Author: Karen Putz

“The moment we stop learning is the day we start dying.”  ~Karen Putz

Linda Joy is the founder and producer of Aspire magazine, one of the most uplifting magazines out there. Every Tuesday, Linda has a radio show on OM Times called “Inspired Conversations.” Linda invited me on her show to talk about passion–and we had a great conversation! For those who can hear, you can access the radio show here:

http://bit.ly/InspiredRadio  (replays available for one week)

Or you can read the transcript here:

[00:01] Grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine and tune in for inspired conversations with publisher Linda joy on Tuesdays at 2:00 PM Eastern. Linda creates a sacred space for leading female luminaries, empowering authors, Heart centered female entrepreneurs, coaches and healers, a soulful venue where guests openly shared their fears and obstacles they’ve overcome, wisdom and lessons learned, and the personal journey that led them to the transformational work they do in the inspired conversations to empower you on your path

[00:38] to authentic, soulful living.

[00:43]  LINDA: Hello, welcome to inspire conversations. I am your host, bestselling publisher, Linda Joy and all the conversations that I love to bring you through the radio show. Then we’ll always have been a common thread that runs through each one and it’s stories in conversations with women who just touch and inspire me because their life of their life journey, right? And we all have different things that we’ve overcome in our lives. And I always find these nuggets of inspiration in someone’s story. And that’s as true for today’s guest as it’s ever been. You know, we always hear the phrase, follow your passion. We hear that phrase all of the time, don’t wait, but what does it truly mean? And more importantly, how do we discover what and always is? Today’s guests, Passion, mentor Kevin Putts, interviewed over 200 people in her passion study. Today we’re going to talk about the hidden meaning behind the word passion and the three clues that will help you unwrap yours.

[01:51] LINDA: And before I get on, introduce Karen and I just want to give a little side note. You may notice brief pauses between my question and Karen’s answer. Karen is deaf and we’re doing this interview using an interpreter and I got to tell you, Karen’s a true inspiration, I’m excited to have her here, Karen, known as the passion mentor, is passionate about living life to the fullest. She is dedicated to helping people in Midlife who are tired of being stuck in mediocrity, who are looking for more meaning by teaching them how to unwrap their passions and live with gratitude and joy. Without self doubt. Karen’s a certified passion test facilitator, the author of several books, including Unwrapping your Passion, Creating the Life you Truly Want. She’s been featured in the Chicago Tribune, CNN, Headline News, More magazine and Chicken soup for the Soul Find your happiness. For fun. Karen walks on water as a barefoot water skier. Welcome.

[03:00] KAREN: Thank you so much for having me. What a great introduction to walking on water. Yeah!

[03:08] LINDA: Well, I got to tell you, I am so excited to have you here and I want to invite you to share your story of becoming deaf from a fall while you were barefoot water skiing and what your journey has been like since that.

[03:25] KAREN: That has been a very interesting journey. I was born with normal hearing. I can I can remember being able to hear as a very young child. I started losing my hearing in elementary school and I got my first hearing aid, at the age of nine and I hated it. Absolutely hated it. It didn’t really do much good for me. In High School I discovered the sport of Barefoot Water Skiing and oh my goodness. I love that sport. Every time I got out on the water, put my feet in the water. I just came alive. It was definitely something that I was very passionate about and then one day at the age of 19 on a Sunday, I turned to cross the wake and I took a hard fall into water. I just couldn’t do a normal tuck and roll. When I got into the boat, I was deaf–only I didn’t know it.

[04:29]  KAREN: There was no sound coming out. My friends were talking, but I dismissed it and I thought, oh, I have water in my ears. Something. But that night when I laid in bed tonight and Tinnitus started, this horrible ringing sound. You can’t shut it down. You just constantly hear this sound over and over and over again, and that lasted for several months. I thought my hearing would come back, but being deaf was here to stay. So for me, it was a very dark time in my life because I had struggled my entire life being hard of hearing and trying to fit in, trying to understand people, being left out of conversations and just a poor self esteem growing up and now I was deaf. So it was just a very dark time in my life. One day I woke up and I realized I had two choices. I could continue to fight what was going on, continue to struggle, continue to grieve, continue to cry, or I could accept the journey. It was a very pivotal time in my life because when I woke up and I realized I wanted to accept the journey, I started learning American sign language, I met my husband. We have three deaf and hard of hearing kids and life opened up and it’s very different, very beautiful way because that was no longer fighting who I was meant to be.

