Welcome to November of twenty twenty five leader. What a pleasure it has been serving you this entire year. We are now in the eleventh month of twenty twenty five and I'm very excited. I'm very excited for you, for us, for where we're going from here. Now, where are we going from here? Now, in my teachings, my prior teachings, I talk a lot about the ascension. I talk a lot about ascending and climbing those mountains. I talk a lot about reaching new levels. I talk a lot about the act of achievement, the journey that we are on. And when we finally get to that top of that mountain, we plant our flag, we have arrived. We have arrived with a new perspective, with a new level of mastery. We have arrived and we plot our our flag we plant it firmly because damn we we worked real hard to get here that's ascension And it's something I talk to so many high-achieving leaders about. I'm a high-achieving leader. I've got desires. Ooh, let me tell you. I've got dreams. I've got impossible goals. I hate that word impossible, like whatever. If it's a desire that was planted in my brain and in my heart, there's a possibility. So anyway, scratch that impossibility there. So I am someone who achieves, achieves. Like I know deep down inside there is so much to give. Like it's just in my body. Like I don't know if it's from my culture. I don't know if it's from the parents that raised me. I don't know if it's from the barrio I grew up in. I don't know if it's from that trailer house that I lived in for so many years as a little girl. I don't know. All I know is that I do not deny myself these desires. There is no suppressing desire from this body. It's very hard to contain because it's something that has always fueled me. It has always motivated me to move forward in my life. Seriously, the second I feel stagnant and stagnation looks for me like boredom. For me, it looks like, oh, I'm so bored right now. What book can I pick up? I got to pick up a new book to read. Or what can I learn today? Or what can I write about today? Or what can I speak about? What can I teach about today? What do I need to learn? Stagnation for me looks like boredom. And that's wonderful. It's wonderful. I get bored with a project. I get bored with talking about the same thing. I'm bored. So Let me look within. Let me look within. Let me stir it up a little bit within myself. Let me stir up my neurology. Let me stir up my nervous system. Let me find something that gets me excited. See, that's the thing. Excitement. So you go from boredom. Now that's a signal for me. And then I take that boredom and I go, well, you know, let's make this exciting. Let me find something that excites me. And then I turn it into excitement. Like that's, that's my pattern. That's my pattern. You ask my husband and he's just like, yep, she's bored. And we're about to get into some interesting season of discovery for her. And she's going to get excited about something and she's going to go for it because that's just the way she is. That's just the way I am built. You may not be built this way and that's okay. But I want to draw your attention to the idea of ascension. ascending to something greater, ascending to a new level, ascending to the top, right? That's what I want to stir up in you today because so many contemplatives have told me, you know, if I sit too long and contemplate this out, I talk myself out of a desire. Because the negative bias in my brain and all the other interesting biases that I have come rushing in to remind me that I'm not that young anymore and I can't be doing this kind of shit and I can't be talking this way and I can't be traveling this way. I have no right to explore these things. I have grandchildren or whatever. I have children in college even that I have to tend to. I cannot put my desires front and center because everyone else's freaking desires come first. Ooh. Oh, dear contemplative leader. That's not the intent of contemplation. Well, okay. Well, maybe it's a good thing you took some time to contemplate this, but it's not to talk yourself out of your heart's desires. Like contemplation is about sitting in stillness. By the way, to be a contemplative, we have to descend. Ooh. Ooh, I know. I know. Hang tight, leader, because you're probably saying, Denise, but you just told me about ascension. You just told me about ascending. You just told me about climbing that giant mountain. Now you want me to descend? Tell me what this is about. Ooh, two sides to the same coin, my friend. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, the desire has this innate... pattern of moving forward. It's forward motion, right? It's a desire that's pulling you. It's like it's a string. You're tethered to it. The desire's pulling you. So you have to move forward. You have to take action towards that desire. Oh, because it feels good. It feels curious. It feels experiential. It feels all kinds of incredible things in your body. So you move forward. Think about when you decided to get that postgraduate degree. Contemplative. Think about that much. Like, let me tell you something. Every time I went to get formal education, ooh, I was like, yes, more, more, more knowledge. Ah, like what can I do with more information? Oh my gosh. Like I wasn't sitting going, I need to go get this graduate degree because no one's going to take me seriously. No. Every time I moved forward in my career was because something got me excited. There was desire. There was forward motion. I was ready for more because I let my heart feel it all. Yeah. The desire is what pulled me. And that's how I moved forward. I went forward. And yeah, I've peaked a lot of mountains, my friends. I have reached a lot of mountaintops. Let me tell you, I've had an incredible career in life because I have allowed my desires to move me forward. But I wasn't able to do that. I'll hear this. Underline this part. You're going to want to replay this part. I could not move forward. until I descended. I could not ascend until I descended, meaning that I took a moment to contemplate these desires and what these desires could do for me, could do for my future, could do for my family, could do for my career. I had to descend down. Now listen, the desire is intoxicating. For me, desire is intoxicating, let me tell you. Because I am so interested in more, in more, that the desire floods my neurology. It floods the neurochemicals in my brain and in my body. And I'm like, ooh, and I can't think of anybody else. Like