What Do I Want Now? Finding Yourself and Creating Change After 40

0:05Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Dailene Higgins, money coach and retirement strategist to help you gain clarity and confidence with your money by creating a spending plan that aligns with your financial goals and dreams so you can spend intentionally, save consistently, and feel at peace about your future. Join me every week to understand your money, simplify your decisions, and take intentional steps toward the life you want.

0:50Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast. I'm so excited to You have Dani Muniz with us today. And so Dani, tell us who you are and what you do.

1:01Dani Muniz:First off, thank you, Delene, for having me on the show. So I am Dani, the founder of Sacred CEO. So I work with women who are in that in-between space where they're growing, they're healing, they're evolving, but things don't feel fully aligned anymore. And instead of giving more strategy. It's usually teaching conscious leadership. So how to lead yourself through those challenging moments, maybe where your emotions are getting the best of you, or you're struggled in making a decision, or maybe there's an identity shift that's happening. So I host a community called Sacred CEO Collective, where women come together to do this work in a really supportive way.

1:47Dani Muniz:It's a little bit about me. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. I'm so excited to dive in because as individuals over 40, we've done a lot. We've consumed a lot. We've led a lot, right? All of those things. So we've spent many decades building our life around responsibilities, careers, caring for others. What happens when we reach a point where they're ready to ask, what do I actually want now? Because we've been serving everybody else. We've been doing all the things, but now it's come down to just us. And yeah, how do they actually answer what do I want to do now? Yeah, I love this question. And I love this is where we're starting.

2:33Dani Muniz:Because I tend to work with a lot of women who are in their 40s and 50s. And we're in that stage of, for some of us, our kids are stepping into adulthood. And so we're no longer having to be around that day to day. As you said, the giving of others. Some of us, like me, I don't have, I didn't birth children, so I don't have any kids, but I am in a different season in my life that is different. And I am looking at, I know I've done all these things and I know I have, I have all of this experience and my parents are aging, right? So there's a little bit of that going on. My love's mother is also, she's at that point.

3:24So there's, what about me?

3:26Dani Muniz:What am I doing? And what is this, what is my life, this next part of my life looked like. I think when I was a kid and I saw my mom turn 40 and I had no idea what that really meant. I had no idea what she was going through. I'm sure she was going through menopause or perimenopause at that time. And I just remember seeing her just break down so much because for a number of reasons, I'm sure of where she was challenged in, how she was living her life and what she wanted out of her life. And so I feel like that is a point where we get to where it's like, it's no longer focused on the kids or it's no longer focused on getting to this success level, right?

4:08Dani Muniz:For some of us that have been focused on our careers, it's like we got to that point and it's okay, now what? Or we realized that doesn't serve us anymore. So how do we take this next shift? And for me, what I personally had to go through was get really quiet. And what I'm not saying that you need to go sit in like hours long of meditation or something, right? Getting quiet is letting go of all the noise that is around you. And I had to let go of the other people's voices in my head. So like my mom's voice, my dad's voice, society's voice, friends voice, everybody's voice of what they thought I should be doing or what they think I should be doing or what I shouldn't be doing.

4:56Dani Muniz:Right. And just get quiet with who and what was actually coming in from me. So quiet to me is silencing all the outside noise and just getting in touch with what I actually wanted. Because, Delene, I did not know what I wanted. And I think even when this point came in my life, I still didn't know what I wanted. Right. I was 33 and I, at that point had lived so much of my life for other people and other people's expectations that I didn't even know what I wanted or what I liked. If you would have asked me, what's your favorite food? I would have been like, I don't know. Everything, everything's good.

5:43Dani Muniz:Everything. I'm not picky. Right. I didn't actually know what I actually liked. And I have this is what I call a year of yes, that was like my 33rd year that I took to understand and discover what I was. And that top theme in there was getting really quiet and silencing everybody else's expectations and just coming to see what I actually even wanted, right? Yeah, that's such good information to shut out all of the others, the should haves, could haves, would haves. You know, it is just about being. But when somebody does that, what emotions maybe are going to come up and how can they navigate those?

6:31Right? When they've realized, okay, I'm in this life. It's not quite what I want or life has shifted. Now I've kind of shifted with it. What emotions are they going to have to go through?