[06:25] What a beautiful way of looking at your challenges, Karen. That’s the kind of conversations that I love having on this show because as you know this, someone listening right now that’s struggling with something in their life and they may be ready to give up in your story is a true inspiration. No, it lead you. It sounds like your accident, your fall, lead you to exactly the work you’re doing today. What led you to start researching passion.

[07:01] That is so true. I really believe that we’re on this journey of life for different reasons and I couldn’t see it as a blessing back then, but it is a blessing today. For me, passion started eight years ago when I saw a Today Show segment and on the Today Show was this 66, you have women, barefoot water skiing, 66 years old. At that time I was 44 years old. I had long ago given up the sport and I thought that I was too old to even enjoy that sport ever again and here I’m watching these 66 year old woman on TV. So I got in touch with her name is Judy Myers and she invited me to Florida to barefoot water ski again and I was 200 pounds, out of shape, all the way, but I met the world barefoot champion and he gave me a barefoot lesson and the minute I put my feet back on the water, oh my gosh. The old passion can just flowing back and I have been barefoot water skiing for eight years now and it’s been absolutely amazing. I have met barefoot water skiers all over the United States. I’m actually doing 50 states for my fifties.

[08:35] I love it. It’s like you reconnected to your childhood passion in mid life and what a powerful message for all of us in mid life who’ve given up on our dreams and our passions.

[08:49] Absolutely, and that is my message to people is that literally you can unwrap the gift of passion til the day you take your last breath. It is so very possible because passion is a gift within us and it’s something that needs to be unwrapped for us to live it.

[09:14] How did you decide to follow the path and become a certified passion test facility facilitator and do the work that you’re doing in the world? Was the Today Show episode your impetus to start that journey?

[09:28] It was actually the path of me rediscovering passion again, but won’t really. That leads to depression with the fundamental steven. He said, Oh, you need to read this book is called the passion test, and so I ordered the passion test by Janet and Chris Atwood. I sat down with the book and I set the intention to meet Janet. I want to meet Janet and a friend of mine told me about Janet coming to Chicago and I was kind of stuck because I had committed to a fundraiser and it was on the very same night that Janet was coming to Chicago, so I didn’t know what to do and I opened the book and it came out and it said, “when you are faced with a choice, a decision or an opportunity, choose in favor of your passions. My heart was not in that fundraiser. I had done the work that was supposed to be done for the fundraiser. They really didn’t need me, so I chose to meet Janet that night and it was just absolutely amazing.

[10:48] I love that you followed your intuition, right? And a lot of people struggle with that. They struggle with following intuition and you tapped in and followed your passion and the whispers of your heart.

[11:05] KAREN: That’s been a lesson that comes up over and over and over again, and I think it’s something that many of us we have never been trained to listen within. And when will you listen? Listen, I mean I hope starts opening up and it was really getting into a gift and it’s a beautiful thing. Can you imagine a word it? When you listen within you really tap into the gifts that we have. There will be so much joy and happiness.

[11:42] LINDA: Oh, I live my life that way, so I agree. I agree. We’re going to ask. Well, thank you. We’re going to take our first break and I’ll be back in a moment with Karen Putz. agelesspassions.com,

[12:01] a conscious lifestyle for a mindful life, sometimes. Radio

[12:09] are you being called to step into your truth and embrace your divinity. Are you ready to align your heart and soul? Live an authentic life and become a divine magnet for love and abundance. It’s time to listen to your inner wisdom and clear the blocks holding you back from your best life. Bleeding intuitive prosperity coach Akashic records practitioner, an evidential medium, Jami hearn of live. Your divinity.com empowers and supports spiritual women like you. To Align your inner and outer worlds, embrace your soul’s truth and live your divinity through her intuitive gifts, grounded wisdom and empowered coaching. Jamie guides women back into sacred alignment with their truth. Visit Live Your divinity.com. To learn more about Jamie’s empowering programs and to schedule an Akashic record reading,

[13:07] are you trying to get from point a to point b and need a little advice? Connect with the counselor said, own times advisors, whether you’re looking for a life coach or a spiritual intuitive, the advisors participating advisors dot ohm times.com were carefully chosen based on their gifts, skills and professionalism. Own Times advisors connecting you with the best advisors in the business.

