3 Things We Dive Into In This Episode:
How to discern the difference between intuition and procrastination.
How to trust your gut and honor dramatic transitions in your life.
The nuances of embracing being single beyond loneliness and the biological clock.
📘Resources
Check out the Whole, Full, and Alive’s official trailer to know more about me and the podcast.
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Connect with Whitney Catalano: Website | Instagram | Twitter
You can also listen to Whitney’s podcast, It’s All Made Up, Anyway
📌Episode Highlights
[08:32] Get to Know Whitney
Whitney was my first business coach.
She helped me start and eventually go full-time into my private practice after losing all my jobs in 2020.
Whitney describes her career as a reflection of her experiences. She was a dietitian because she had an eating disorder and an intuitive eating dietitian because of her recovery.
She pushed herself in her career and established a good reputation.
In 2020, Whitney felt trapped and decided to make a significant career shift.
[12:52] Whitney’s Transformation Story
Whitney decided to change her career from a registered dietitian to a self-worth and alignment business coach.
Since then, she has strived to educate herself and invent things to grow her business.
Her career as a business coach reflects her as a content creator, business owner, and person dealing with ADHD.
It also reflects our move to a creative economy where more and more people are becoming freelancers and entrepreneurs.
[16:40] Why Whitney Gave Up on Her Book Deal
During the pandemic, Whitney received a book deal to write about her expertise in emotional eating.
While writing the book, she felt and knew that something was physically blocking her from writing the book, so she decided to quit.
Whitney: “When I quit the book deal, it was like, the best way that I can describe it is that something like took over my body and redirected me onto a path that I needed to be on and was like, ‘No, you're going the wrong way.’ And that shifted me over.” - Click Here To Tweet This
The hardest part, according to Whitney, was getting backlash from people calling her a “brat” and condemning her for “making the biggest mistake of her life.”
Whitney knew in her heart that she was making the right decision.
She realized that she had the empowerment and reassurance from inside her — the backlash was only external.
[20:06] Learning Her Mission as a Career Coach
If you feel stuck, you may be out of alignment.
Take time to find your mission and begin your transformation story.
Whitney decided to pursue career coaching after realizing that she would rather live a life that makes people happy beyond their bodies.
Now, her business coach style focuses on self-worth, productivity, dealing with ADHD, alignment, and a money mindset.
Visit Whitney’s Instagram for more information on her coaching.
[26:59] Discerning Between Intuition & Resistance
Finding the line between intuition and resistance takes a lot of practice to figure out.
There are two types of resistance: one from fear, and one from the knowledge that you are not aligned.
Whitney recommends dropping the idea for a week or two. Stop thinking about it.
After two weeks, sit with it. Ask yourself, “Do I actually want to do this thing?”
You will probably get an intuitive hit on whether you should pursue something.
[29:50] Honor the Resistance
Honor the resistance. Decide once you have more clarity.
Do this for your other feelings: sadness, grief, frustration, or absolute bliss. Lean in and ride the wave of emotions.
Move slowly and take time to sit it out.
It may seem lazy or unmotivated to other people, but that's okay. That is part of the process of writing your transformation story.
[33:29] Embracing a Single Life in Your 20’s
Single does not equate to lonely.
Do not make the mistake of feeling miserable because you're single or just got out of a relationship.
Breakups are almost always for the better.
There’s a form of spontaneous adventure that's available when you're single that becomes unavailable when you're in a relationship.
Own and embrace being single.
[46:15] Whitney’s Learnings as a Solopreneur
Whitney: “I don't think everyone is called to be an entrepreneur. Most people are not. But if you're called for this, this life is so much more fulfilling, in my opinion.” - Click Here To Tweet This
Whitney shares that the most challenging part of starting her solopreneur journey and transformation story is the mental and emotional piece — not a strategy.
When you try to do things out of the box, people will try to talk you out of it and make you feel like you're making a mistake.
They will find evidence watching and waiting for you to fail.
These people are often just projecting their fears onto you.
[49:23] Do Not Rush Marriage or Parenthood
Do not rush for marriage in your 20s.
Be mindful of who you choose to be your partner.
People often rush to get married or become parents, leading to an expensive divorce or becoming a single parent.
Remember, you can start a family even in your 40s.
[53:57] Whitney’s Mindsets for Solopreneurs
Know that this is your transformation story.
