A conversation with Christine Arylo, MBA, a transformational leadership advisor, teacher, speaker, social impact innovator and four-time author who is recognized world-wide for her work with people to make shift happen – in the lives they lead, the work they do, and the world they wish to create.
Christine Arylo has been a catalyst, mentor, and advisor for established and emerging leaders, from conscious business organizations and social impact entrepreneurs daring to make change, to change makers and influencers in a wide spectrum of industries, including healthcare, entertainment, law, government, financial, tech, education and academia. Her work and presence hits home for all people seeking to create a better world – for humanity, the people they love and lead, and themselves.
Christine shared that she grew up in Chicago. She wanted to pursue a career in the fashion industry, but her mother discouraged her, saying that artists don't make any money. After receiving her MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, she took a job with The Gap as an employee communications specialist.
During an all-hands meeting, the CFO of this profitable, $15 billion revenue Company announced that they were being dinged by Wall Street because their sales growth had slowed and so they were not going to pay bonuses to their employees. It was at that moment that Christine began to question the relentless pursuit of more in our culture, and how so many of us are imprinted by the belief that financial security is equivalent to true security.
Christine shared another epiphany she had when she was co-leading a retreat in Costa Rica. They were going ziplining, and she had all these things in her pockets, including her expensive sunglasses. And she realized that all her stuff was holding her back - that she couldn't hang upside down and be free because she was laden down with too many things. Seven months later, she sold her house and her car and became a nomad.
"I have this trust that my security comes from my ability to really tune in to what is right and what is real within myself, and then also be in co-creation with the world and the universe to guide me. It's a way of life that I feel is true freedom." Christine Arylo
Key takeaways:
- The importance of faith and trust and of understanding the more emotional aspects of money. Without this understanding, No matter how much money we accumulate, it can often never feel like enough.
- The importance of knowing the false dichotomy that our culture sets up. Either you have to sacrifice your security and struggle and do without in order to have your freedom, or you can have lots of money and things, but you're going to have to sacrifice your wellbeing or your soul.
This is just not true. Christine advocates finding the teachers and mentors and wisdom traditions to help you put practices in place to notice and work with the fears that make you believe this false dichotomy.
- Women in general have difficulty receiving. Christine walked us through a practice of slowing down, getting in touch with our level of energy and asking what it is that we need to receive in this moment.
About the guest:
Christine Arylo, MBA, is a transformational leadership advisor, teacher and best-selling author. She is known for her breakthrough and practical methodologies that give working professionals and entrepreneurs a path out of burnout and overwhelm so they can be influential leaders and change-makers who can make a positive impact without having to sacrifice their personal wellbeing or choose between having a whole-life or a successful career.
Blending traditional leadership techniques gained from her extensive 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience, with 20+ years of study in wisdom modalities such as yogic science, body-mind-heart integration, and intuitive thinking, Christine brings a new lens and elevated consciousness to leadership, business, life design and social change.
She is the host of the popular Feminine Power Time podcast. Her fourth and latest book is Overwhelmed and Over It: Embrace Your Power to Stay Centered and Sustained in a Chaotic World.
Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinearylo/
Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/christinearylo/
Website:- http://www.christinearylo.com
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[00:00:00] Christine Arylo: So, I have this trust that my security comes from my ability to really tune in to what is right and what is real within myself, and then also be in co-creation with the world and the universe to guide me. In that, and it's a way of life that I feel is it's true freedom.
Welcome to Making Change with Your Money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves.
Now, here is your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
[00:00:43] Laura Rotter: I am so excited to have as my guest today, Christine Arlo. She's a transformational leadership advisor. She's a teacher and a bestselling author known for her breakthrough and practical methodologies that give working professionals, and entrepreneurs a path out of burnout, And overwhelm so they can be influential leaders and change makers who can make a positive impact without having to sacrifice their personal wellbeing.
Christine brings a new lens and elevated consciousness to leadership business. Life design and social change. And I can personally say that Christine's leadership, her books, and her podcasts have made a very big difference in how I approach my life and my business.
So, Christine, I'm so excited to have you here on the Making Change With Your Money Podcast.
[00:01:40] Christine Arylo: Thank you, Laura. So good to be with you all.
Hello everybody. I can't wait to dive into this conversation. I have, I've lit a candle. I brought my, my peace craft, which I bought to keep reminding me slow down, find the peace, slow down, find the peace.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what wisdom emerges today for all of us.
[00:02:01] Laura Rotter: So, I'm going to start with a question I've been starting all these interviews with, which is Christine, what was money? In your family
[00:02:10] Christine Arylo: growing up? So, I grew up in the south side of Chicago, just the suburbs maybe 15, 16 miles outside of the epicenter of the city with all kinds of different people.