[13:33] Do you have time to read that inspiring book or that blog posts you’ve been meaning to get to and your busy world? How do you improve yourself and keep your life going? I Lisa Kay and my between heaven and earth radio show can transform your life just by listening. Be uplifted with inspiring topics, positive stories and ideas that really work between heaven and earth. Radio is conscious living for years. Every Wednesday at 4:00 PM,

[14:05] Hey America, we need to have little time. We’ve got more for the DME, we know what to do within this country. Yet 17 million kids in America are struggling with hunger. Makes no sense. Luckily the feeding America nationwide network of food banks as volunteers, gathering excess food and getting it to hungry kids. The kind of like food angel’s, Hey, become a food angle yourself by supporting feeding America and your local food bank at feeding America Dot Org. We can’t do it without your help brought to you by feeding America and the Ad Council.

[14:34] This is OM FM, part of the OM radio network.

[14:39] LINDA: Welcome back. You’re listening to inspired conversations with me is that passion mentor, Karen Putz and we’re talking about her life defining moments when she rediscovered her passions and how he or she is writing books and spreading her message. And I am so grateful that you were able to join me today. Karen.

[15:02] KAREN: Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

[15:05] LINDA: Well, one of the things that I lead my life by following my, I call it soul whispers, and in that moment that you chose to attend Janet’s event over the fundraiser, you tapped in and listened. Did that begin your journey towards learning a new way of navigating life?

[15:29] How do you want to live? and I often think about that sentence, you know, when I’m faced with what are the that I should do something or feel I want to do something. I always asked myself in the long run, am I tapping into my gifts? Am I using my passion? Am I sharing others with it? And when I asked those questions, me down the right road,

[15:59] LINDA: Same here, same here. I like, I have to follow my truth. I need to follow my heart. That’s what gives me fulfillment. Yeah, absolutely. So you discovered in your work that this three clues that help us unwrap our passion. What are those three clues? Karen?

[16:22] KAREN: before we jump into that, let me tell a little bit about passion and stuff and exploring the meaning behind it. I mean passion is your joy as the is simple version of thinking, of passion, is passion, is your joy, how you live your life with joy, passion, and bliss. And a surprising meaning behind passion is the willingness to suffer. If you are willing to suffer, you will go above and beyond to do the thing, didn’t experience the things that you will are passionate about. So that is the definition of passion that I use and the three clues to where you can find your passion. The first one is by looking in your path. Think back to the activities that you engaged in when you were full of joy. Activities in which time, just flow by seamlessly, activities that you look back on and say, wow, I wish I could do that again.

[17:33] KAREN: So those are some of the clues you get by looking back in your past and identifying those moments of joy that you were engaged in. So that’s one. The second clue to your passion. Thinking about the present, have you ever been standing in line somewhere? And then you’ve got a million thoughts going through your head. Some of those thoughts are clues to your passion watch where your mind goes when you are sitting in a very boring meeting and you’re not engaged. Your mind will start wandering for things that you wish for, the things that you wish you could do. Two things that you maybe even some of the moments in life, so when you are in the present watch where you thoughts go, that’s the second one. The third one is what I call the Someday Syndrome. Think about things that you’re putting off for Someday, Someday when I have money, I will…fill in the blank. Someday when the kids leave home, I will fill in the blank. Someday things are big clues to things that you wish for, things that you hope for. So with us, we have though, if you sit down and think through those three clues, you will often come up with a list of things that will guide you, steps that you can take to invite more passion into your life.

[19:14] LINDA:  I love it. The someday syndrome. I remember living in my twenties and thirties that way I was always looking, oh, one day I’ll do that. Someday I’ll do that, and that one really resonated with me because I did that for many years. I put off my joy and that’s such a sad way to live and I’m so glad that you shared that. For the listeners who may be doing that in their lives, what would your advice be to them?

[19:50] KAREN: Well, I can tell you right now, you can search calendars over the whole world and you will not find a Someday on them. Things that you are putting off. In many, many cases they are your passions and take steps in that direction, one of my someday things was that, you know, oh, barefoot water ski when my kids are grown and gone. Wow. I’m really glad that I didn’t wait for that. My kids were still in school. I was traveling and barefoot water skiing, when I came home and the kids had a happier mom because I was out there experiencing my joy. So don’t put off your joy for Someday because your family, your kids,  the universe benefits when you capping into your joy and your passion. That’s your gift back to the world when you tap into that passion.

