BEYOND
"Welcome to BEYOND—where denying your GREATNESS is a thing of the past, and next-level confidence, success, and purpose are the standard.
I am Katie Lynn, Identity Expert, host, and your personal hype-woman.
I am here to inspire you out of your comfort zone.
This is the moment you re-design your life and unlock the greatness that’s already inside you.
Because your next level? It’s not ‘one day’—it’s TODAY.
Let’s go BEYOND."
BEYOND
Emotional Mastery and Authenticity with Sid Scott
Sid Scott, the brilliant mind behind the Cure Framework and former military counterintelligence expert, joins us for an episode that promises to redefine emotional healing and authenticity. Sid's transition from a high-stakes career to a guide for women on a journey of self-discovery is nothing short of fascinating. We unpack the art of "creating space" and its critical role in fostering environments where presence, trust, and surrender allow for genuine exploration, free from societal judgment and constraints. This episode invites you to reconsider the unconscious conditions that shape your life and explore the liberation that comes with shedding these limitations.
Embracing one's true identity, especially in the face of contrasting cultural or familial expectations, isn't always easy. Our conversation takes a deep dive into the challenges and triumphs of navigating identity, particularly when raised in a biracial family. Awareness is just the first step; we discuss the necessity of transcending intellectual understanding to facilitate a holistic transformation that truly resonates with the inner self. Personal stories illustrate the struggle and eventual triumph of breaking free from societal norms to fully embody one's potential, offering listeners both insights and inspiration for their own journeys.
Throughout the episode, we explore the concept of emotional safety within oneself and relationships, challenging the high achiever mindset that often pressures us to be perfect. Through heartfelt personal anecdotes, we emphasize the importance of making room for all of life's emotions—joy, grief, and everything in between—and the profound impact this has on living a more meaningful life. We wrap up with a reflection on the rich tapestry of emotional presence, urging a shift from material obsessions to a life filled with genuine connection and spiritual fulfillment. Thank you for joining us on this journey of connection and transformation.
Connect with Sid Scott here:
www.emotionallyempoweredleaders.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidscott/
BEYOND listeners can schedule a free 1:1 session at coachwithsid.com
For inquiries email: katie@katielynnrojano.com
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Hello, my friend, and welcome to Beyond, the personal growth podcast for the people who are healing beyond their conditioning and beyond the cycles that played out before them. My name is Katie Lynn and, with 20 years of experience in the field of psychology and human behavior, I am bringing my natural curiosity, expertise and personal life experiences here for discussions that are guaranteed to be informative, inspiring and entertaining. I'm glad you're here. Let's get started. Today on Beyond, we have the incredible Sid Scott. Sid Scott is the creator of the Cure Framework, which helps women reclaim their self-worth and break through emotional barriers. After eight years in military counterintelligence, sid now uses his expertise in listening to guide women through deep emotional work so they can live with purpose, inner peace and self-love that doesn't need validation from the outside world. Sid, I am so grateful to have you on the podcast today, and the first thing that stands out to me in that bio is your background in counterintelligence. Can you say more about that?
Speaker 2:I usually don't say a lot about it, but specifically my job was to listen to what people were up to, read between the lines, understand what's not being said, take the most essential parts of information and articulate them in a way that allows our decision makers to take whatever actions they need to take. So it's just people.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have had the honor of Sid holding space for me in a session and the way that you hold space is really incredible, and it's one of the reasons I was like I need to reach out to Sid and see if he will be on the podcast, because there is a true art to holding space. So, as we use that terminology, what would you say about holding space?
Speaker 2:I'm interesting in that I usually tell people I don't really hold space. I create space and the way that I think about it is it's a matter of its energy. What's the energy that I'm bringing and what's the space that I am really co-creating with somebody? I do my job in that I show up in my full power, the best me that I can bring and offer in that moment, and I show up in trust. I show up in surrender of that. I show up as that and, organically, whatever needs to come up usually comes up in that space.
Speaker 2:So why do I say I don't hold space? Because in my opinion, this is just words. Words was my, words was my living, words was my job and my space it's not just me. It's not only me and I'm not really holding anything and I'm not taking on anything either. I'm merely just witnessing and to me, in my mind, probably just being way too literal, but in my mind, if I'm holding the space, that means I'm holding what's in the space and that makes me like that gives me a lot of responsibility and a lot of seriousness. That for me, I don't know, is necessarily helpful, whereas to me, witnessing actually just gives so much more permission and allows the other person to really just be who they are and not just witnessing. From witnessing and safety, let me be more specific witnessing not to judge or not to change or not to fix, but really just allowing, and so that's how I relate to holding space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, oh, my goodness, I love this so much because that, to me, really articulates the power that was felt, because it's so rare, in at least in my walk in life, to be present with somebody and have that other person literally have no agenda, like no agenda, no motives, you know, outside of being a safe witness, and literally it felt like being present to a blank canvas and I'm painting and being witnessed in the painting and so there's a level of vulnerability to it and that becomes the space for so much alchemy, because that safety is there, that safety is felt and there isn't this expectation of performance or a certain outcome or anything like that.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of freedom there and I think that's really magical for you work with women. So I think that's really magical for women who walk in the world with so many demands and depending on how many sort of hats they wear in terms of like mother, wife, professional right To have a space where they actually don't have to bring any of the hats, they can put everything down and be witnessed safely by someone who deeply cares and is really committed to presence.