And I just felt like everyone was the same. We just like that. I didn't know that there were really, I obviously I know like we looked different or whatever, but it was very, just people, we didn't all look the same, but we just, I just didn't have. It's like a sense of some people have more or some people have less, or there's, and I grew up super middle class, I did just, we had a house in suburbs and, but we did have a, we did have a cottage, not a lake house.
We had a little cottage on an island in Michigan that was like built out of refabricated stuff from, it was like, yellow linoleum, chairs, all the old, just like that kind of cottage. And so it wasn't until I. To high school and my parents wanted me to go to at a private school.
So, I went to public school. They wanted me to go to private school, to this Catholic school. Cause like we want you to have a better education. And so I'm like, and I was, I wanted to go cause I wanted a better education, but I also didn't want to go. Cause I didn't want to leave my friends.
So I go, I'll go for a year. So this is where the money story starts. This Catholic school, a guy was very middle class and there were two kind of classes of people, the people whose parents gave a lot of money to the school and the people whose parents didn't. And there were two different sets of rules for those people, which I didn't.
I didn't understand because I just felt like everyone has the same set of rules. Like why would there be separate rules for people who, who are, whose parents are giving money and are driving the corvettes and those of us that are taking the public bus and or the school bus. And I remember realizing there was a dress code, and I didn't like the dress code of course, because it was ridiculous.
I had to wear skirts and all these things and you couldn't wear like tank tops with V-necks. Like I'm wearing a V-neck, I'm wearing a V-neck right now. No tank top and. And I would get these, you get these tickets, like a ticket if you like, went against the rules. And so I was, I would get tickets for things of course because I'm a rebel at heart.
And the, but the people whose parents, you know what you would call them, the rich kids, the people whose parents were giving money to the school, they teachers looked the other way. And the sense of injustice was like, it just made me crazy like this injustice that was based on economics and the kind of cat that, and so that was like really going on under the surface.
And then there was this other thing that really tipped me over where a lot of the friends that I had, that hung out with were. People would say they were probably the stoners. Like I got along with everybody. But the, what was great about the stoners is that they just accepted whoever you were.
It's a little bit like the breakfast club situation. And So, I was standing in the, I was in the bathroom in this woman girl whose parents did give a lot of money to the school. Said something and I overheard her and that she was talking about me, and she's can you believe that Stoner is on the, that was honor roll, and like equating me, showing up, playing with the stoners.
Me, obviously coming in from a family where you could tell my clothes were not the designer, I shopped at Lerner. It wasn't like they were designer clothes at the time, even though I love fashion. And I remember walking up to her in the bathroom and I don't remember what I said, but I was pretty clear like that's not okay with me.
And I didn't end up going back to the school the second year because I just couldn't be with the injustice of whatever that was, of not treating everyone the same. And there being two sets of rules did not work for me. And that's like my, that's, and that's when I realized, oh, not everybody has the same.
Of money and there's different things that happen because of how much you have, or you don't. And it was right around that time that I remember the first imprint I got from my mother. We were at our cottage, our little cottage, and there was a, there were some houses that were on the island that were much bigger.
And there was one behind us with these kids I had grown up with. And they had, they had mopeds, they had they had lots of toys and they had just brought, I don't know, they brought like a hovercraft something, just like one of those things. I don't know. And I was standing with my mother's just was like, Ugh, some people just have too much money.
And I remember standing there, Laura and everyone, and I just I felt like that imprint wanted to go into my body. And I'm like, My brain said, that's ridiculous like that. No, but there was a part of that did also get into me that imprint of like the disgust of excess. And I still have, there's a part of that and we'll see where we go into, like I actually, I'm not a person who accumulates for excess.
In fact, I've done the opposite. I had bigger houses and I've always gotten smaller. I went the opposite. I accumulate lots of stuff and I'm like, oh, this is unhappy. And I like, I have less and less. So it's like the opposite of what most people do.
[00:06:57] Laura Rotter: Thank you for that background. I do think that there is a time that we wake up and realize that there's a class system, and I also think when we were younger, Christina, it wasn't as obvious as it.
Certainly today and certainly when you were in high school, but I love the fact that it sounds like you share your mother's philosophy, which is there is something that can be too much that. You described yourself as a rebel. You also described that was your mother's philosophy. Can you say a bit more about that, how you might have seen your family versus some families around you?
[00:07:36] Christine Arylo: I would say my mother, and she would say this is more of a traditional list. When she said it with an energy. That wasn't clean. There's a difference between looking at something like access. So like right now I'm living in Asheville, North Carolina. I just moved here from the Bay Area a month ago.
Lived in lived, grew up in Chicago, grew lived, left grad school, went to California, lived on the West coast for 20 years, was a nomad for about three years in their live in Seattle. Moved all around the West Coast. And then what's interesting about Asheville, when I got here, people were have you been to the Biltmore Estate?