[20:57] I believe that I believe that joy is contagious. I also believe that women are the nurturers of the next generation. And when our children see us living our joy, we’re teaching them that it’s okay to experience joy and follow our passion. So what a beautiful gift you gave your children.

[21:22] KAREN: You know, my kids have really benefited from that in different ways, especially my daughter. She loved acting and she was going to college. She was kind of frustrated and she really wanted to act. So she made a decision to leave college and then she got a call on Broadway as a swing and she did that and it was an amazing, you know, openness for new life for her today. She’s performing and acting at the school that she dropped out of.

[22:00] LINDA: Oh, I love it.

[22:02] KAREN: Funny how that works.

[22:05] LINDA: Life comes full circle when we follow our passion and our joy and it’s no different for me. I started aspire magazine 13 years ago with no experience in marketing or publishing, but a deep joy for the message I wanted to share and I just kept trusting in the next step in staying connected to my joy and passion and here we are 13 years later with radio shows and book publishing and the magazine, all because I follow my joy and passion. So I love the work you’re doing in the world to get that message out.

[22:46] KAREN: Thank you for that. Your work. You have spread joy to so many people out there. Such a wonderful feeling to know that your gifts, your passion has an impact on others.

[23:03] LINDA:  It’s such a fulfilling feeling as you know, because you do a lot of speaking and coaching and sharing this powerful message and it must feel so. I’m so not validating, but so empowering to you to know that you’re making a difference in the lives of others.

[23:24] KAREN: I think it’s a wonderful feeling when someone connects to their passion and and it doesn’t have to be a huge big thing. I’ll give you an example of a woman that I had given my book to. She went home. She opened the book and literally by the third chapter, she realized she was missing the passion of dance in her life. She was newly divorced and a grandma. Right then and there she signed up for dance lessons. It has been exactly one year later and she has been dancing every week since then. She reconnected with an old dance partner. Like I’ve been told people. Their passion comes in little gifts as well as did get a lot of people think, oh, I need to find a passion, quit my job and move to an island and that’s going to be my life. For some people that may be, but for other people, passion is smaller gifts and even though smaller gifts, big, big joy.

[24:36] LINDA:  I believe that too. I truly believe Karen, that not everyone is called to be an entrepreneur or an author or a coach. We’re all here to share our joy and our passion in our own unique way, and she following her passion for dance is spreading joy, spreading love and inspiring others in her own magical way.

[25:01] KAREN: Absolutely.

[25:03] LINDA: So what would you tell someone who comes to you and says, I don’t know what my passion is can you help?

[25:11] KAREN: I love that it happens to me.

[25:21] KAREN: but passion is a gift. I want you to think about an onion for a minute. There are many layers of an onion. For some of us, we find passion in the outer layers. Some of us find it immediately, some of us have to peel through the layers to get to that core, but an onion, just like us is a living thing. If you leave it sitting on a shelf for too long, it’s going to rot away, and for many of us were at that point of rotting way where we feel like, okay, I don’t have any passion. When I have someone who comes to me like that. The very first thing you need to do is we need to change something. When we turn something into action, what does that. We change the thoughts, and the attitude, and the action itself. So we start there and the other very important key to the whole thing is that you must learn something new. You must invite something new into your life and it may not be the first time. It may not be the second time. Sometimes we have to present something new. We feel like a fool because we’re inexperienced with something new and we might give up too soon. So if you’re on that path where you feel like I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what my passion is, we take action with something new

[26:59] LINDA: and I love your analogy of the onion because that’s what it felt like for me is just unfolding and peeling layers until I remembered the things that gave me joy as a child. And and for me, it was really just being committed to doing the work to reconnect with my passions. Which I’m 56 now and I think I’m still unfolding because I think we evolve as we age.

[27:28] KAREN: Okay. Do you think about it? You actually will unwrap your gift, but that will be a beautiful way of looking at life to continually unfold.

[27:42] LINDA: Yes. Because we don’t want to be stagnant. Like you said, we don’t want to sit on the shelf, you know, like that onion that just withers away and dries up and dies. We’re going to go to break Karen and when we come back, let’s talk about, you know, this false belief that we’re too old to follow our passion. I’ll be back in a moment with Karen Putz, the passion mentor. You can learn more @agelesspassions.com,

[28:14] free your mind, expand your soul on times radio.