Speaker 2:And honestly, that's what's been the most transformational thing for me in my life is just being in those spaces where people allowed me to be me and people having that blank space to really explore. Who am I explore, who am I really, who am I really? And I feel like the more labels that we assign to ourselves or your words, the more hats that we wear, the more rules and conditions that we kind of have to live up to, and being able to come into a space where I don't really have to be or live up to any of those things has really allowed me to explore, like, well, who am I really? And that's so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a word that you said and this was a bomb that was dropped right Like and I don't even know if you knew it was a bomb when you like dropped it into the space, right, but you were sharing.
Speaker 1:You asked me a question. You said what are your conditions for authenticity? And my brain was, like it did like a little reconfiguration, like that little wheel when we like load a new window in our browser, that's spinning my brain like was spinning in the wheel, which, to me, especially in my work with clients, like I know, once I hit that point in my clients where their brains kind of stop working for a moment, that's when we've gotten somewhere really powerful, because the brain is literally reorganizing itself in real time. And I would love for you to talk a bit more about conditions, because my experience, especially being on the receiving end of that question, was like, oh my gosh, there are so many conditions and I didn't even know they were there, they were running so subconsciously. So can you share more with us about conditions and what those are and just your experience of them?
Speaker 2:Okay, so conditions are really rules, and rules specifically around what's safe and what's not safe, and so that's what I really mean, and it all goes back to safety Ultimately what's safe for me or what's not safe for me. And if you haven't really looked at that inside of yourself, there's so much opportunity for growth, there's so much opportunity for self-actualization when you really look at what are the fears beneath the surface that I've been allowing to really run the show and create who I'm being and how I'm showing up, you know, moment to moment. Yeah, and I don't always use the word fear or lack of safety or unsafe in coaching, because that makes it a little bit more difficult for us to access what's really going on beneath the surface. So I'll just put it. You know what, hey? So what are the conditions? What are the?
Speaker 1:rules.
Speaker 2:This is a little more accessible a little more accessible, just like how, sometimes, you know, I don't, we don't know, maybe you, maybe you do this too Like, or you don't necessarily like to call everything trauma or like use that word, not everyone's ready to access that, or not everyone's ready to really hear it or relate to it that way. So I just say stress or overwhelm, right, so, but anyways, that's to speak more to conditions I've really had to look at. The first one that I really wrestled with was just going back to authenticity and owning my own identity, and this is something that I've had to navigate in terms of just my lived experience right, my lived experience. For the listeners who have no idea who I am, I have a white mom and a black dad, and my white mom, you know, very strict Christian upbringing went to church, school was not allowed to go to public school, was not allowed to watch Harry Potter, you know cause? It was worldly.
Speaker 2:And then my dad, on the other hand I split time went to church, school was not allowed to go to public school was not allowed to watch Harry Potter, you know cause? It was worldly. And then my dad, on the other hand, I split time between both households. There there were. There weren't really any rules, there was no religion and there's just a totally different vibe. And so having to figure out like who am I? Because when I show up a certain way in one environment versus the other, it's safe in one environment where it's not safe in the other, and so this is where I started to create the conditions around when can I really be myself and when do I have to shapeshift or change who I want to be, and doing that at such an early age? I'm still finding and picking up pieces of myself that I have really left behind in the name of safety and fitting in and belonging in those different environments that I was raised in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that experience is so unique and I'm so grateful you shared it with us because you got to rub up against the I call them like the unseen expectations.
Speaker 1:They're really like invisible sort of like barriers and ceilings and like that I think people who may not come from a biracial or multiracial family wouldn't be able to see, because their perspectives they don't bump up against them every day or in such contrast, like you got to where it's like one household and then a completely different household quite frequently.
Speaker 1:So I really appreciate that share. And when it comes to conditions, the reason I asked this question is because they can be so subconscious that even just asking ourselves that question of like I wonder what the conditions are, our brains go and get us an answer, you know, because that's what they're designed to do and what really I got to see when you asked that question is like, oh, these conditions do exist and it kind of doesn't matter so much you know you spoke to trauma like it kind of doesn't matter so much where they came from. It more so matters how I'm going to leverage them now and what I'm going to do with them now and who I'm going to become as a result of this awareness now. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:I would mostly agree with that, and the reason why I say mostly agree with that is because awareness is one thing and we can make significant breakthroughs with awareness. However, if we're going to attempt to move or act in a way that like challenges or breaks the condition, it might be very difficult to sustain that or embody that if we haven't addressed the circumstance or situation or experience that created the condition. So the awareness is key, but also we have to understand, with that awareness, the part of us that made the condition what does it need to feel safe with a new or different condition? And that's a matter of shifting or embodying something different, not intellectually, but like with every ounce of our being. And so that's what happens sometimes when people have the awareness around the conditions but find it difficult to change them.