And I'm like no. What's that? And it's the first thing people ask me when I, I say, I live here now, and the Biltmore estate was built by the Vanderbilt back in I don't know, it was like the 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds during that, like the gilded age, that time when like the, all the tycoons and the, the industrial Revolution was starting.
And I still have not gone to this day to it. Although I. Have breakfast with a friend who was staying there. And I talk about that with Noah because it's humongous. I don’t know, it has 800 rooms or something and eight gazillion acres and it's just, I mean it's huge and it costs, I think like per person, it's 75 or a hundred dollars or something to go to this place.
That's now people are going to this place and it does do some good because it created Asheville, it helped to create the center. People go there, they have a cool museum there. But I was talking with no over the holidays and my friend Shasta about this. I'm like, what is it That doesn't make me want to go.
And I've been to the big castles in, Europe and I remember walking through these castles whether I was in Vienna, although the g the gardens in Vienna were really beautiful. But being in England and all these places, I'm like, it's just another room with a bunch of stuff. It's just another room with a bunch of stuff and like, why is there so much stuff?
And this was a aha I had in 2012. So I sold my la the last house I owned, I sold in 2012. Became a nomad. Let go of the house, let go of our car and our dream, Noah. And my dream was to live and work from anywhere in the world. So this is before Zoom. I did this on Skype, and I remember when I had the epiphany, Laura, and everyone, I was leading a retreat in Costa Rica with a friend of mine, and we were going ziplining.
And I had all this stuff in my pockets and I had my sunglasses, and I just, I couldn't hang upside down on the Zipline. Because I had so much stuff and it was like such a visceral oh my God, I have so much stuff. I can't hang upside down and be free because I'm laying down with all of this stuff.
And that was seven months before we decided to let go of our house and our car and, Be free and live and work from anywhere in the world. And what would it be like to not own a house and not own a car and not, do all the things that we're told that's where our security is and that's where our, and so it was like a very visceral piece.
And so I think that's the piece. There's a difference between access. And like being comfortable and having what you need and also having I love nice things. I love really nice shoes, but I don't have 25 pairs of them. know, I have one really nice pair of cowgirl boots that cost more than most people would spend on cowgirl boots.
But I've had 'em for 10 years and I love them, and so I have, really nice things, but I don't. To have a lot of them. And so there's no excess. And again, this isn't like a judgment about anyone, how anyone else lives because there's a, we all live differently. But I think we are very much in a culture where accumulation to the point of excess is normal.
And that is part of the disease of our world right now. And I believe that we make the culture by our choices and how we choose to design our lives. And that's what I mean by rebel. I don't mean rebel to be an ass. I don't mean rebel to be like, like having to be different. Taking a stand for what isn't actually.
Rooted in wholeness and wellbeing and what's good for people on the planet, or even in alignment for you and say, I'm not going to do it that way. I'm going to figure out a different way. I love
[00:11:41] Laura Rotter: that Christine, I have identified for myself one of the villains I've identified is the relentless pursuit of more.
And it, as you said so beautifully, it doesn't come from a place of wholeness. We all are human. And are born with this existential sense that something's missing. And then our society tells us what's missing? You don't have the B M W or you don't have, the big jobber title.
But can you walk us through, Christine, I know you did, when you were younger, go through the traditional route, the corporate route, the M b A route, how, what led to that and then what led you away
[00:12:19] Christine Arylo: from it? Yeah, so I grew up in Chicago. I ended, I wanted to be a fashion designer and my I did, I wanted to go to f i t and my mother said, you can't do that because artists don't make any money and you need to pick a different something.
And that was a family line that was, her brother was a really talented artist and he ended up becoming an insurance salesman and then died in his late forties. So I was like but I didn't know any better at the time. I didn't have anybody in. Saying I could do it differently, but we all end up where we end up.
So I chose marketing cause I could be creative in that. And I knew, I just had a sense I needed to get my MBA and I wanted to go to Kellogg to Northwestern. It was really important to me and I wanted to go there for undergrad, but my mother's yeah, my dad died when I was a freshman. And so she became a single parent and is can't spend the $17,000 a year at the time.
So go to the junior college for two years. And yeah, that would be a, that'd be a deal right now. And then I ended up going to DePaul to business school. And so when I finished graduate school, I knew that I didn't want to stay in Chicago because if I stayed in Chicago, I was either going to end up with a job in consulting or I was going to end up selling questionable cheese products. it's a very manufacturing company and when I was a consultant all through my twenties I loved it, but I worked 80 hours a week and I, ate like crap. And I wasn't willing to give up my life for. That lifestyle, I really didn't want to do that.
And I wanted to pursue my dream, which was to live in California and work in fashion. So I had $20,000 in my bank account and I moved to California, finished grad school with no job. They, I'll have to go get a job as a consultant or do something, who knows, but this is my shot. And I, my partner had already moved out there.