Accept yourself and your desires. There’s a reason why you have these desires.
Do not be afraid of failure.
Whitney: “You will fail. You will embarrass yourself. You will fuck up. You will be terrible at something at first... But all these little failures of not being, or fears of not being perfect, fear of screwing up, and fear of failure, they're gonna happen. Get over it.” - Click Here To Tweet This
Let yourself be imperfect; let yourself go through it in real time. Then, you can start sharing your transformation story as you go.
Remember that people value vulnerability and authenticity more than anything else.
[46:15] Whitney’s Processing Prompts
If you could guarantee success, what would you do? What are the desires that you have? Be mindful of what your brain tells you.
What would you do if you knew there was a person out there with all the things you felt you wanted?
Do not settle. Life is too short to be with shitty people.
[01:03:13] Whitney’s Actionable Experiment
Put down the things that you resist naturally. But do not mistake putting these things down for procrastinating.
Whitney: “If you are not accepting every part of yourself in every part of your life, you will continue to be stuck in cycles that you don't like. You have to lead with acceptance, and putting things down for a minute is a radical act of acceptance.” - Click Here To Tweet This
About Whitney
Whitney Catalano is a Self-Sabotage, Accountability, & Alignment coach who helps creatives, ADHD’ers, and multi-passionates master habits, confidence, money mindset, & self-trust so they can embody that person they've always dreamed of being.
Connect with Whitney on her Instagram and Twitter
You can also visit her website for more details on her business coaching.
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Transcript
Whitney Catalano: Procrastination is a label that we've put on an experience of something. We're still not doing the thing no matter what it is, right, but we've labeled it procrastination because what's actually happening is that we are fighting ourselves the whole time, and we are actively avoiding it. I mean, like, I'm avoiding it, and I'm doing all these other things, but inside I feel terrible about the fact that I'm avoiding it.
Putting it down is acceptance. Like, I cannot emphasize enough if you are not accepting every part of yourself in every part of your life, you will continue to be stuck in cycles that you don't like. You have to lead with acceptance and putting things down for a minute is a radical act of acceptance.
Caitie Corradino: Welcome to Whole, Full and Alive, a podcast exploring the art and science of falling in love with your life, with your story and with who you truly are, underneath your titles, your resume, your relationship status, and your bank account.
I'm Caitie Corradino, a registered dietician nutritionist, certified fitness and yoga instructor, eating disorder recovery coach, Reiki healer, and founder of Full Soul Nutrition, but underneath my titles and resume, a big fan of kitchen dance breaks, early mornings, all things chocolate truffles, world traveling and serendipity. I'm here to share no bullshit stories and actionable tools to help you feel unshakably worthy. You have everything you need within you to feel whole, full and alive right here, right now. Let's get into it.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full and Alive. I'm so freaking grateful that you're here. Thank you so much for tuning in. I am so glad that you and I are connected in some way, shape or form, and you want to tune in today to hear what we have to say about feeling more whole, full and alive.
So before we dive into today's episode, let's make sure you're feeling a little more grounded right now. Before we dive into this whirlwind of an episode, we actually talked about a lot of different things, let's take a nice deep breath. Actually before you take a deep breath, wherever you are, take a few shoulder rolls. Roll your shoulders all the way up towards your ears and all the way down your back.
Just create a little more opening and spaciousness and your upper body, and then relax your shoulders away from your ears. Maybe stretch your neck side to side, and then if it's safe to do so, you can close down your eyes. If not, if you're driving, if you're walking, just take a nice deep breath in through your nose, hold and exhale. Let it go. One more nice deep breath like that. Inhale through the nose, hold and nice, long exhale.
If you close your eyes, you can open your eyes. Shake it out. How are you today? I hope that you're ready to hear about a few different things right now. I am so excited about today's episode. Before we get started, I just want to remind you that I have a few spaces open right now for one-on-one coaching. I offer a very unique combination of nutrition counseling, because I'm a registered dietician, with body image coaching, because I'm a body image coach, and also just overall confidence, embodiment and well-being.
So I incorporate a nice combo of nutrition education and meal planning with some body image coaching with some embodiment practices breathwork and things like that to really help you feel whole, full and alive, frankly, to help you really feed yourself well and feel yourself and live your life more fully, freely, authentically and energized. I love one-on-one coaching. It lights me all the way up.