Speaker 2:Like I come up with women all the time, high, achieving very successful, and they're like listen, I know all my stuff, I'm very self-aware, but like, what do I do with it? And I'm like you're trying to solve it from your head and you're trying to solve it as the you know. Insert however many things that are after your name and all of the numbers that are in your bank account and all of the receipts that you know follow you around, that follow you around. You can't solve this from there. You actually have to go to the root of the part of you that created that rule or created that condition, because it's a different level of thinking that created that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my gosh. I really hope that everybody listening just rewinds like a minute or 90 seconds and re-listens to that part, because something just clicked for me, so may I share this.
Speaker 2:This is a story, please do. I would love to hear it.
Speaker 1:I feel like this illustrates what you're explaining so beautifully in my real life context.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's hear it.
Speaker 1:I had been repeatedly prompted by people I think you might've been one of them too Like Katie. The feedback was and this was mostly men the feedback was Katie, just unleash her. Just unleash her, just bring her forward, just be in your fullness. Just. We need your fullest expression, we need your power, we need your.
Speaker 1:And I'm hearing this, I'm receiving it, and I'm like what does that mean? Like how I hear you and what the heck? How do I? Where do we even start there? You know, like, do you have a right, my academic brain? Do you have like a six step process for how I do this?
Speaker 1:Or like, and my husband came to me and you know I'm telling him how I'm really like, I'm being with this right, and I'm being with it from a very different place, of how do I move in my fullness right, how do I move in my authenticity and being with all of the emotional stuff that gets kicked up as a result of this new way of being? And he came to me one day, the purest from the purest place, and he said you know, babe, I will love you no matter what, even if you don't achieve anything, even if you don't come with an outcome that is world-changing or life-altering, or because he knows me as the achiever right. I love to create, I love to do, I love to help, I love to serve, I love to be impactful. So he was addressing any kind of insecurity that he may have perceived around the impactfulness of my being, or any lack thereof that I may have perceived and thought, oh gosh, I have to be this for my husband.
Speaker 1:The fascinating thing that came up when he shared that with me it popped up its head and it like a little animal that pops its head out of the ground and looked around and I was like in the moment I thought I was like, oh my God, what is that?
Speaker 1:And it was actually that the fear was not that he would not love me if I didn't achieve anything. The fear was that he wouldn't love me if I did, because I came from a blended home where I have two older stepsisters and my parents put a lot of energy and effort into trying to balance what all the kids got to receive and didn't get to receive, and so anything that I received that they were unable to receive, I would experience this shame around it because it wasn't okay, because they couldn't really have it either, and why should I be excited about having something that other people couldn't have, even when they deserved it, even when they you know, when I would have wanted them to have it? And so I hear that in this reflection that you just shared, of like go back to that place where this condition originated of. It's not safe, and it feels really, really, really uncomfortable to actually have something that sets you apart from the whole.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing that, and I just got to say, if you're listening to this podcast right now and you didn't listen to the episode that they did, that you and Sonequa did together I think it's episode 39, maybe I don't know he's brilliant and the two of you together are absolutely brilliant. Thank you, it's very awesome. I loved listening to it. But anyways, that's, that's a sidebar, that's a side tangent. What I'm hearing and what I'm taking away from what you shared is he saw like a younger part of you present and like like a good dad just told her what she, what she needed to hear in that moment, and I think the thing that's so important for each of us to understand. First of all, let's unpack this thing about full self. I need to be fully authentic.
Speaker 2:I need to be fully expressed fully expressed in my feminine, fully embodied. It's like I just want to shake some of you and help you see that this is still that high achiever part, applying pressure that doesn't need to be there. That's just so unnecessary. So just drop the question, drop the whole need to be fully anything, because that's just you trying to operate under that old, tired, exhausting paradigm of just needing to do the most. There's no need for perfection. Let's just get rid of the word fully. Let's no need for perfection. Let's just get rid of the word fully. Let's just let it go. Let's just drop it. Let's just stop saying it. I don't need to be fully anything because there's just so much perfectionism and unattainable, unreachable expectations. For what?