We weren't married at the time, and, but it's, it was San Francisco, so I had I had to pay rent, with my savings. And it was, And I did all the things, all the things of oh, you have to like network and you've got to go meet all the people. And I was like really trying to get a job at the Gap and work in their brand marketing department.
And nothing was happening. Nothing. Nothing at all. Looking back, this is the universe was like, take a sabbatical lady, just take a sabbatical, and take a chill. I didn't know all the things I know now. I ended up having this is a weird thing. Whenever I make job transitions, I buy art or I do some Amazing trip.
That's about personal growth or awakening my consciousness. So I think I had 4,000, $5,000 left and I found out about this conference that was happening and it was all a bunch of like personal growth, human consciousness kind of stuff. I didn't know anybody who anybody was. And I said, okay, Noah, let's do it.
So I'm like, spending $3,000, now I'm down to $2,000 and go to this, so awakening experience and I come back and there's a phone call from a recruiter from the Gap. And I had a job two weeks later in a place in space that I would never have imagined. I didn't even know it was even a job.
I ended up going in and helping build their entire employee communications department because they just didn't have any way for their employees and their leaders to communicate. And then I ended up in hr. Is that chief of staff for the E V P of HR for Gap, Inc. And that led me to coaching and realizing, like my passion and then friends said you should write a book.
And I said, I don't write books, but then I'm like, okay. So I started writing a book while I was, in, in my corporate job. And it's interesting you said about the, was it a villain about the growth? So this was 2005 and I was sitting in an all hands-on meeting and they were talking about how we had been making such a great impact as a company and that this company had, it was almost in, it was almost like in junk bond status.
It had moved itself into a really healthy financially comp company. Little debt, 150,000 employees part-time benefits. This is 2005. So it was very progressive in what they were doing socially with, ending sweat factories, all this stuff. Good. Good, Good. Like making good for all the people that you know in the world and the employees.
And it was a 15 billion company at the time, and I'll never forget the CFO walks up on the stage and he says, and these are all true, but our same store sales are less than they were last year by 1%. And so our earnings per share is, or earnings per share is. That was a penny. I think maybe it was less than a dollar.
And so we've been dinged by Wall Street and so no one's getting bonuses and we have to become a 20 billion company and we're going to start making all these other things. And I'm in this room with all these pieces, all hands, right? So, it's 600 people or whatever. And I'm looking around, I'm like, is anyone else notice what's going on?
This is crazy. Like what? Like the more thing I always have to keep having more. I'm like, why isn't. To be a 15 billion company. Do good in the world, maintain it, be healthy like a tree, and it starts when it, my consciousness started to open. And so I spent a whole year going around asking all of these thought leaders, all of these people, why do we have to just keep having more?
Like why is the system, why does Wall Street connect growth to how much you continue to sell more? Like, why does it have to be more? Or we think about our housing and like, why do we have to keep growing and then not even conscious of the reality we're creating. And that's when I started to see how much we've been imprinted.
And I had to really get into my body where my financial security came from. And that my true security was not in a 401K or in a house. Not that we don't want not to have those things is bad, but that my security was in my own co-creative power. That's where my power was. And that, even if it doesn't mean I have like I'm an entrepreneur.
But I don't think everyone should be an entrepreneur. Everyone should not be an entrepreneur. I do not recommend it for all people unless it's like part of your path. But there's inherent knowing in me that whether I'm working for someone else as an employee, or I'm an entrepreneur or a contractor, or whatever, my outside manifestation is.
That I am in co-creation with the universe and there are, this is not just theoretical. This is like how I live my life. So I have this trust that my security comes from my ability to really tune in to what is right and what is real within myself, and then also be in co-creation with the world and the universe to guide.
In that, and it's a way of life that I feel is it's true freedom.
[00:18:23] Laura Rotter: There is so much to unpack there, Christine. First of all I want to reflect back to you how amazing I think it is, that you are able while still in that fishbowl, right? I look at it that way. We are all in water and we have no idea that we're in that water.
And for you, you to have the ability to pull back and say, this is nuts.
The planet can sustain constant growth. Employees at this firm don't necessarily want constant growth and to recognize that I really applaud that for you. And as a fellow entrepreneur, I can certainly attest to the fact that this is an amazing personal journey.
There's no straight line to success. It's not even clear. Everybody defines success differently. And I really believe we need, like you said, a deep knowing in our bodies that we are being guided and protected and taken care of by something larger than ourselves. And that's I also believe that's practices and communities that we need to be in because.
We're always going to fall off the wagon of believing that.
[00:19:39] Christine Arylo: Yeah. It's a path That's a practice and it's a choice. And it's interesting as you're speaking all of that, Laura, and for all of us here and you don't start out, you got to go through the levels of consciousness to get to the point that like Laura and I are talking about right now.