6:41Dani Muniz:Oh, it's like a roller coaster. It's actually a roller coaster because for some of us, you hit it nail on the head, the should-haves. And what does should-haves bring? They bring shame. They bring guilt. They bring fear. They bring frustration. They bring anger. For me, all of those came up. When I had my year, yes, it wasn't out of let's go do this fun thing. It was. Holy crap. I don't know. I don't know who I am. And there was a lot of guilt and shame in that. And like, how do you not know who you are? How do you not know what you like? How do you how are you not in control of your own life?

7:28Dani Muniz:And I think all of those emotions that come forward, the number one thing I think we are taught, or at least I was taught growing up, was to rush through an emotion or to push an emotion down and to not actually witness or sit with an emotion. And so first off, all of those emotions are going to come up. So there's going to be the shame, the guilt, the fear, the anger, the frustration. And there's also going to be the love and the happiness and the joy and the celebration and the anxiousness, right? Like all of that is going to come. And the number one thing we can do is just recognize that. Recognize that we are an emotional being, that emotions are simply information.

8:19Dani Muniz:So I love that you asked what emotions are going to come up and how are we going? How can we move through them? we have to witness them because any emotion or anything I want you to think about you have kids so for those of you that have kids when you've had kids I had I didn't have kids but I had lots of nieces and nephews and so one of the things that kids do when they're little is they're constantly like mommy what are they trying to do they're trying to get your attention for whatever reason right whatever it is that they need whether they want to go play outside and they need your permission or they want ice cream and they're waiting for permission or they have a question about something.

8:59Dani Muniz:You can think of our emotions in that same way, in the sense of the emotion is trying to bring something into our awareness. It's trying to bring something into our consciousness, into our thought. And the emotion is there to do that. And when we ignore the emotion, it's almost like we're ignoring our kid. We're ignoring the kid and saying, I don't got time for you. I don't got time for you. We would never do that to our kids. I would never have done that to any of my nieces and nephews, but we do that with our own emotions. And that is a part of who we are. So it's almost as if we are shunning and shaming a part of ourself for feeling a certain way.

9:37When emotional beings are what we are as human, emotion is what keeps us alive, not keeps us alive, but allows for the aliveness to happen.

9:48Dani Muniz:If we don't have emotion, then we are probably numb, which numb is not alive. Depression is not alive, right? So my biggest suggestion when you're getting quiet and you start to go through all of those emotions is to be a witness to them. So it's very different than just feeling the emotion and allowing the emotion, which are all things we want to do. I would recommend being the observer of the emotion, especially when you're first experiencing something like that. It's really hard to be in guilt and shame because we can get stuck there. Right. And then it's oh, we're going down that downward downward spiral.

10:38Dani Muniz:I often say it's like we're going down the dark alley. Don't go there. don't go down to the dark alley but it really is being a witness to oh I'm going down that dark alley there is some shame here okay that's information for me it's not who I am it's just simply information because a lot of us want to go down and say that's my identity now that's who I am and it's not it's just an experience that we're having it's a feeling that we're having and we don't have to get caught up in it. Yeah. I love that you said that. So I have two ways I want to go with it. The first one is I love how you said to actually observe the feeling.

11:21So five, six years ago, six years ago, I lost my father. Five years ago, I lost my mother. It took several years before full-on grief hit me. So missing them is one thing. Grief was something different. And so it hit me. and I became, so it ran, it ran into me and I'm like, why am I like this? So I did, I stepped into that observing role and our minds do amazing things. It put me on this path to grief. I wasn't sad. There was no sadness attached to this grief, which was so real. And I had to observe. So every, I realized why it happens when it happens. So every May is when it starts. I observe, I have to feel, I have to do according to what that is.

12:10And it is a different way to step into instead of just fully go down the dark alley with what I did first, because I didn't know. So if you find yourself there, just know you can step back. But then I also loved how you talked about all the bad emotions first, but then you listed off all the good emotions too, because life is a roller coaster, right? It is a yin and yang. It is a happy set. There's two polar opposites. So if you're feeling one, stepping back and observing that there's going to be something that comes with it. So what is the first step a woman can take when she knows she's ready for change, but doesn't know exactly what change looks like yet?