Speaker 2:For why Now, with that being said, recognizing and understanding that each of us, in any given moment, is bringing all of these different parts of us to the moment, any given time, in any given time, you know, five-year-old Sydney could pop his head into the room and try to take over, you know. Or 14-year-old Katie could pop up and be like well, hold on, I don't flag on the. I don't like what's happening right now. And when you put the pressure on yourself to be fully anything, it almost like eliminates, ironically, the ability to be fully yourself, because if I'm fully this, then I'm really essentially alienating these other aspects of myself or parts of myself that simply are not that and don't need to be. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, as you were saying this, I had this visual of me like walking outside to the tree and asking the tree like, hey, were you fully? Were you fully a tree today? Like, did you fully show up and show out today, you know, and like it's comical, right, like for me to be like asking the truth. So why do we do that to ourselves? Your point is so poignant because it's like how would we even know According to what standards, to whose rules and who made them and when? And are they actually working for us? And this idea of safety I love so much because I feel like, especially in my relationship with my husband, we really hit this beautiful we're what Three years in married, we'll be six years together in December and we hit this beautiful space at the beginning of this year of a different level of safety. And I think what we realized together is that we can create our own safe bubble as a couple, especially because both of us are pretty front-facing in the world in terms of what we do and how we show up.
Speaker 1:And we knew that this year was going to be a significant year in terms of launching projects that were more public. Right, he had some projects that came out, that were very public, that were controversial. We knew that was coming and for me, the podcast and just making more of an effort to bring myself out of this behind the scenes, hermit mode. And we decided one night in the kitchen that like, look, we always have here, this is like home base. We can bring anything here and whatever happens out there in the world, we can always come here and anchor into this safety that exists for us. And it reminded me that that's available. That doesn't have to be in romantic partnership only. That can also be within ourselves and we can create that.
Speaker 2:We can create that and we have to learn how to create that. And if we haven't been able to create that for ourselves, usually we require someone to help us experience it right, Like we need someone to help us experience what it feels like to feel safe inside of ourselves. I feel so much for, you know, those of us that grew up in environments where we were really left to our own devices, like, more often than not, to deal with our emotions, to deal with tough things that happen, to deal with just life. I mean I feel like a lot of my childhood the word loneliness is how I would describe it, you know more often than not and so I had to. Really I didn't.
Speaker 2:It's hard Like I felt safe being in my head, but I didn't feel safe in being with, like, my emotions or like my discomfort. I felt safe in like intellectualizing everything that was around me because I didn't know, like, what else to do, and so it took like another, it took other people coming into my world and kind of like getting me out of my head and into my body and like finding the, you know, internal sense of safety there. And once you have it, like once your nervous system has the blueprint or the model right, Like then you. You have a really a much better foundation to move forward with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I resonate with that being safer in my head than in my emotions, especially growing up as an athlete, right, because I played softball, so I was a pitcher, so I got to reset every pitch, no matter what just happened. If I struck her out, then great, right, there was a little high. And then I got to reset every pitch, like no matter what just happened. If it was a, if I struck her out, then great, right, there was a little high. And then I got to come back and start from zero again with a new batter, and so, like I really remember consciously learning how to not show my emotionality when I was playing, and then I think I escaped. There I was like, wow, this is really cool that I can just kind of tuck these feelings away and not deal with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's so cool about that is just like that's also like teaching you that that's powerful, yep, like I'm power, like I'm in my most powerful, un-mess withable state when I do that, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:And then the irony is so much of my healing journey over the last was this 2024, 10 years, between 10 to 15 years has been undoing that, because what I realized is, after my athletic sort of career and air quotes ended, there were so many things that ended at one time in the span of a year and started at one time, and I had no idea how to actually process grief because I sort of cut it before it could go all the way through. You know how, with emotions, you like process them all the way through, and if you can ride that wave all the way through, then you like. It's like when you see a toddler who's having a tantrum. If you let them, if you are with them presently through the whole thing, they'll take themselves on this journey where they go through the emotion, they have the expression, and then they reach the other side and they're calm and they're okay. They're like, okay, I'm good as long as they have that safe space, and you're like, I'm with you. It sucks, it's terrible, right, like I get it, it's upsetting, I love you. You know, like you're, you're really with them, and so that's the nature, I think, of how we process emotions.
Speaker 1:But then I stunted it because I was like no, you can't, I don't have time to deal with this, I'm not going to deal with it, and I don't have to. That was the theory. I don't have to deal with this, I can be, I can just get over it, I can just move on. Right, not right, actually, not right. There it came to a head and then that's when so much of my life started to not work because there was all of this stuff under the surface that was like begging for my attention and cue the cue. All the stuff that comes up when you've been ignoring things for so long the binge drinking, the issues with food, issues with body antidepressants and anxiety meds, right, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:And so the work with you is so powerful and the work that people who are in the emotionality of things and who teach emotions and emotional intelligence and all of that is so significant, because there is this level of what you just kind of spoke to of exposure therapy that must be present, like these are the irony. The kicker about emotional healing is it's not a solo sport, it's like it's a team sport. You know, healing is a team sport, and so to be able to find these places and have access to these places where I can, or anybody listening can, bring themselves to this space and be in a safe space with themselves and somebody else. Who is safe is the exposure therapy, and it is some of the most challenging healing work I've done in my life because I learned look, you get so much further in life, according to society, when you actually don't have to, when you don't share these emotions and you put them away, when you show up and you deliver and you perform and you exist for the sake of others.