It's like I had like I know blah, blah, blah, save and la da, put the things in the accounts and da like all those things, like I know. Thanks, and they're very important. The structure is very important. But if you don't have that faith and that trust, and more of what would be the feminine, the invisible parts that are not like that feeling part, no matter how much money you create, it will never be enough.
How much we accumulate will never be enough. This is why the Bolognese call the Americans Hungry Ghosts. It's what they call Americans. Hungary, there are people that live in the Western civilization and it's also normal, like this whole system is built to keep us in fear at some level.
That's what you start to wake up to when you start to see how it's gritted for fear and control and like we're just like in the fishbowl and we don't even know we're in the fishbowl. And it's interesting because when I was in college and in my twenties, most of my friends families were PR pretty wealthy.
Some were like some, they had some significant. Old money who they thought they were middle class, I remember because they didn't own a baseball team. And I'm like, there's like a whole other class that goes on in here and we would we had these like parallel lives where she grew up at the country club and I grew up at the community surf club and I had, my family had a cottage on an island.
Her family owned islands in, Canada. And what was so interesting in the mirror of our relationship is she had so much money, fear. So much anxiety about not enough. And she had to keep working and she, and a lot of comparison and not having enough. And she ended up marrying somebody who, she basically, her intuition said, don't date that guy.
He will ruin your life. And so what did she do? She married him because he was a traitor and he had that, he had that potential to then she would finally be enough in these families that she. Was apparently middle class, but her grandparents had butler's. know, It's like that kind of craziness.
And then the strangle hold of the old, of the wealth. Don't sell your stock, don't sell the principle, like all these things. And yet she was like, Cleaning her own toilets while trying to raise two kids and working full-time, because she didn't want to spend any of that money. And again, what we're talking about is not, it's not about going out on either realm and being, I always say don't be a dummy pants.
It's so it's not like I'm going to quit my job and I'll all be lovely and the universe will support me and you like have no structure or reality. You know it all, like when I left the West coast, I had $20,000 in my bank. I had a car and I knew what I needed to do, what my runway was, and that I could go get a job if that's what I needed to do.
And there, there's all kinds of imprinting. If I do, what will people say if I take a sabbatical? Or what if I could never, just all of the fear. And there are other ones that I've coached to actually take that sabbatical. And then what they find on the other side is their freedom.
I've consistently taken myself out of the fish. To see what is the system to then make my own sovereign choices. And I think that's the, that's like what we're doing to get ourselves out of this world that says you can be free, but you have to sacrifice your security and or you can have lots of money and lots of things, but you're going to have to sacrifice your wellbeing or your soul.
That I feel, is what we're breaking through our own individual choices. But I think it's important for us to realize that what we're trying to do is there's a different way where we shouldn't have to sacrifice our wellbeing or our sufficiency or our soul. We there's a different way and we're finding it together.
[00:23:26] Laura Rotter: I love that. It's beautifully said. And though, and what cups up for me, Christine, it like popped into my head is there is no courage without fear. So it's reasonable to have fear. Our mind tells us we will not have enough, we're not enough. So what are the practices that helped you when.
Woke up in the auditorium and said, this path isn't for me. I'm assuming there was some fear there that came up.
[00:23:52] Christine Arylo: If you don't have fear, If you don't have fear, you probably are a psychopath. And so it's about, yeah. So it's about, I'll start with one that is actually very practically, it might not seem practical, but it's about self-awareness.
To work through those fears or those limiting beliefs or whatever it is, in a way that my friend Karen Jucker says, go as fast as the slowest part of you can go. And I think that most people are not self-aware. I certainly wasn't self-aware until I was about, myself, my personality, my limitations, my fear, like all the parts and all the pieces and what we're going through right now on the planet is a massive, I call it the great wake up and shake.
It's like it's hitting all of everyone's fears and it's like this part of shake it off. It's use this time to like work through and move through that fear. So I think to find that freedom. And so one of the things that I did is I've always had support.
So whether that was I've had some really amazing teachers and mentors that are still teachers and mentors to me today, both on the spiritual mystical realm, because you got to get out of the fishbowl to learn. I call them, I don't call them, they're called the wisdom traditions. There's other ways that are very in alignment to the natural way the world works and how the trees don't worry if they're going to get rain tomorrow, like the tree, they.
That they work in cycles. And so this is like a big piece of my teaching is working in the cycles and in the cycles. That'll that helps you find the sufficiency. So you want to go study and be with people who are, yes. There's some really amazing people like Laura and other people where you're like bridging the two, you're bridging the wisdom into the practical.
Those are the people who are my advisors. When I like, I have advisors on the physical realm, but I only work with those people, whether it's a financial advisor or a healthcare provider or a lawyer who also gets the wisdom part. Because if you don't have one foot in each one, in the wisdom part, the mystical part, the things we can't see, and the material realm, it's like you're just going to get same, more of the same stuff.