So I have just probably one or two spaces available by the time this episode comes out. So if you're interested, you can visit my website fullsoulnutrition.com to book a free consultation to see if it's a good fit for you. I'll also have group coaching open pretty soon, and my Whole, Full and Alive toolkit is a collection of mini workshops, journal prompts, actionable experiments, that's also always available for purchase on my website if you're looking for more of a self-directed thing.
So let's get into today's episode. My amazing guest, Whitney Catalino, is a VIP in my life, actually, a very important person to me. She actually was my first ever business coach. She was the person who kind of helped me take a jump off of a cliff in order to start my own private practice and really go full time in it in the year 2020. Since that time, Whitney has completely pivoted her own business.
She actually was a registered dietician, when I started working with her, and now she is a self worth and alignment coach. She's going to tell you the story about how she just completely changed her career and decided not to be a dietitian anymore after being incredibly successful in her private practice and getting a book deal and dropping the book deal and really cool story, all of that stuff she's going to share.
Also, Whitney and I are also going to dive into this topic of being single in your late 20s, and how different people perceive that, and how it feels to be that person and the different types of grief that come with being that person and how it might not be the type of grief that people are expecting you to have when you're a single woman in your late 20s. Whitney and I offer some tangible tools for kind of reframing your mindset around this if you are also a single female in your late 20s, 30s or older, and just kind of processing the many feelings and emotions that come with it.
I'm excited for you to hear this conversation, because honestly, one of the initial reasons why I started this podcast was because I wanted to start a show that could speak to the single female in her late 20s or older, because I felt like there kind of was a lack of that in the podcasting space. There are a bajillion podcasts out there. I know. I know. Also, I feel like there's a lot of podcasts, especially the ones that focus on nutrition, health and wellness with this, like Instagram model type person who has her dream, athletic husband and always talks about how much she loves him.
Like, I just feel like there's such a hyper fixation on partnered women in the wellness space. I wanted to really talk to more women in this space, coaches, healers, people who help people uncover their sense of self worth, who are not partnered, and Whitney is one of many that I've had on the show. Yeah, I want to start talking about this topic a little bit more, so I'm excited that Whitney and I kind of dip our toes into it today, and I hope you find something you need on this episode today.
Even if you are partnered, there is a lot we talked about in relation to self worth, and motivation, talked about procrastination, too. We really do go a little bit all over the place in this episode, and also, I think that speaks to really the multi passionate and authentic person that Whitney Catalano is. She is multi-passionate and fearless about it and not afraid to talk about it, and she also is just really authentic and kind of just go with what's on her heart, and that's something I really, really admire and love about Whitney and the content she shares on social media.
She shares not only content about self-worth and creating an aligned life and finding an aligned career, but she also talks about living with ADHD and coming off of ADHD medications and getting control of your personal finances and just all kinds of things. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. I really enjoyed having this conversation. I can't wait to hear your feedback. Let's dive in. Whitney, thank you so much for being here today.
Whitney: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Caitie: I want to share that Whitney was my first ever business coach.
Whitney: First one, that's crazy.
Caitie: Yeah, not that I've had like 95 business coaches, I've just had like three. But still, it's significant because you came to me at a really pivotal moment in my career when it was 2020, and I lost all my jobs. Like I was working a million different contractor positions, and they were just all gone overnight. It was like I could work in a hospital, or I could put my foot on the gas starting my own business.
I was like whose business do I want to emulate? It was honestly yours because you showed up so frickin’ authentically and had a combination of anti-diet, intuitive eating content, and then just like, authentic, ‘this is me, here's my story’ kind of content. I wasn't seeing a lot of that. I was seeing a lot of really cookie cutter dieticians, a lot of people putting out the same things and so grateful to be able to talk to you in that time because it did a lot for me.
Whitney: Oh good. I'm glad I know. That was a crazy time. I remember you lost your job while we were working together.
Caitie: Yeah, yeah. It was like, well, I lost my last job when we were working together. I started losing my jobs one by one, and then by the time you and I were done working together, I was like, “Okay, I guess I'm a full time entrepreneur. Here we go.”
Whitney: Yeah, you were forced into it.
Caitie: Yeah. It was really beautiful timing. I think that one of the things that really drew me to you is just your energy and who you are. So can you tell everyone who you are? What makes you who you are? What is your energy?