Speaker 2:You just said so much there's so much there.
Speaker 2:And I love it and I loved every second of it. And I would like to circle back to something that I think is incredibly significant in what you said, in that you weren't letting yourself access grief, with all of those things and sadness, and then you know, you realize that your life started to not work. I want to circle back there and highlight something that, whatever we all have our emotion that has been deemed unsafe. We all have it. We all have it. There was a study done on affect phobia therapy. That is really exciting. Maybe we can link it in the description that I think yeah, I would love to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be really insightful. But all that really means is fear of feeling. Like the affect is is the neuroscience word for feeling, so fear of feeling and so. But with that there is, we all have one or a cluster or a few that like we're afraid to feel. But what's interesting about that is if we can't feel or like be with one of them, it kind of kinks the flow of emotion in general.
Speaker 2:And if emotions are what our body uses to get our needs met and we're kind of kinking the flow, then we're not really able to get our needs met in the most effective ways and then we kind of go down this path of getting them met in like the most unhelpful, them met in like the most unhelpful, maladaptive, negative ways that we can. But to your point, if we can uncover that, what it is that we have been afraid to feel in terms of an emotion, it unlocks all of the other ones and everything else. Oh yeah, and so I would love if you could share like what was not being able to go into grief or sadness, Like what was it blocking in your life?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you so okay. So this I had a moment where somebody said I don't know if it was somebody famous, but you probably heard this quote before where it's like grief is the outward expression of love, of how deeply you loved. And what I didn't know about myself is that the reason I experienced so much grief is because of my capacity to love so deeply. And I'm going to. I didn't love this about myself for a really long time, but I am that person who will walk outside, see a butterfly and think it's the most magnificent thing I have ever seen and just be like oh my gosh, did you use like? I will literally watch it in awe and I thought that that was a bad thing. I judged that as a really bad thing that I felt so connected and so excited to be here on planet earth at this time and just wonder at like I will. Even. The reason I love to people watch is because people are so incredible to me. I'm like look at this human, like the chances of this human existing are so rare, and like this human is here and they're doing their thing.
Speaker 1:And I had an example of this the other morning, cause I went to go get. I live in a. It's not a small town, but I live in the same area that I grew up in. So I went to college and came back and got my master's and I'm here, and so there's a tire shop that we've been going to. It's existed for probably four decades now and it's family owned. So I went in there the other morning because I had a nail in my tire and I had bought these tires from this tire shop and I'm sitting in the waiting room and the owner walks by the window and he's all gray now and I had this moment of like. I get emotional, like this is it right? This is the stuff that wasn't that I had deemed like not acceptable, because it's like Katie, why are you crying over a tire shop owner that, like this, is so silly? That's what my brain used to say to me. And I saw him walk by and he's all gray and I'm like this man has created a legacy for his family and he's like such a beautiful representation of what it means to live a life of contribution and a life that's like bigger than he is.
Speaker 1:And this shop is. Everybody in the community knows of it. It's got a wonderful reputation. You call them and you tell them you have a problem and they're like going to sit on there and they're going to help you problem solve until you have a solution. And they will literally tell you that they're like we're going to figure this out. And it's such a beautiful representation to me of like how precious life is and for the longest time through, like my younger years and like my teens and my twenties and even some of my early thirties, this took for me to be like. This was so not, it was just like deemed a waste of time, a waste of emotion, a waste of energy, and it's like, but it's so beautiful to me. It's such a beautiful representation of like look at how precious this is. Like this man won't be here forever, and neither will we, and like he's providing jobs and like he's helping people every single day and he's aging.
Speaker 2:It's just precious, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so what I'm hearing you say is that allowing yourself to experience and feel like grief and sadness has, like brought color to your life and fullness to your life and vibrance to your life, and gratitude and appreciation and joy and love, and like just to think of like how much of that you would miss out on over just the not being willing or able to get into the grief and the sadness, and that's so huge. When we're talking about beyond, when we're talking about, you know, creating a life that needs no escape and just embracing who you are and creating a life that's just so authentic and beautiful and one that you really love, you have to be willing to go into the depths of whatever those emotions are that you've been avoiding to unlock everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Sid, it's so incredible. First of all, I'd like to say it's so uncomfortable, the work of me growing to this point in myself of being able to tell you like, hey, I sat at the tire shop and wept because because I saw this wonderful man you know and remember him being in his youth and being younger and not gray, and it's so worth it to me because what has happened is my brain catches now these fantastic, organic moments every single day of life. That cannot be bought. You can't order it on Amazon, you can't hire anybody to create it for you. They are so natural and a result of the alchemy that this planet is.