when I went to get my PhD a thousand moons ago, I remember telling my spouse, I said, oh gosh, this is really exciting me. And this PhD is going to really ascend my knowledge base, my career base, my future into a stratosphere that I've never been in. And it is intoxicating to see myself at the end of that PhD. It was intoxicating. The desire was so delicious. And then I had my husband who's like brought me right back down to earth. And he was like, okay, so a terminal degree. So let's be the realist. And let me tell you like all the negative things and all of the reasons why you shouldn't do this. Not because he didn't support me. And he's my biggest ally, by the way, my gosh, the desires I've put him through poor guy. Um, But he had like a, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cause he's the other side of my brain. Right. Not so negative though. Cause my personal brain, like, Ooh, the self abuse, honey. Like I got a bully living in my brain. He's not that bad, of course, but he was like, let's talk about how this could be a really bad idea. So the desires can be intoxicating. And if you are not firm, if you are not stable enough, you'll be swayed into the desire without taking time to descend and to contemplate this decision for yourself. But if you're not stable, you'll let someone, someone that loves you, supports you, who means very well, persuade you not to do it. Be careful with that because I could have easily told my spouse, you are right. This is a two hundred thousand dollar investment. Holy crap. We're going to be in the hole. And guess what? It's probably not even worth it. Like really a PhD, who cares anyway, right? So like if I was not stable enough, right? Like I'm, listen, I'm standing right now. So if you're watching me on this video episode, I'm at my standing desk right now because I've got so much energy in my body, right? I'm just so excited about these desires. Now, listen, if I would have listened to this man, this man, I would have I would have caved into the idea that it wasn't worth it and it was going to be too much of an investment. And the cost risk analysis was, you know, it just, the cost of doing this was going to be just far greater than the benefits. And there was a lot to risk. If I didn't take the time to contemplate this for myself, for myself, and yes, in consideration, taking my spouse and family into consideration. However, if I would have let that man tell me that that was it, that's what we're going to do is not move forward with this. And this was the decision. I would have said, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir, you are absolutely right. I would have let him convince me. But the desire was too powerful that the desire within me said, hold on, girl. I'm going to be here. This desire is going to stay right here. It's not going anywhere. It is so freaking powerful. But you need to do yourself the justice. You need to do yourself this favor to sit in it. to contemplate this for yourself without outside influences helping you decide. You are a grown woman leader who can make this decision. So now contemplate on it. This is what I mean by descending because we are so in a rush to ascend because the desire is pulling us and we're moving forward. Now, listen, take some action. I'm not telling you to sit down and do nothing and wait till you finally feel a hundred percent right. No, the desire is naturally going to pull you forward. It's going to naturally ascend you to the top of that mountain. But before you move too fast, before you like get in that race, take a moment. Take a pause. Take a beat. It's like we are at the surface of the ocean. Yeah, we're bobbing and weaving on those waves. And boy, those waves are moving us so rigorously. And it's like, whew, it's just so much energy. My goodness, I don't even have my footing right. Oh my gosh, I'm going to fall out of this boat because these waves are just so strong. It's a desire. It's so strong. So contemplatives, we use the anchor metaphor and we descend ourselves through imaginative, either prayer or meditation. We descend down, down below to the bottom of the ocean floor. So that we have enough distance, enough distance between the desires on top, right? The top of the ocean, right? Where those waves are just, yeah, it feels violent because it's aggressive. The desire is aggressive. You've lost your footing up there. So what do we do? We descend down so that, again, we have that detachment. We have almost a disconnection. This is why meditation is so powerful for us contemplatives. This is why stillness is our number one strategy. Because also up there at the top where the waves are pretty crazy up there, those are also the voices of our well-intended partners, our well-intended parents, the people that love and support us that don't want us to get hurt. And they're only looking at us through their eyes. They have no idea what it's like to be in our body, to see through our eyes. So what they want to do is protect us. But we want to ascend. We want to climb that mountain as fast as we can. But they are well-intended in wanting to pull us back so that we can maybe think of all the negative reasons, all the reasons why this won't work, all the reasons why you aren't made for this, all the reasons why you don't belong in that group, all the reasons why you You need to stay right here on this boat. And, and you know, what's easiest is to suppress those desires because desires are only going to get you into trouble. Like I can already hear my mom saying that she's not with us anymore. I mean, maybe by now she's realized who her daughter is, but you know, my mom, I lost my mom mentally when she was, when I was Right. But she didn't die, you know, until thirteen years later from dementia that turned into Alzheimer's. But I can hear well-intended people in our lives telling you, don't do it. Don't do it. Maybe it's not the right time. Why don't you wait another five years until our little girl is twenty years old when she's already in college? And maybe you can go pursue these desires and these dreams and the things you want to do. But not right now. Not right now. Or how about your own thoughts? Your own demons telling you you're not good enough. Who are you? Who are you to do this? Huh? What makes you think you're so special? Let me tell you how many times I ignored that voice because that voice in my head has told me every single thing that people out there think they can