[28:20] We can all use a little more peace and joy in our lives. Don’t you agree? Counselor, bestselling author and self nurturing expert, Kelly grimes of cultivating peace and joy.com is passionate about empowering, overwhelmed and exhausted women to live with more peace, joy and meaning through the practice of self nurturing. Through her experience working with individuals, speaking, providing workshops, and teaching professional and leadership development to forward thinking organizations. Kelly knows that nurturing piece in the world begins from the inside out. That’s why she created the free cultivating peace, enjoy mobile APP that brings you beautiful self-nurturing reminders, guided meditations, empowering practice tools, and daily prompts with an inspiring question to guide your daily self-nurturing practice. Download your free cultivating peace and joy mobile app today@cultivatingpeaceandjoy.com.

[29:23] They bring you expert guest hosts, spiritual discussions, free psychic readings, and so much more. I can promise that you will not want to miss this one of a kind fun yet touching down to earth show. Join us every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM Eastern, nine PM Pacific on Ot, r, f, m Jay Parker,

[29:42] and I can’t wait to see you there. The number one reason girls drop out of school in Subsaharan Africa is lack of access to feminine hygiene products. The pads for school girls, project and outreach of humanity. Healing International is changing this paradigm by setting up sewing programs at schools. Teaching girls have vocational skill while producing the reasonable pants that help keep them attending classes. The girls pay it forward by making and giving packets to other girls and need to learn more. Visit humanity. Healing Dot Org. Humanity. Healing is where your heart is a conscious lifestyle for a mindful life, own times radio, OM FM.

[30:23] LINDA: Welcome back. You’re listening to inspired conversations with me today is Karen Putz, Passion, mentor, and author of unwrapping your passion, creating a life you truly want. You can learn more@agelesspassions.com. So Karen, so many people in it. You mentioned it earlier. Use the excuse. I’m too old to tap into their passion and find their passion or do the inner work. What do you have to say about that?

[30:56] KAREN: I actually love when I hear that one too because I know how untrue that is. I think from the time we hit the age of 40, 45 where you get bombarded with messages, like slow down, that all my goodness were all getting older. We are told to slow things down, you could break some bones. We need to start taking 15 different medicines. We need to do this, we need to do that. They’re all the messages that we’re bombarded with. If you turn on the TV, every other advertisement is a drug, a advertisement. What if instead we had walmart or who showed us a snapshot of what life could look like at 80, 90 and 100 years old and what is the picture would be really different. Feel big media company and bought a car rolling back and they are doing exactly that. If you go to the website is filled with inspiring story.

[32:01] KAREN:  The people at an older age of life. We’re living life completely fully so when we can start taking that magic and sending that out to people and getting them to be like that instead of slowing down at a certain age, we should be ramping it up. We have more time. We have more money. Kids are grown and gone. It’s the absolutely put the time in like the start exploring something new. There’s a man named banana George and I wrote a book by the same title, Banana George. He lived to 98 and at the age of 80 he started doing  amazing things, learning to snowboard. He barefoot water skied until he with 93, he rode a camel, he raced a car. He lived a full life , so we need a different picture of life as we get older and one that is fully, you know,  vibrant filled with people who are learning new things. We need to get that concept out there that we never stop learning. The moment we’stop learning is the day we start dying.

[33:17] So beautifully said. I, I believe that. I believe that we need to stay connected to our souls, truth by passion and joy. And you know, I have grandchildren now and I have a little granddaughter who’s this spirited little sprite and I look at her and remember that as adults we forget the joy and passion that we were born with. Do you notice that too? That as children we came as such bright lights and we’ve just have to remember who we are.

[33:54] That is so beautifully said. We can learn so much from children because we forget how to be a kid and they have so much to teach us. We can tap into that energy at any given moment.

[34:12] She reminds me, I believe my grandchildren. I have an 18 year old grandson and a soon to be seven year old granddaughter and since they came into my life, I see life through their lens now. And I’m a busy entrepreneur and way back when my grandson was born, I didn’t take as much time as I do now to be in the present moment. Having him come into my life brought me back into that moment. And you’re so right. Children, um, a such beautiful teachers on every level, spiritual teachers that joy teachers. And um, why are you working on now in your life? I know you’re speaking and you have your book. Unwrapping your passion, creating a life you truly one. What do, what are you most passionate other than water skiing about right now?