So you got to look out outside of that. That was practice number one. I think. Practice number two for me the trick is fear lives in our minds. It's the mental and If you want to, I was, if you want to be wise if you want to be smart, you can stay just up in the mind. But if you actually want to be wise, you need all four parts of yourself working together, body, mind, heart, and spirit.
It was interesting when I was writing my last book, overwhelmed and Over It,
[00:26:24] Laura Rotter: Which I loved, by the way. Highly recommend all of Christine's books. That one really spoke to me.
[00:26:29] Christine Arylo: Well, and that one began that day at, in that all Hands on meeting of what, how is, how are we, how we internalize the matrix and the burnout matrix.
And I identified these 13 different ways that we over give and we under receive. This is going to be very practical, but very, you still build very simple, but we, especially as women, we. Receiving. We are great achievers and we're great caregivers, but when it comes to receiving, we are, we over caretake, we take over responsibility.
We overextend, we over promise. All these ways in which we're giving more of our energy, more of our time. That's actually in alignment. And I think there's a direct correlation between burnout and our bank accounts, like from a true like financial security, like safety sufficiency within our bodies.
And so you got to go and you got to look at these ways in which that your and our own emotional self. Where are you over giving and under receiving would be another place that I would suggest. Looking at and one practice I do every morning is I just, and I can take us through this real quick if.
You'd like to Lord, it's a very, because there's a correlations, I've been studying between I think life force. So, it's our energy bank account and like how we feel no matter how much money we have how solid we feel financially, how I call it, being resourced. Like I need to be deeply resourced and deeply nourished both.
And so, this practice I do every morning, I've done it since 2012 when I invented it, because I was finding myself in these like burnouts. Like I would give to work and then I would crash, or I would get a lot of money and then I would drain all my reserves. And so, it was this constant like pattern.
So, this is another very practical piece, identify your patterns and if you can give names to them, then you can start to work with them. So I noticed this pattern of like lots of energy, lots of money drain, and that would, do it over and over again. So this practice is called the Life Force Reading and Receiving Practice.
And. I want everyone to go ahead and just take a moment, put your hand on your heart. This is what connects you to yourself emotionally and what you need. And then you can put like one hand, just somewhere in the bottom of your body, like I like to put mine on my belly. You can put it on your legs just to connect with that, that grounded part of you.
And just to take a breath with us here and just slow everything down. Laura and I know both have, we, we have a morning practice that slows us down every day so that we're connected in to that wisdom channel, to that knowing. It's like your body and your being, and your heart, your spirit. It's a barometer.
And if we don't pause in the morning to really tune in and connecting, we're going to get whipped around and we're going to react to that outside. Chaos or our inside chaos is going to get amplified by the outside chaos. And so just taking a breath and just imagining your body is like you, you have an energy charge, like a cell phone.
And on a scale of zero to 100, how full is your life force right now with 100 being 100% charged and full, zero empty, and 50 half full. And just ask your inner wisdom for a number. Or sense into your body. It's very intuitive and if nothing comes, just makes something up. It's not a test in a magazine, so don't cheat and say 95, no one has a 95 except for my border color.
Alright, so got your number. I'll tell you the, would they all mean in a moment. But now I want you to just take another deep breath and ask this really simple question and actually encourage you to ask it to yourself every day for the rest of your life, which is, what do I need? What do I need to receive today?
And just see if your intuition, your inner wisdom speaks to you. And if it doesn't, just ask would I love to receive today? And it's not a seven day trip to Tahiti. It's usually something much more simple than that. And then your job is to make sure that you receive this that day. This is a very simple receiving.
And what it does is it starts to build and you can go ahead and just open your eyes. It starts to build your capacity to receive. So one of the things we do, especially as women, were like banks that just keep giving. And we don't get deposits. We just give withdrawals. And so it's even like where it does, if you don't even pause to receive how much, you can look at your bank account and look at the numbers, but then if the stock market starts to, to follow, you freak out, right?
Because you don't have that inner connection. And so the, that this is a practice from overwhelmed and over it, but what I do it every morning actually with my partner. So if you're 75 and above means that you have enough energy to give. And if you don't receive that day, it's going to be okay. But if you're below 50, you're serving from your reserves and you want to make your choices differently.
What was your number, Laura?
Laura Rotter: 60.
Christine Arylo: 60. And what did you need to receive?
[00:31:26] Laura Rotter: Connection And I have to say, this has been a wonderful day of connection, so I have been receiving it, and it's also three 15 in the afternoon, so my energy is waning. What was your number?
[00:31:38] Christine Arylo: My number was 77. But I'm an extrovert, so things like this just make my energy go up.