Whitney: I don't know. So when you asked me this question, I really did not know like how to answer this, because there's a lot of things that I know about myself. Like, I'm very intuitive. I can be a little spacey. I like sitting on the couch. I love traveling. I'm very honest, and like, I have absolutely zero filter with my life. I'm very aware, like, I'm just very aware of the world around me and of things that are going on, and I feel like I'm really perceptive.
But I don't know how else to say who I am, really, because I'm always kind of trying to like, de-identify with things that I thought I knew about myself. So yeah, that's the best I got for you.
Caitie: I love it. What's important to me about that question is that people have an opportunity to introduce who they are beyond what they do, because what you do is so important, and also who you are is what makes you so special to people. I just like to start every episode by reminding people that so some people literally say, I don't know, and kind of just like, plop a few things out.
Then some people are like, I have this kind of essence when I walk into a room, and it's great. Either way, I think there's so many different ways to answer that question, and the most important thing is that you are not what you do. But what do you do, Whitney?
Whitney: Great question. I do a number of different things. I'm a business and a life coach, and I help people with purpose and energetic alignment. So I really believe that the things that you do in your career and in your life are much easier when you're doing them, quote, in alignment, and I can't really explain what that means until you experience it for yourself. I work with a lot of creative so people, whether it's entrepreneurs, or coaches, who are also entrepreneurs, or content creators, people, influencers, things like that.
Like people who tend to be a little bit more creative and outside the box and like not a don't take to traditional business advice or productivity advice, or don't fit into capitalism in a traditional way.
Caitie: Can you just briefly share how you ended up becoming or doing what you do today? Because the reason you and I initially connected is because you were initially a dietician, and now, you're working in a totally different space using a totally different set of tools. But how does it make sense that you've arrived here?
Whitney: Yeah, I mean, my business has always been a reflection of what I'm going through. So I became a dietitian, because I had an eating disorder. Then I became an intuitive eating dietitian or food freedom dietitian, because I was healing my eating disorder. Then during COVID, I just realized I was really unhappy talking about the same things over and over again. There's really so many times I can talk about, like binge eating, or like emotional eating, things like that.
I just couldn't do it anymore. Especially after my own recovery journey, I just got to this point where I was like, I felt so pigeon holed in what I was doing, and I made such a name for myself in what I was doing very quickly, because I think the way that I went about it was really unique. Like you even said, I forget if you said it on the podcast or before, but the intuitive eating or dietitian world, it tends to be very cookie cutter, and so I think the way that I was going about it was really unique and vulnerable.
But the flip side of that is like I really pushed myself in this career, and I had a certain number of dietitians that I looked up to as career goals. I just felt trapped and was like, “Oh my god, I can't keep doing this. This is not the business that I want.” So during the pandemic, right when the pandemic hit, I had a book deal, and I was supposed to be writing the book, and I just couldn't do it.
I realized in writing that book that if I published that book, four to six months later, I would then be on the hook for marketing it for like a year and a half, and that I would be really trapped in one career path for like two years. I would still probably be in the marketing of that book right now. Like I may just now be able to move on. I burned it all down. I was like, “I can't do this.” So I switched into what I knew to do, which I had learned a lot about business coaching at that point.
I had learned a lot about what it means to put yourself out there online, and I just kind of started inventing things over the past two and a half years, and it's grown. Now really what I'm doing is not only a reflection of where I'm at as a content creator, as a business owner as all these things, but it's also a reflection on my journey with ADHD and learning how to manage that. It's a reflection of what I see in the economy, how we're moving towards a creative economy.
There are more and more people becoming freelancers and entrepreneurs and things like that, so I want to be part of that. So that's how I got to where I am now.
Caitie: So good. Thank you so much for sharing all that in such an elevator pitch kind of way. There were so many big things that you just shared there that I kind of went all over on. I shared with you off mic that one of the main reasons I'm so excited to have you on the show today is because you recently shared about what it's like to be single as a 20 year old female, what that feels like, what it feels like to be living in the world as a single 28 year old female entrepreneur, 29 year old, you actually are — I’m 28, but also, same thing.