Speaker 1:And the connection and my friends kind of joke with me.
Speaker 1:It's like what a wholesome gal you are, you're so wholesome.
Speaker 1:And my friends kind of joke with me like what a wholesome gal you are, you know, like, you're so wholesome and like, but that's what it, that's the significance of it to me, that's what makes being here worth living to me is like the wholesomeness that's available, the sweetness of you know, we pray every night as a family and then the sweetness of that first night when our three-year-old gets confident enough and he grabs our hands and he says I'll pray.
Speaker 1:He grabs our hands and he says I'll pray. And he leads the prayer Right, and like we didn't ask him, and he's literally just reflecting back to us what he's seen at the table, you know, and his prayer is so precious. He's like thank you for our forks, you know, thank you for the light, you know, and he's like just anything he could see with his eyes is what's getting included in the prayer, right, but so, and his smile, he's so proud of it. And it's just like if I had shut off this aspect of myself, I would not be able to see as much beauty as I see in the world and experience every single day. That's beyond money and beyond fashion and beyond status and beyond anything really that I have the ability to control or manipulate myself.
Speaker 2:And what's wild about that is you. You would have all the success that you have now and not even be able to really enjoy it or feel it. And that's that's the thing. Right there, like, I want all of us to get everything that we would like to get in life, but I would also like us to really enjoy, like you said, those moments that, like, can only be brought or experienced through presence. And I feel so many of us more and more of us, honestly are so trapped in this life that is moving so fast. That is just so incongruent with a spiritual life that allows us to truly feel full.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my goodness yeah.
Speaker 2:And for what? To have more stuff. You know what I mean, this obsession with self-quantifying. I'm obsessed with how many steps I got. I'm obsessed with how many calories I burned. I'm obsessed with how many leads my business brought in this month. All like every number, every metric that we can track, which okay, like I understand the importance of that, but if we're not careful, we will miss the most important things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And the availability, like I really feel, like the fact that people like you exist now and are so available for anybody listening to say yes, to like, let me see what this is, let me explore this, you know, is so powerful and such a reflection of the abundance that exists here now and the abundance that becomes so readily available when we can, to use your words, unkink that hose and show up for it. You know, because, like, it's everywhere, and I like to say that God is always working to pleasantly surprise us, and there, my days are full of pleasant surprises, even in the moments that are plenty where it's not going the way I thought it would you know where it's not. Like, oh, I had this idea, my deal was so cute and I thought it would you know where it's not. Like, oh, I had this idea, my idea was so cute and I gave it to God and God was like we're going to upgrade that real quick, just follow my lead.
Speaker 1:And being in that surrendered place. And there's also so much power in you being a man, because one of the things that I also became very aware of is Sid, the first time I ever saw my dad cry was when I married Seneca. So I was 35 when I saw my dad actually cry. I'm talking, like you know, like the sniffle, like caught up in the emotion, right, and it was the most beautiful thing, like I will have that memory for as long as my memory works, you know. But I remember thinking, oh my God, and I told Sika babe, my dad cried today.
Speaker 1:I saw my dad in his emotion and I knew that was a form of him, his belief in us as a couple, because his heart was there fully.
Speaker 1:And to double on that, that means that for 35 years I had a father who subscribed to the culture that men don't express their emotions and men are not supposed to be that way, and so part of my healing was finding places with healthy men who could be that presence and I could emote with them and they could reflect back to me right. Like part of my healing journey was learning how to be in my emotion with a male, because my dad did his duty right. He believed in as a provider, as a protector. He nailed it in those realms and he wasn't the person I brought my emotions to, because that that space wasn't consciously there for me, even though now I can look back and be like he was always there. Right, he would always come in if he felt like I was having a problem or needed support, even still to this day. Right, my parents are such generous, beautiful people, and that's a thing, and especially having gone through tumultuous relationships, right, which is what we create when we do have kinks in our hose.
Speaker 1:Right, If we're being honest and I'm cleaning up my side of the street like, look, I can look back and be like those relationships.
Speaker 1:Those relationships didn't work because there was probably a couple of kinks in my home and then healing that and being like look, I may have written a story about this that men are not safe, men are not emotionally available, or whatever that story is, and that story is not accurate because there are definitely, absolutely men that show up and exist in this way and I can find them and that's why it means so much to me to have people like you, people like Sanyika, people on the podcast that I know and have experienced that in real time with them. So I want to acknowledge you for that. But I also want to add that for the listeners of like if you have that in your history of like, men are emotionally unavailable. It's like let's maybe give ourselves permission to my kids a daily, you know a daily word. I'm like, I'm doing my study anyways.