I was a 70 this morning and then I needed to receive confidence, which is really interesting cause I share that with my partner. He's I've never heard you need to receive confidence. I'm like, but I don't need it on the outside. I need Tina today. Just on the inside. And so knowing that sometimes it's peace, sometimes it's sleep, sometimes it's a, an every day is different.
And how this, how this relates to us feeling like we have what we need. There is a correlation here between our wellbeing and our wealth. Interestingly enough, the root of the word wealth is wellbeing. The actual root of the word wealth is wellbeing. And in the 17 hundreds they changed the name.
I don't know who changes these words, but this is a very interesting theme to start to look at words, because words reflect consciousness. So in the 17 hundreds, the industrial revolution, the great gilded age, wealth meaning of wealth, is now to accumulate the pursuit of accumulation of. There's relational wealth, there's health wealth, there's wellbeing there's so many pieces of redefining what wealth is and wellbeing.
If you are, if you're living, day to day not knowing where, how you're going to survive, you can't not live in fear. You're going to live in, you can't. You always tell people, you focus on getting your foundation sufficient before you start thinking about the world and what you're going to do, because you can't be creative when you're running on ice.
And for those that are like, I'm not letting go of my nut bag and I'm, or even I'm like, I'm watching the Scott market every day. Is my stock up? Is it down? Is it up? It's down. They're like, stop. And it's like coming back to that foundation and building it and that part of yes, be wise about what's going on in the world, but don't buy into.
And really pausing to see what's real and what's just part of the fear machine that's causing more people. To go into fear and panic and anxiety that then takes away from our co-creative life force to actually create the reality we want to see for ourselves and others.
[00:33:41] Laura Rotter: Thank you so much for guiding us through that practice, Christine.
Again, a lot of thoughts going through my head. I came to start this business True Abundance Advisors. I named it because true abundance is not only financial resources, but it's the whole life. And I came to the courage to step off the hamster wheel. From mindfulness practices, from slowing down, from listening to that still small voice.
So many of us don't have the practices to connect with, and so we know what we're supposed to want as opposed to what would truly nourish and as you said so beautifully resource us. I still have a memory from my yoga teacher training that I did where. For our listeners, Christine does a beautiful teaching about melding the mind with the intuition when making decisions.
And the suggestion from the yoga teacher was, when you wake up tomorrow morning, really listen to what you want for breakfast, which sounds like such a simple thing, but we override our inner voice. All the time. And so start small. Exactly like you said. What do you need now? What's your energy number now?
It doesn't have to be big leaps. Just start to hear who it is that you are and what it is that you truly want, and you do that. So beautiful. Christine, I have a question for you. Let's see, how can I phrase it? Looking back, is there any advice you would give your. Younger self. And so maybe to our listeners who are facing a crossroads or some big life decision?
[00:35:43] Christine Arylo: It's funny cause I go right back to the sabbatical. So I've had sabbaticals that were where I didn't have a job and I've had. Sabbaticals that were, while I actually had a job and I call it the transition job. And so when I was in graduate school, I also ha, I wasn't married, but I was in a 15 year relationship and that relationship ended.
So I got a divorce basically in the middle of graduate school. And I had this boring job at this insurance, known insurance company, but I was like, It was, I could do my job in half the time and I needed that extra space to do all the other stuff. And they paid for college and all these different things.
And I remember Noah, I just met him at the time, he's just chill out. Like just chill out. Go in, do your 50% of your work and use the other time to do all your other things that you're doing, your personal growth, your development, your healing, all these pieces and just receive the money.
And I'm like, but no, I could do more. I could do more, or when I was in the sabbatical that I didn't have a job for four months. I was like in, I was in like, like consternation about not having the job. And Nova would say to me, just go out for a day, enjoy San Francisco. I think there's this piece of chill out and you can't change all things at the same time and enjoy the process.
I think we, so there's a great wisdom teaching that says don't rush yourself to make a decision just so that you'll feel more secure. That's how I bought my third house, which was one of the worst financial decisions I ever made. And so I, that's an example though. I just want to, I just want a house.
I just want a house. I just, I just want a job. I just want a job. And so just do not rush in order to feel more. Secure. I always say that to people who are working for someone else. You are not an indentured servant or slave. It's not time for money. It is energy exchange between money and healthy and all the things.
And so it's okay. It's all good. That's what I would tell my, my, my younger self. And I definitely would've told her to stay renting versus buying the last house. But that was my derma. So here I am. I had lots of lessons from that.
[00:37:44] Laura Rotter: Christine, As you look at this journey you're on and you've been through, how has your definition of success, perhaps financial success, perhaps just success in general, shifted?
[00:37:56] Christine Arylo:
So much. If there's a, it's reminding me of the glyph in the first section, an overwhelm and over it. It's about liberating our success and what success is. And there's a picture of a woman running up an escalator called the escalator to death. Do be in, have it all just, like doing the things that you're supposed to do.