There's so much duality in that, right? There's so much that's so good, and empowering, and energizing and glass ceiling breaking about that, and there's also so much that's kind of filled with grief and discomfort. I kind of want to keep on that theme for this episode when we talk about other things, too. I mean, you gave up a book deal.
You let go of a book deal, and I'm sure that was something that was so empowering, and energizing, and groundbreaking, and then also something that was filled with a good amount of shame and doubt. So before we dive into the other thing I want to talk to you about today, can you tell us a little bit more about what that was like to give up that book deal?
Whitney: So I actually didn't really have any shame and doubt around that, which was funny, because you would think, but I think I was manic during COVID or hypomanic. There's a huge chunk of time where I was like going through it.
Caitie: Yeah.
Whitney: Specifically when I quit the book deal, it was the best way that I can describe it is that something like took over my body and redirected me onto a path that I needed to be on. It was like, “No, you're going the wrong way.” That shifted me over. I remember I called my mom crying because I could not, for the life of me, write this book. It was a book about emotional eating, like that was my expertise.
I could not, for the life of me, write the book, and it was more than just, “Oh, writing a book is hard.” It was like there's something physically blocking me from writing this book. So yeah, I called my mom crying, and I was like, “I think I need to quit this book. I can't.” They weren't giving me any more extensions. It turns out the book deal, honestly, was horrible. It was a horrible book deal, and I found that out after the fact because I didn't have an agent.
So they really took advantage of me when they hit me up to write a book. That's a word of warning to any coach or dietician, or whatever it is, publishers will show up in your inbox and pitch you this, like you're gonna have a book deal and all this stuff, and they'll screw you. They'll absolutely screw you. They'll totally take advantage of you, and you'll have no idea until you have a three month deadline and are like scrambling and then you make no money on it.
So that I found out after the fact, like thank God, but no, I really was just like I couldn't do it. So I just called my mom, and I was like, “Can I quit?” and she was like, “I think that's a good idea. You're obviously really stressed out and really unwell.” So I gave back the advance, and it was so freeing. The hardest part of that whole process was the backlash that I got from people who took it really personally that I got a book deal, probably people who wished they could get a book deal honestly.
But like even close family friends, I got a series of emails from a family friend condemning me and calling me a brat and saying I was making the biggest mistake of my life and all this shit. It was like, the more backlash I got, the more I knew that my decision was correct because I was just like you couldn't possibly understand why this is right for me, it just is.
Caitie: So like the light and dark of that wasn't necessarily coming from you. It was coming from like all the empowerment and the reassurance was coming from you, but there was just some backlash from people outside of you who had a different agenda or their own feelings.
Whitney: People did have a lot of agendas about what I should and should not do, and people were very confused because it wasn't long after I quit the book deal that I announced that I was pivoting my business and I had a lot of people be like, because my Instagram handle used to be trustyourbodyproject. So a lot of people were like, “Well, what happened to trust your body? What happened to everything you've taught us? What happened to this?”
I was like, “If you don't see that I am trusting my body then, you clearly don't get it.” Like, you know?
Caitie: Yeah, I think that's also a really important part to pull over on to you is that it makes so much sense that you ended up where you are. Yes, you went from being a dietitian to being more of a, how do you want to label yourself right now?
Whitney: I call myself a life and business coach. I really resisted those terms for a long time because it sounded so basic. Like telling people I'm a life coach is just, but I mean, whatever.
Caitie: Yes.
Whitney: Whatever.
Caitie: Yeah. I mean, your life and business coach that focuses specifically more on self-worth productivity with ADHD.
Whitney: Alignment, things like that.
Caitie: Alignment and money mindset kind of stuff. You'll just look at Whitney's Instagram, you'll see. But you went from being a dietician to doing that. You still have the same mission.
Whitney: Right.
Caitie: Yeah, you still do all the same shit.
Whitney: It’s all the same thing. I just don’t have to talk about food anymore. Thank God. Geez, I just could not. It was really hard for me to be in the nutrition field for as long as I was and to imagine myself continuing to be in it, because even though there were things that I loved, and I'm so grateful for intuitive eating, and I'm grateful for all of that.
There's just only so much that I can talk about protein online, or I can answer questions from people who are scared of gaining weight, you know. I just couldn't anymore. I was like, I don't care anymore.
Caitie: Yeah.