Speaker 2:Like why, why don't I, why don't I share it? And and also just to add on that, like I, it's my belief that men in the house are to be like the representation of God in the house and we're supposed to be able to bring everything to God. And in those and we're supposed to be able to bring everything to God, in those moments of prayer, we're supposed to be able to bring everything all the mess, all of the fear, all of the doubt, sadness, anger, grief, the full spectrum Right. And so for me that means I have to be available for the full spectrum of emotions in myself and I have to be able to give that to my kids. So my wife and I just bought a house.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. Thank you, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and I've been, I've already, I already think about my kids that aren't here yet, like every day, but even more so now that I'm in the house and I'm just thinking about, like as I'm walking through this house, like how are they going to experience God in this house? And one of those things that I think about is, like, am I really open to like some of the things I might be feeling right now and am I able to express them Like, am I able to communicate them? And I know we're coming up on our limit here for time, but I want to share one quick story. My wife and I were, two weeks ago, we were in a retreat. I wasn't prepared to tell this story, so I don't. I don't have the all of the all of the information readily available, but there's. But there's one particular piece that I want to pull out that I do remember very tangibly. I was pressing on like a part of me that just didn't allow anything to feel enough in terms of my output and I didn't really receive compliments very well or acknowledgement very well, and I knew this about myself on some level. I accepted this about myself on some level and I figured that this was resolved and I was wrong. And as I was like digging into that a little bit more and she was right there next to me, I was like, oh, this is the pocket, okay, this is here. And then I had to make the decision right there I have. I could do one of two things. I could swallow this right now and tell myself that I'm going to work through it later. Or I could do this right here, right now, and let her be a part of it.
Speaker 2:And this little boy came out that I, I, me and him were locked in, right, but I didn't know how much this was still a thing for him. I was talking about how you know I've done. He was saying like nothing I ever do is like cool, my mom doesn't think anything I do is cool. And I was like, wait, wait, really. And what I realized in that moment is like, wow, there's a grief, there's a sadness there for one. And with that being able to go there and feel that one, I was able to understand okay, the reason why I do this to myself all the time, with nothing ever being good enough and not seeing it through more, is because I'm missing that acknowledgement, that pat on the back, that validation of my light and my gifts and my skills, right, okay, okay. This is a whole other podcast episode. I'm trying to bring the fruit that is the most useful to someone listening.
Speaker 2:So I shared that moment with her, with tears literally showing up that that little boy was was showing up and letting her rub me on the back and not trying to change me or do anything with it, but just being there as that's happening Fast forward. We had closed on our house and we're on our way home, driving to the house, and she was like, oh my God, like she's. She's like Tigger, she's like the. She's the perfect embodiment of the woman that I absolutely need to like heal my soul on every single level. And I couldn't necessarily see it as much as I can see it now. Because of that moment we shared this past weekend, it's going to make sense to stay with me. I'm landing the plane, so we're driving home and we're coming to our new home, we close, it's ours. And she's like how do you feel? How do you feel? And she's on 10,000 actually. And I gave her my usual response Like it's cool. It's cool, like just calm, just it's cool.
Speaker 2:And she didn't just take that, because she understood what was happening. So she started clapping, she started getting excited. She's like Sydney, you did such a good job. Like you I told you, like I wanted a home and like you found us this beautiful home and like you made it happen and I'm so proud of you. Like just just laying it on thick and like clapping, like and something in me broke, katie, like something in me just broke.
Speaker 2:I like, all of a sudden, I had this smile that like I couldn't put away. It was like a painful smile and I started like giddy laughing like a child, and there was a part of me that came up for a second that was like wait a minute, what are we doing right now? You're doing this in front of her Like pump the brakes. Like pump the brakes, dude. Like hold on, like that conditioning Right and.
Speaker 2:But then I, but, sitting with all parts of myself in that moment, I was like, yes, I hear you and she understands and we need this right now. She's not looking at you any differently in this moment. She's not judging you differently in this moment. She's loving you more in this moment and you're opening yourselves up to so much more love in this moment, and this is what you want, okay, so then more excitement and joy could start flowing and for like a few days after, I would take myself back to that moment and uncontrollably just like start smiling and beaming again and I was like, wow, to what you were saying earlier, I've got so much more excitement and joy available now, and now when my kid gets excited about something, I'll be able to match their energy, because, guess what?
Speaker 2:My mom wasn't able to do that for me. My mom is amazing and she didn't have that modeled for her. So even when we told her that we were getting this house, she was just like why there? It wasn't like oh, congrats, it was like, oh, okay. And then we told her it's this four bedrooms, it's got an office, it's got all this stuff. And she was like, oh, like, okay, like. And then we told her, like you know, it's like it's this four bedrooms, it's got, it's got an office, it's got like the and all this stuff. And she was like, why so many bedrooms? Just like, yeah, just, you know, and I promise, I'm getting there.