12:51Dani Muniz:That's a good one. So I have this really firm belief that we all know what we want. Every single one of us knows what we want. What happens though, is that all of the beliefs that we have, or all the meaning, because we're meaning making machines, all the meaning that we're giving something is what stops us from actually being able to see what it is that we do want. So for example, if somebody asks you, And this used to be something like I, I, I always noticed stuff. Like I don't do, I don't teach anybody anything or walk anybody through something that I haven't done for myself yet. I learned everything that I learned by doing it on myself first.

13:36Dani Muniz:And it was a question that I had to ask myself. It was like in a situation, whether it be a job, whether it be a trip, a vacation, right? Whatever it was like, what do I want? And it was asking myself that question. but immediately I would answer with what I didn't want. And I noticed that people do that a lot, right? If I say, what do you want in a business? And they're like, I want freedom or, and I'm like, okay, great. But then they'll say, I don't want to have to be on calls all day. And I don't want to show up on social media. And I don't want, and they start giving me a whole, they might know one little thing, but then all the other things is what they don't want.

14:20Dani Muniz:Now it's really easy to be like, don't do that. But that's what, if that's what we automatically go to, then that's just information. So what is the opposite of what I don't want? If I don't want to show up on social media, what would I want to do instead? Maybe I'm somebody that loves networking. Okay, great. Then going and networking, right? If I, in a relationship, if you're like, what do I want in this relationship? and you start saying, I don't want him to cheat on me. And I don't want him. I don't want him to be an alcoholic or whatever, right? Those things. Okay. What do you do want? I do want him to be learning and growing and trying to be the best version of himself.

15:03Dani Muniz:Oh, okay, great. Right. We can use that. And I see that because a lot of people do that now. Is that the only way to do it? No, because many of us have things that are in the way. And so here's how I want to describe this. I want you to imagine that there is a sun above your head. We all probably have a sun right now above our head. And for some of us, we might have some, if that sun is the light, if it is the direction, if it is the thing that we desire, but then there's clouds that come in. We don't have that direct link to the sun any longer, which means the reason why it's cloudy, the reason why we can't see what it is that we want is because of those clouds.

15:54Dani Muniz:When we are able to move those clouds out of the way, then we can get the direct vision. We can feel the sun on our skin, right? those beliefs are the clouds those are the things that are stopping us from actually being able to see the vision so when we do the what I call the work which is doing the healing work allowing yourself to the easiest way I can say it is expand your perspective expand your awareness around something notice limiting identities that you have that is when that vision becomes even more clear. So two things to answer that, Delene, is number one, if you are the person who, like me, would constantly say what I don't like, then ask yourself, okay, if I don't want that, what's the opposite?

16:49Dani Muniz:You talked about polarity. So that law of polarity, they both exist. So if I don't want this, then what does it look like to not have that, which is a question to sit with. And the other is to do that inner work to clear the whatever it is that's blocking you from being able to see that vision.

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17:59That is so good. That is so good. Because when I ask clients, I'm like, what do you want to do in the next year? And they're like, they're very limited on that. I'm not going to be the spender I am. I'm not going to be this and I'm not going to be that. I'm like, okay, but what are we trying to achieve, right? And I get so such great with the clouds and those are the clouds that are in their way. And it's like, okay, that's not the thing. What are you striving for? So I love that. So, but why is stepping into that next version so uncomfortable or so difficult, even if you know you want to do it or you know you need to change?

18:38Like, why is that so hard for us? First off, it's out of our comfort zone.

18:43Dani Muniz:It's something that we don't know yet. And a lot of us are scared of risk. I'm not a risk taker. I'll tell you straight up. I am not. I do not like taking. I do not like change as much as I want to believe that I like change. I really don't. It's it's uncomfortable. It's different. It's messy. And I'm I don't like it. However, I do know that it is necessary. Right. So like you said, yes, it is necessary. It is. I know that it's going to be good for me, but it's uncomfortable. And if you have a meaning, earlier I mentioned meaning, we're meaning making machines. If we have a meaning around change, so if I define change or if I think of change and there is a challenge around it or it's difficult or it's hard, then I won't, I don't want to do it.