Whitney: I just don't care. I don't care about people's bodies in that way anymore. I'm much more invested and I always was this way. I'm much more invested in, are you living a life that makes you happy. Like intuitive eating was the vehicle for that, was the vehicle for helping people live a life that made them happy.
Caitie: So really, I think that can be such a helpful practice for people who feel somewhat stuck in their careers right now is trying to distill, what is the mission, what is the thing that is important to you, and is there more than one way for you to kind of fulfill that mission? Do you have to talk about intuitive eating in order to help people feel happy and fulfilled in their lives?
The answer for you was like, “No, there's a million different ways I can do it, and there's another way I'd rather do this.” Yeah, that's got my wheels turning a lot.
Whitney: Yeah. And it was interesting, because it was like, I was doing this same work of like purpose and fulfillment and alignment and self confidence and self worth and all this stuff with my clients long before I pivoted, you know, because my clients only ever hired me for six months, sometimes even a year. I have a client who I'm still working with like three and a half years later, you know? We’re wrapping up, she had a really serious eating disorder. So it was like, we've just been together a long time.
But my clients have always worked with me around the stuff, communication boundaries, like the people who came to me when I was in this work, we're always people who struggle with boundaries, struggle with self confidence, hyper fixated on their body, hyper fixated on trying to control everything in their life. And that's exactly the people that I work with now, except we don't talk about food and bodies we talk about, like, everything else. And I don't have to pretend to market about food or bodies anymore to get these clients.
That was just my marketing strategy was like getting people in the door who struggled with dieting, but then it's like, once they were in the door, they were like, well, there's all these other issues. And I was like, duh.
Caitie: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, and it was. So what basically happened was that you realized you were kind of living a life that was completely out of alignment. You didn't want to be counseling on food and body image anymore. And when that book deal came, it was like, a really in your face thing of like, do you really want to talk about this? Because you're gonna have to talk about this for 500 pages.
Whitney: And I'm gonna have to- I was on the hook for marketing the book for like, a year and a half. They weren't going to do the marketing for me. That was my job. It's not just writing the book. It's everything that came along with having a book published in a certain field, and realizing I would need to do some sort of book tour. I would need to like really double down on my eating content and grow my channels like around eating and food and emotional eating.
I was like, Oh, my God, I literally cannot do this. I cannot be known for this. I cannot spend- I used to joke about this, but I was like, I cannot spend another day going to a bar telling men that I'm like an intuitive eating dietitian and then they were asking me for diets. And I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna cry.
I used to lie about what I did all the time. Because the questions are so stupid.
Caitie: I get it I got. So I'm curious. You said your business used to be called trust your body or Instagram, at least, was the trust your body project and you realized you weren't living in alignment with that trust your body thing if you were going to continue writing this book. And so you decided, okay, I'm going to trust my body and not write this book. Right? How did you know what your body was saying? How did you tune into your body?
Whitney: It was freaking screaming at me. But in 2019 I really started to burn out because my business blew up really, really fast like in the beginning of 2019 it went from, you know, I had a couple clients here and there too, all of a sudden, I was booked out for months and months. It was a number of factors that led to that.
But by the end of 2019, I really, I was so like, in love with the amount of money that I was making. And I was in love with the work that I was doing because again, the clients that I was working with are not dissimilar from the clients I'm still working with. It's just the way that I market it has changed.
But I was just really burnt out. And I remember I got really drunk one night with my friend like, October, November, somewhere around there. 2019. I remember I told her, really drunkenly, I was like, I don't know how much longer I can do this, like, I'm not, I'm feeling really like, this isn't for me. Then I kind of just shelved it and was like, whatever, because I had just gotten the book deal. So I was like, oh, I have to do this, like, I just got to deal with it. Like my career is taking off. This is everything I've ever wanted.
I was really fixated on the metric of what it meant to appear successful to people. I was really fixated on proving myself that I could do this — I got a really successful business and, you know, be the I wanted to be like the Marie Forleo of dieticians or I don't even know what I wanted.
But it was this very egoic idea of what success was. And in 2020, when I couldn't- I can't even explain to you what it means to like, hear my body say, “No.” It's just a full, it's not just your normal “resistance because this feels scary.” It's like, everything in my body was screaming at me, like every, so I could not do it. I could not do it. I just remember I woke up one morning, and I was freaking out. And I like I just know.