[35:11] KAREN: Oh my gosh. I just discovered painting. Never knew that had an artist like that. And I love getting up and painting. So that’s one new passion to me, but the other projects I’m working on, um, developing courses and I want to do more online. So next year instead of as much I hope to do teaching

[35:38] LINDA: well, you have such a powerful message, I can see the doors opening up for you for that and this is such an important topic in your own inspirational journey of overcoming perceived obstacles. And I like to use that phrase because I don’t believe anything is truly an obstacle. It’s just our way of looking at it. Your personal story is an inspiration in which is why I wanted you here today. If someone asked what the greatest gift you’ve received since becoming deaf from that fall, what would it be?

[36:18] KAREN: Wow. That is a good question. Since becoming deaf I think it’s that my world opened up because my entire life I felt very small. I always imagined myself next to people who could hear. I didn’t have deaf and hard of hearing role models to look up to. I played very small. After I became deaf I really stepped into the journey of being a person who is deaf, really embracing the American sign language, the deaf community, the hearing community. That’s part of my work that I do now as well. So I think the greatest gift becoming deaf was simply the gift of stepping into myself and I think it’s a gift. Our past, recognize that the things that happened to us in life, they shape us, but they don’t define us.

[37:28] LINDA:  That’s so beautifully said. I like you for many years, but looked at my childhood as um, and things that have happened during my childhood as a weight I had to carry. And it wasn’t until about 1992, I think I was about, I don’t know, 30, 31 years old when I woke up to the truth that my past doesn’t define me, but my thoughts and actions on a daily basis define me. That’s when everything changed for me. And I went from welfare queen of self sabotage to the woman I am today. Because of that. That one aspect of our past does not define us in US circumstances. Don’t define this, so thank you for sharing that wisdom, Karen.

[38:20] KAREN: You Bet. That’s an amazing journey that you’ve been on. Can I ask you that same question back to you?

[38:28] LINDA: Yeah. The greatest gift, the greatest gift I’ve learned from my experience is that we are much more powerful than we believe we are and that when we turn inward for love and validation and self worth, instead of outward searching for those things, we will find everything we need to transform my life and now many years later, all of my brands are dedicated to inspiring woman to live from the inside out so they can discover their truth. That passion, that joy. So my. That was my greatest blessing because now I’m able to share it today.

[39:17] KAREN: Oh my gosh. That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

[39:21] LINDA: Thank you for asking. No, on your website, ageless passions, which I love the name, right? It’s like there’s no limit to when you can connect with your passion. Tell us about why you named your your business. That because it really resonates with me.

[39:42] KAREN: You know, it’s funny, the name was actually chosen by another person, who was working with me in developing my brand and we were trying to come up with the name and she came up with it agelss passions, wow, that really fits. It is my message, you know, passion. Absolutely ageless and she just nailed it for me.

[40:08] LINDA: Well, she did a great job because she really captured what you do and it really resonates with someone like me who is on the path. The moment I saw your url, I guess you can call it. I started following the links and that’s how I found you. And then I heard about your book and I said, Oh yeah, I have to get to know Karen. So here we are today.

[40:33] KAREN:  I’m so glad you did that. I’m so thankful our paths crossed. I love the magazine.

[40:39] LINDA: Thank you. Karen When you work with people, what do you notice that the majority of people are that come to is a woman? Because that’s what I noticed comes to me the most. Women are waking up knowing that they’re. They’ve been playing small in some area of their lives. Have you found that to be true?

[40:58] KAREN: I think probably 75 to 80 percent of who I work with, are women and the other 25 percent are men. They are humans looking for something more, looking to make an impact, looking at ways that they can use to their gifts. Is there more to life than what I’m experiencing right now? That’s what I see coming to me because people are noticing my facebook posts and living with passion has been really amazing in terms of that experiences and being able to meet people and being able to barefoot water ski in 17 different states. So people come to me, they’re like, wow, I want your life. And I always laugh and I say, you don’t want my life because my life is designed for me. Let’s design something amazing for you. But what they’re really saying is that they want to tap into the joy. They want to understand and honor their gifts and they don’t know how

[42:09] so true. So through ageless passions, they can connect with the yearning inside themselves that recognizes that something’s missing. And I love the phrase you just used life designer. That’s so beautiful.