And then you just keep, you keep, getting, the new job, big job, more houses, all the things you have, all, that thing. I was on that escalator and if I was to boil it into one word, it would be it would be wellbeing. And that wellbeing is in all places. Relational wellbeing, financial wellbeing, material wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing.
Like all of the places, it comes back to that center point of wellbeing. The yogis say it's, this is why my bottle, it says peace, the yogi. I'm also trained in yoga because it's a really good way to get connected in. They say when you are content. Contentment in here. You finally move off the karma wheel and you stand in the center of life and as things all move around you, you know your stuff, you can be clear and all things that you actually need come to you, not the excess.
But, need and for your design. And but when you don't have, when you have unease in here and you have discontent, you're running around on that karma wheel, continuing to create the same patterns again and again. And then you're also repelling the things that you actually need that actually match your design.
And so my prayer for myself is to live in a state of That contentment to have contentment, which doesn't mean I don't have a desire to achieve things or create or have an impact. In fact, it allows me to have an even bigger impact because I'm not trying to get anything from it. I'm allowing it to come up from a more pure place that's rooted in my own wholeness and enoughness.
[00:39:53] Laura Rotter: Thank you so much. So it sounds as I'm hearing it, Success has shifted to mean, not going up the escalator, but actually having a whole life where you feel like you're in your center.
[00:40:08] Christine Arylo: Here's basically, and Laura, you already know this. This is in all the leadership work that I do. This is what, this is the equation we're working into reality.
Do less, receive more, achieve a greater. Do less, should all write this down, do less, receive more, achieve a greater impact. So that equation is a working equation. I make my decision, it's a decision making tool. It's like I use it all of the time and how I'm making my decisions. And so I may choose an avenue a flow in my business.
Because that I love doing and also pays more and is easier to receive money for than things that I also have a passion for, but I'm just like spinning my wheels or having to push, or it's not going to support me financially to do in a way that gives me what I need and want for this next phase of my life.
So these practices that we're talking about, they're actually inquiries like, gosh, where am I? Where do I underinvest, mind, body, spirit, heart, in myself? Where am I grasping? Overspending over, thinking I'm going to get something. People are like, I'm make another certificate, I'm going to get another certificate.
And there's value to that and there's time when enough, it's, I think it's a good thing for us constantly to be in, consistently be in relationship too, about ourselves and knowing that about ourselves. And it will, they'll always be our weak spots.
[00:41:28] Laura Rotter: Yes. And to always be using the lens that you, if you could repeat that,
[00:41:33] Christine Arylo: do less, receive more.
Achieve a greater impact. That bigger impact. Greater impact.
[00:41:39] Laura Rotter: Greater impact. And having that as a way to titrate the decision does this meet those parameters? And so I think that's a great way to end our conversation saying if that spoke to you listeners and you would like to learn more, Christine and her offerings and how you could work together.
What's the best way for people to find out about what you offer Christine and get in touch with you?
[00:42:08] Christine Arylo: Oh, come over to my podcast. That's a good way to, so Feminine said we're sister podcasters here, so my podcast is Feminine Power Time. Turn out the cheddar and tune into what matters so you can get that on your podcast.
So my website is just my name, so Christine, https://christinearylo.com/And there's all things are there, all things are on the website. https://christinearylo.com/is the best place to, to find me.
[00:42:35] Laura Rotter: I highly recommend if you're going through a big life transition, just reaching out to Christine and just starting to listen to her offerings again.
It's made such a difference in my life of slowing down. Slowing my time and understanding more and more what's my place to do and what's my place to do?
[00:42:58] Laura Rotter: Thank you so much for making the time and being my guest on this podcast, Christine. It was a pleasure.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with transformational leadership coach Christine Arlo. There were a number of things we discussed. Christine and I talked about the importance of faith and trust and of understanding the more emotional aspects of money. Without this understanding, No matter how much money we accumulate, it can often never feel like enough.
We also discuss the importance of knowing the false dichotomy that our culture sets up. Either you have to sacrifice your security and struggle and do without in order to have your freedom, or the culture teaches. You can have lots of money and things, but you're going to have to sacrifice your wellbeing or your soul.
This is so not true. Instead, find the teachers and mentors and wisdom traditions to help you put practices in place to notice and work with the fears that make you believe this false dichotomy. Christine noted that women in general have difficulty receiving. And during our conversation, she walked us through a practice of slowing down, getting in touch with your level of energy and asking what it is that you need to receive in this moment.
It was so powerful. Are you enjoying this podcast? Please don't forget to subscribe so that you won't miss next week's episode. And if you love the show, please leave a rating and a review. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[00:45:14] Thanks for listening to Making Change with your Money certified financial planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money. In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.