It's really hard for me to even talk about too, because it's like, intuition has always been something that is like one of my strengths and one of my unexplained gifts. So it's hard for me to even explain what it feels like for something to be a full-body “no”, except that it was just a full-body “no.”
Caitie: You talk with a lot of your clients now about toeing that line between resistance to doing something and then just actually really not wanting to do it or not being capable of doing it or your brain is just like, not in it right now. So how can you kind of apply some of that teaching, I guess, to looking at your decision to flip your business? How did you know it was not just resistance to actually writing a book, which is a hard thing to do, even if you want to do it even if your full body is like in the mission and vision of the book and it's a great deal and whatever? How do you determine the resistance to just doing a hard thing? And then resistance to this entire career?
Whitney: Yeah, it requires a lot of practice to figure out whether it's resistance because you're afraid or it's resistance because it's not right for you.
I have done a lot of things. I've diverted my plans or abandoned plans or whatever, because of fear. And I told myself at the time, oh, no, this is resistance because it's not aligned for me. I've talked a lot online about how I used to mistake boredom for misalignment.
So as soon as I would get bored with doing something in my business, I would try to change everything again, like, you know, in the two years that I pivoted my business between, you know, when I first pivoted and actually figuring it out earlier this year, I tried on a number of different paths and approaches and ways to define myself and offers and all of these things because I was resisting being bored and actually committing to something in a meaningful way.
Over time, that's helped me realize that the resistance from fear usually it feels intense. But usually what happens is you have this voice inside of you, that's like, I still want this, I still want this, I still want this. And the idea keeps coming back. So what I like to do is I like to drop the idea for a week or two. So if I'm feeling resistance out of fear, or any sort of resistance, really, I'll drop it for a week or two. I will actually stop thinking about it, not drop it and obsess about it, but drop it fully.
Then over the next week or two, I'll kind of sit with this question of like, do I actually want to do this thing? And usually I get an intuitive hit that like, yes, I want to do this thing or like no, I actually don't want to do this thing. And that's how I know. I kind of I wait on it. I honor the resistance at first, but I don't make any decisions until I have more clarity. And usually there's this voice that saying, Yes, I still want to do this thing. It's just scary or yes, it's challenging, or yes but this and that versus like, God, no, this is not right for me.
Caitie: I like that note about honoring the resistance. I think that's something that I talk with my clients about a lot because you have to honor the feelings that you're having. You have to lean into the feelings that you're having, whether that feeling is sadness or grief or frustration or absolute bliss and happiness, leaning all the way in allows you to really ride the wave of that emotion.
So I think that applies to even resistance to a task too.
It's like, what if I didn’t fully lean into this, didn't just push my way through the task, and didn't just kind of white knuckle my way through the resistance, and then just like, ignore it, or bandage it, lean into it, and let yourself drop the thing, even if it's for like I imagine, like 20 minutes would be helpful to in like, some micro situation where you don't have that one week break.
Whitney: Yeah. And sometimes it turns into months. You know, people always ask me, Well, how do I know I'm not just being lazy? How do I know I'm not just, you know, whatever? How do I know I'm honoring their resistance, as opposed to overly indulging in my fear. And I'm like, well, you don’t. Doesn’t matter. Maybe you move a little bit slower than your ego wants to, or than someone else might. That's okay, I fully accepted that when I move fast, I move really fast. But when I move slow, I move really slow.
I'm in the process of creating a membership site. And really all that means is that I have been sitting on this idea for like six to nine months, and very slowly writing notes for the sales page. As soon as I — it'll happen in January — but as soon as I'm ready to do the thing, it'll be up and ready in like two weeks, like y'all will hear about it so fast. But I've just been sitting on it.
I've accepted that, you know, I just move slowly on certain things because I need time to sit within my body. And sure it may appear lazy or unmotivated to other people. But that's okay. That's my process.
Caitie: Which is different than how you approached the trust your body business, which was like, as soon as you got an idea, you kind of went in for it. And the sales page was up really quickly. And like everything just happened so fast, because you weren't taking that time to like to sit in with the resistance?
Whitney: Well, I mean, I still have always done this, I've still always taken time to sit in because I've always had a lot of fear that comes up around doing things. \I'd say that because I think a lot of people think that, you know, when you get to a certain level of success, you just don't have fear and that's just not true. I've always had a lot of fear doing things, I was also on a lot of Adderall. So like I was able to move a lot faster back then. Getting off of Adderall last year forced me to like, actually honor my body's timing, which was frustrating at first, but now it's just it is what it is.