[42:27] Sure. We have helped from a bigger design on that for sure. But it’s true that we don’t lack in a how much we can design our own lives that we need to get up each day and set intentions for how we want to live. You can find answers, I’ve found in that sentence, “how do you want to live?” And the way you answer that is unique to you and contains the answers you need.

[43:01] It’s so true. And you have to tap into your passions though to find and create the life that you wish to design because without knowing what those passions are, I feel that you would, we would create from that other place, from the show than the half dues. I don’t know if I’m phrasing that correctly, but from my own experience I used to follow the shoulds and have to’s instead of my passion, um, because I wanted to do what was right or what was expected. Do you find a lot of your clients use that language? Should have to, must

[43:36] I think they do. the Typical American way of life encourages that kind of thinking and living, you know, hi myself. Even my husband is living somewhat of a traditional life in that sense, but we supplemented with that with other enjoyment. So for us, we’re still learning. We’re still learning how to tap into power and still learning how to create and design the life that we really want to enjoy. It’s a learning process, I think for us.

[44:17] Oh definitely. Yeah. I believe we’re always, as you said earlier, always unfolding. That’s I’m part of the human experience. We are never quite there. We’re always unfolding to honor our truth.

[44:36] Absolutely. You’ve just said it beautifully. We are with them. I think part of what is the struggle is when we achieve a goal, it is a letdown. We often forget that the journey to that goal is the goal itself, and that’s something that we are all in the painting, the goal.

[45:05] LINDA:  It’s so true because we’re. The world has always pushing and striving and if we fall into that trap, we become disconnected from ourselves and I know that used to be my truth, especially in my thirties and forties, but now I like to drop down into my body and listened to my soul and spirit to create my life by design. As you so beautifully said earlier, and now when you teach, how do you get people to tap and how do you teach them to tap in and quiet down and listen to this, I’ll use the word soul. Um, instead of the shoulds and have tos

[45:51] KAREN: Meditation. Just having that time in your day where you are reflecting, where are you when you’re looking within? When you get so quiet, the voices inside of you become so loud that you can’t ignore them. That’s their glow. That’s where we get our answers, this will we get the inflammation, we need the guidance in life by becoming still, becoming quiet. My daughter and I, we did a 90 minute meditation once with a group of women and it was so powerful to be in that group. I had a notebook and I literally filled that notebook up with all the thoughts that were coming in. Now I know that I have an advantage because I’m deaf. I can turn my hearing aid off and I instantly have silence, so it’s kind of a nice thing there. The blessing right there and I can meditate pretty quickly with silence.

[46:58] LINDA: That’s another gift. You found your advantage.

[47:05] KAREN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[47:08] LINDA:  So in our last few moments together, is there a piece of wisdom or insight more than you’ve already shared that you’d like to leave our listeners with?

[47:18]  KAREN: That’s a good question Linda. Know and understand that you are beautifully unique. There Is not a single soul on this God given earth who is like you. Not a single soul. You are a unique fingerprint in the world and it’s up to you to take the gifts that you uniquely have, to recognize them and honor them and share them with the world I think that is the lesson that I want people listening to take away .

[48:06] LINDA:  Such beautiful parting gifts that you left our listeners and I want to invite everyone, visit agelesspassions.com to learn more about Karen’s inspiring work and to learn more about her books, including unwrapping your passion, creating the life you truly want, and follow her on her facebook page too because as she said, she is painting now and I love seeing all her posts are inspirational in the creative out posts, so we tried to follow her. Karen, thank you for being here today.

[48:42]  KAREN: Thank you Linda, Thank you for allowing me to have the pleasure to be here. Thank you

[48:47] and everyone. I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 2:00 PM eastern time on the OM Times network for the inspire conversations radio show. Until next time, choose love. Choose Joy, choose happiness. My friends blessings.

[49:07] Thanks for listening to inspired conversations with publisher Linda Joy. Join our sacred space every Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern and me leading female visionaries, empowering authors, heart-centered female entrepreneurs, coaches, and healers inspired conversations with Linda. Joy is a soulful venue where guests share the obstacles they’ve overcome, along with wisdom and lessons learned on their personal journey that led them to the transformational work they do in the world inspired conversations to empower you on your path to authentic and soulful living.