Speaker 2:Two years ago, I had a conversation with my mom. I was like, mom, you know how? You told me I was vain when I was six years old, looking in the mirror at myself. She's like no, I don't remember that. I'm like that's fine, you don't have to.
Speaker 2:But what I realized about that moment is you saw me admiring and appreciating myself and having positive feelings towards myself, and no one let you do that, Did they? Like you were forced to dim your light, weren't you? And I didn't know this about her, but she was like I was. I was like okay, okay. And so, mom, like, this is what happened to me now as a result. I know you didn't mean it, but I'm just going to give it to you. You can do with it what you want, and this is what I'm figuring out now.
Speaker 2:I've been dimming myself because that's what you taught me and showed me how to do so for full circle moment. Now I'm not resenting my mom. When she cause I understand what's happening, I'm like okay, she doesn't know how, and that's also why I don't know how when I do something cool and someone tries to tell me and I'm like yeah, but it could have been this, it could have been that I could have done this better. I could have like, I'm just get it off me, I'm putting it all out there, you know. And so now I have this excitement. So now, when my kids do anything, I know how to feel it for real. I thought I knew how to feel it, but I there was a whole nother level that's available now.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you so much for bringing that forward for us here. Wow, wow, thank you so much for bringing that forward for us here. That's incredible, and your kids are like they're already blessed because they'll have you and your wife as parents. And there is nothing sweeter than watching a father who is able to be fully present with his children and meet them like fully emotionally present, fully mentally present, like physically all of it. There's nothing like that on the planet and your willingness to grow into that with yourselves first is so incredible. It's so incredible. And I love how attuned your wife is to you, like, wow, that's beautiful that she can read you, she can see you in that loving, in that embrace and that nurturing without being a motherly because that's a line too right, and it's just beautiful. That's an incredible story. Thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1:And I love what you shared about there being this other layer, and to me, that's the whole thing that I've experienced is that just when I think I've hit it, there's more, there's more, and so it's like to me. Now what I'm learning is that like, oh, my life is expanding in direct proportion to my willingness and capacity and capacity to be with myself in the emotions, in the feels, and be with my husband and be with my children and like, how willing am I to like ride the ride in surrender and in love and in in full availability to it? And now I feel like that's the game, that's the game we're playing and that's the game I'm here to play with people and you're here to play with people. It's like let's go for it, you know, dive into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's dive into it. And you know, never thinking that like we've arrived. You know being willing and open to explore yourself. And and then you know the next level is doing that with someone else too, like it's one thing to be, you know, powerfully coached by yourself, and it's another thing to have someone witness you in that and go on that journey with you For sure. Yeah, so that you can just be, you know who each other needs in any given with whatever comes up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is really the game, you know, especially as women, we like when we decide that we're going to be in partnership. It's like I think there's people that think, oh, that's, I've gotten there, I've arrived. When I find my person, my partner, and it's like, oh, that's just the beginning. There's so much both of you bring to this dynamic that you're going to heal through evoke, and this is literally the only person on the planet that could bring you this key. And, like what you shared about your wife, you know she is the embodiment of what I would require in a woman to access this healing that's available in me. There's so much wisdom in that and truth in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I needed. I needed Tigger in that moment, not. Eeyore and if and if I didn't, I hadn't been, you know, in touch with myself enough to. And what's also really cool about this is God, because on some level I understood that that's what I needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even if I didn't really know why or understand why.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And what's so cool is I'm going to continue to figure out how and why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing about God, right? God is always like 50 steps ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we get to this moment where we're like oh, wow or at least I do where I'm like that was some mastermind moves, Like I would not have been able with my cute human brain, I would never have been able to calculate that or organize that in the way that God did. Like that, or organize that in the way that God did Like wow, just wow. So, Sid, I am so grateful for you. Thank you for your generosity today and your wisdom. If you are listening and you want to learn more from Sid, or even consider working with Sid, you can find him at coachwithsidcom. If you'd like him in your inbox via email more consistently, you can go to thecomrebellioncom and put in your email address there and get the nuggets of wisdom that you deliver every so. Is it weekly? It's weekly.
Speaker 1:It's weekly, all right, any last words? Anything else you'd like to say?
Speaker 2:No, I just thank you. Thank you so much for having me on and I look forward to anyone who listens to this and wants to connect. I look forward to getting to know you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my pleasure. As we complete this episode, I would love to know your insights, takeaways and feedback. You can message me on Instagram at katielinrojano, or send them via email to katie at katielinrojanocom. Any products or digital downloads I mentioned can be found via the link in my Instagram bio. If you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to share it with at least one friend and leave a five-star review so we can get these impactful dialogues into the lives of even more people. I would also like to thank my guests for their vulnerability and generosity and allowing us to learn from them and grow alongside them. Until next time, friends, let's go beyond.