tell me and crush me. Listen, I've been through it with my own thoughts and my own inner voices that it does not matter what the trolls or folks out here are telling me about contemplative leadership. You don't matter a bit to me because I've already put myself through that hell. So thank you very much. But if I would have let my own voice tell me that I wasn't good enough and that I didn't belong in these rooms, and that I had no business talking about these things. If I would have listened, I don't know where I would be right now. I really don't. But I'm so happy that I never did. And I'm also very happy that I let these desires grow. They were still intact. Sometimes they even got bigger in time because I did take the time to contemplate. I did take the time to descend. I did take the time to detach, to remove myself from all of those desires and crazy neurochemicals in my body and the energy, but then also all the negativity up on top, where everyone wants to talk to you about why this is a bad idea or trying to convince yourself that it's a bad idea. But when we descend down to the bottom of the ocean floor, where we get to hear our own soul asking for more, where we get to hear our own spirit guiding us in the direction of our next best move, my goodness, what a thrill that is too. What a thrill it is. So all I'm asking today is that you consider this. revisiting some of those desires that you have put aside or the desires that you thought were suppressed or they were in a closet somewhere. I want you to invite them out again. Just come on out just for a few minutes. Let's have a conversation about this desire. Why don't we have a talk about this? I really wanted to do this. I really wanted to do some art. And I got so busy with work and I got busy with putting the kids through college. And that art school that I wanted to go to, it was just a dream I had. Fifteen years ago. But now I want to maybe invite it back out and see and contemplate if it's still something that I'm guided to do next. it's the contemplation it's sitting in stillness it's having a meditative practice it's having a journal practice it's having an imaginative prayer practice right this is where we bring our spiritual life online right it's where we we tell the rational mind i'm going to leave you on top i'm going to leave you up there and i'm going to descend down like an anchor to the bottom of the ocean floor And I'm going to leave my rational brain up on top. I need you though. I use my prefrontal cortex every day. But for now, during this time of contemplation, I'm just going to ask you to just stay up there in the boat. Just going to ask you to stay up there for just a few minutes while I descend down below with my heart, with my spirit. with my soul oh my gosh you deserve that moment it could be five minutes it could be fifteen minutes it could be five minutes for the next five days every single day it could be six weeks it could be two months i don't know what you need only your soul and your spirit will guide you to your next best steps and maybe it is taking a little longer than a five minute decision and that's okay but this is where you get to listen to your own thoughts your own emotions this is where you get connected back into your body so that you can feel again, right? A lot of you think you're thinking and feeling in your brain. You are not. It's impossible. But so many of us have disconnected ourselves from our bodies that we no longer feel the physiological response of an emotion called a feeling in our bodies anymore. Ooh, but down below when we descend, ooh, we get to feel it all again. And that's my desire for you. And that's my wish is that you take this next step by number one, identifying that desire that you have put aside for so long, bring it out, invite it out, have tea with it, have a cup of tea, have a cup of coffee, get a little scone, sit down with it and go, you know, you were in my life. two years ago and you were bright and vibrant and you had me feeling all kinds of things. And you know, life got in the way and now I want to invite you back out. Let's sit down. Here's an opportunity for us to have a heart to heart. That's as simple as this is, is you bringing that desire back out to your conscious mind and having a cup of tea with it. And then you get to decide what contemplative rituals are going to be best for you. For me, it's always imaginative prayer. I'll have an episode specifically about that ritual. And by the way, if you want to learn more about these rituals, join me inside the sanctuary. It is a private sacred space away from social media. We are in a private website where we get to do these rituals for ourselves and experiment with and really embody this contemplative life that we long for, or your spirit is asking for right now. And I'm providing that space for you. All right, dear leader, take this time, reconnect with your desire. Pick one of the twenty thousand that you have. and then have a cup of tea with it, invite it back to the dinner table, ask it a few questions, figure out what contemplative rituals are best for you, what feels good to you. Is it listening to music? Is it listening to Rosalia's new album? Oh my God, hello. Go listen to that ASAP. She's incredible. Wow, Rosalia, hello. Anyway, for me, it's all kinds of genre of music. For me, it's imaginative prayer. For me, it's pen and paper. There's so many rituals that I have. So figure out what's best for you. Figure out what's best for you. Because we high achievers, it's natural for us to ascend. Listen, we are flying high all the time. We are moving quickly. We are reaching mountaintops. But I'm inviting you into this contemplative life of descending down to the bottom of the ocean floor so that you have a moment with your heart and your spirit. away from the noises of the world, away from the anger of the world, away from societal, cultural standards that are not your standards. They were built for a different era, a different generation. You are not them. So you need a different way to lead your life. And I'm offering you this invitation to enter a contemplative lifestyle. All right, leader. I'm wishing you all of my best. Wherever you are watching or listening to this episode, you're going to want to join me inside the sanctuary ASAP. Cannot wait to meet you inside. Take very good care and have fun this November. We're going to have fun together. I will see you very, very soon. Take good care. Bye for now.
