about that.
Slade:
Oh that's very cool. I am a big believer in the social power of doing things in groups. If I have the opportunity to take something in a class environment I always go for that because I can accomplish so much more when I have interaction with other people around it. I'm a big believer in that so basically you're saying somebody can go and sign up for thespark.love Facebook group and the only thing that they would really require would be the book, which is not a huge investment, if they wanted to really participate in this and plug in with this whole concept, right?
Michelle:
That's right. $16.95 on Amazon, and nothing else. Just connect in the group because there's other people that are having conversations about Purpose and that's always a cool thing.
Slade:
Well I'll definitely pull all your links so anybody who is listeining can either go to my blog or they can go direclty to the podcast feed and just click on those. And go and sign up.
You also have a free course that people can download on your webiste, correct?
Michelle:
I do. There's a Purpose course on my website, there's the coloring book, there's a couple of meditations. The website is again, thespark.love because it's how we express our spark as love out into the world. That's the biggest expression of who we are. And so, yes, I have all kinds of free gifts. I have a downloadable course. Come get your gifts, thank you!
Thank you for this promotion, yeah. I'm so good at promoting other people but we're all like that, right? Thank you.
Slade:
Yeah, well there's some very specific places to jump and plug in to what you're doing and it doesn't cost anything other than your interest, you know? So it's a very powerful and easy thing to promote.
I do want to ask you before we wrap up the conversation. One of the things that I really like to ask those of you who've been around working in this space, for several years now. Is there anything that you feel is a message that's kind of missing from the conversation on personal development or something that needs to be brought forward a little bit?
Michelle:
Yeah, good question.
So I am so over self-improvement. Like, there was a time in my life when I'm like, I wanted to get my hands on everything around self-improvement and personal development. These days I think it's - the conversation at least that I like to have is, we don't have to improve anything. We can choose to explore our gifts and develop them if we want to. We can always learn more things. But it's really about what, uncovering what's already there. It's really about going inside rather than looking outside and the more I go deeper in this, the more I know that to be true for at least myself and many of the people I work with is, how can we really uncover who we are rather than looking outside for answers?
And so, in this book, even though I'm here having this conversation with you, it all comes back to what is true for the individual, not what I'm saying, not what you're saying, not what my book says. These are all tools to help you explore more deeply what's true for you.
Slade:
I love that approach. Thank you for sharing that. And Michelle, thank you so much for coming on and taking the time and having a conversation with me around this topic. I know everybody's going to enjoy listening to it.
Michelle:
Slade, I love you. It's been an honor to connect with you over all these years and I'm looking forward to the next one. Thank you for having me.
OUTRO
Thanks again for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.
For show notes, links, transcripts and all the past episodes please visit shiftyourspirits.com
You can subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher or whatever app you use to access podcasts.
If you’d like to get an intuitive reading with me, or download a free ebook and meditation to help you connect with your guides please go to sladeroberson.com
and if you’re interested in my professional intuitive training program, you can start the course for free by downloading the Attunement at automaticintuition.com
BEFORE I GO I promised to leave you a message in answer to a question or a concern you may have.
So take a moment to think about that — hold it in your mind or speak it out loud. I’ll pause for just a few seconds….right…now.
1…2…3…4
MESSAGE
Have you seen or heard any owls lately? Any owl totems or symbols crossing your path.
Owl energy is about the ability to see everything around you, to find the real truth in the shadows. This symbol can mean that someone around you is trying to throw you off or disguise his or her real intentions.
Make sure you’re not lying to yourself right now. If you’re being delusional, wake up. Not facing the truth in one area of your life will block you from moving forward in any other area.
Look into your darkness a little bit. That’s where you’ll find the way out.
And I’ll talk to you later.