19:45Dani Muniz:If I have a positive definition of change, right? If I think of change and it's like, oh, that's growth and that's expansion and that's, it's amazing, then I am more apt for change, right? So you can look at how you're defining something. So if I am looking at making, shifting into this new version of myself, like I've got clear on where I'm going and what I want. And then I look at that and I say, oh, but that sounds really hard or that looks really challenging or that is I'm not going to be able to do that. Right. I start my limiting, but my clouds, they all start coming in. Right. I can say, OK, so I am making this mean something that is not something that I want to step into.

20:39Dani Muniz:So we probably heard in a lot of mindset work and reframes, right? Part of it is reframing it. Part of it is changing the meaning of what you believe that thing is. So if I'm saying this is going to be hard, okay, what if it can be easy? What if it can be exciting? What if it can be worth it? What if it like stepping into the idea of possibility, right? And also coming down on a belief level. on an energetic level where we're saying, now do I believe that? Because that's where I'm going to say the work comes into play. Because if I have a belief that I don't trust myself, and I'm not saying that I consciously believe this, I'm saying I unconsciously have a belief somewhere that I don't trust myself.

21:32Dani Muniz:For me, it is, I don't know if I can trust myself in uncomfortable situation. So things that I love to have a plan. I love to know what I'm going to do. I love to do that. So when I don't have that, I immediately am like, oh, I can't do this. But when I say, okay, hey, Danny, if this is what I want and if this is where I'm going to and if change has to be part of that, then, okay, what are we going to do? And most of the time, it's me looking at whatever that thing is and saying, I trust that I'm going to make a mistake. I trust that it's not going to be perfect. and I trust that I will get through it.

22:32Dani Muniz:When I started to add that into whatever it was like that I don't want to do, that I'm scared to death of doing, it changes the energy around that thing and I can start to step into it. So I'm a big, I'm a big person in affirmations. I didn't know I was doing affirmations when I first started doing affirmations. I just kept telling myself, I'm strong. I can do this. And I didn't realize that was affirmations. But what I've learned with affirmations is if you don't believe the affirmation, your mind's automatically going to reject it. So I changed my affirmations to I'm learning to, and I'm learning to become the person that takes risks.

23:14Dani Muniz:I'm learning or I'm exploring what it looks like to do X, Y, and Z. I'm learning to trust myself. I'm taking actions to learn to trust myself. Those affirmations have a completely different feel around them where I can believe, oh yeah, I'm trying this. I'm working on this. I'm learning this. It's not so hard and fast of, I trust myself. Yeah. It's completely different. But if that's something that you're trying to move through or you're working towards, see where that belief is that's around it see how you're looking at it and then if you can create some affirmations to help you because my my goal would always be to what's that deeper subconscious belief that you have right for me it was trusting myself and for somebody else it could be something completely different but whatever that core belief is and creating some affirmations around it to help you shift it or really getting down and healing the root of it is the best thing you could possibly do.

24:17Wow.

24:18Dani Muniz:I love that. I love that. I feel like you've taken us on a journey. And wow, I can do this. Like, what's your hard thing? And Dani just helped us be able to do it. But where can listeners find you and connect with you? Yeah. So I have a podcast of your podcast called The Cosmic Mystic Podcast. And so I talk a lot about this stuff over on there. Anything from doing the healing work, conscious leadership, learning to navigate those challenging emotions, difficult conversations, families, all the things, basically learning how to lead yourself like nobody ever taught us how to. So if that's something that you're into, if you want to listen to podcasts, come on over and check the Cosmic Mystic out.

25:03Dani Muniz:Love to have you. Yeah, I love that. Okay, Dani, what is one takeaway from all that we've talked about that you would love to let listeners okay walk away with yeah I would say there's two things I want to say so I'm going to go with this one and that is we are meaning making machines as I've said pay attention to the meanings that you're giving things and are they empowering you or are they disempowering you so good so good thank you danny for being here everyone go listen to her podcast cosmic mystic yes i'm gonna be on there and you are a little bit so i'm excited for that but yeah i feel like we've connected in such a way that it's just so amazing so i hope the listeners can hear how wonderful you are and go listen to your podcast and connect with you more all of her links everything are all of our information will be down in the show notes so go look down there or just search cosmic mystic or cosmic mystic podcast and go give it a listen so thank you for being here danny thank you have a good one thank you for spending this time with me if you're not already following the show be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next and I'd love to stay connected with you between episodes.

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