Caitie: And that's another thing that you've talked really openly about, too, is coming off of Adderall and living with ADHD and being a business owner with ADHD. That's another one of the ways that you've shared that this whole journey just like hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy to go from being a dietician to being a business and life coach. It hasn't been easy, in a logistical sense. Just having to make that drop of the book deal and then having people in your ear saying “What are you doing?”
Hasn't been easy — I'm sure you've shared that it hasn't been easy financially, and a lot of ways you had to really change your relationship with money. You've also shared that it hasn't been easy to enter a new phase of life, which is the late 20s into the 30s getting near the exiting 20s And, and being a single person.
Whitney: Yeah, I like to learn things the hard way. So that's, that's the joke that I like to make. It’s like, you know, I'm here clearly to like go through some shit and learn things the hard way. Because it makes for a good story. Like people love it. People love that I go through so much shit. I'm not always trying to go through shit. Let's be clear. But like, it is funny, because it does perfectly feed into my career.
That's exactly why I shared you I was feeling about being 29 and single and all of that, which I know I opened myself up for so much misunderstanding when I shared that and that kind of got under my skin. I can't even lie. But for the most part, the comments were really understanding and for really like, oh my god, you put into words everything I've been thinking, which is the whole reason why I shared it.
Caitie: Yeah. I mean, you shared it, because it's also one piece of the puzzle in this whole thing. I think there's so many individuals online who are perhaps having similar career shifts to you. There's so many freaking business coaches online — let's not pretend but there aren't so many business coach personalities on Instagram right now or people who are like, I made this pivot from my corporate job to my entrepreneurial freelance life. Here's what it looked like before and here's what it is after. And there is still a big problem with like the highlight reel, and the fancy sunsets and the fancy vacations and it's like and then I manifested my dream partner.
TThat's not what your page is. That's something that appeals to me so much, because I don't think that there's enough of that. I think there's a lot of “I went from my nine to five and then to my freelance life and then I went from my single life, or my not so great relationship life to manifesting my dream partner.”
There's so many of us hanging out in this phase where we're like, I don't really know if I want to manifest the dream partner. And I actually haven't figured out fully what my business is yet. And I see that come alive on your page. And I see you describe that really well.
Whitney: Yeah, it's interesting, because it's like, you know, people always love to say, I think the most interesting comment that I got on that post, from a lot of people was the oh, you know, you'll figure it out. Just accept yourself. Just trust the timing. I'm like, when did I ever say that I didn't believe that. Like, when did I ever say that I didn't think that I would figure it out? When did I ever say that I wasn't trusting the time and when did I ever- you're like assuming that I feel a certain way because so many people feel that way.
They're antsy. They're trying to control their life. They're trying to control their timing. They're in so much despair over the fact that they're not in a relationship yet. They're honestly making themselves miserable over the fact that they're being single. I like it. I like being single. I'm just scared for all my- the way that I explained it to my friends was: I'm perfect. You guys are moving really fast. I am great. Why are you guys running to have babies because the minute that you have babies, you're going to leave me behind?
That was the thing I was trying to communicate was like, just don't remember how we got this old. I still want to go to bars with all my friends and hit on people like I don't- You guys want to breastfeed? I just don't. It hasn't clicked for me yet.
So that was really what I was trying to communicate: that there was a lot of people projecting, like an unwillingness to accept the in-between onto me and saying, “Oh, don't worry,” like almost condescending me in that way. I think that is a testament to how little the in-between is talked about and how much we bypass grief and bypass the feelings of being in the in-between, by saying these really placating cliches of like, “As soon as you stop looking!” Like, “When you least expect-” I'm like, shut up. I've been single for seven years. Like, I know, I've heard it, like, shut the fuck up!
Caitie: Yeah, and it's like, almost like people try to pacify you from having to feel the grief parts of being a single person. There are so many awesome things about being a single person. I'm like, publish an episode about it. Because I don't think that part's talked about to like, what is so cool about being single as an adult. And as an adult that knows yourself, like not settling down with the person when you were like, that you met when you were like a half baked 23 year old, like that didn't know themselves?
Whitney: If I married that person, I would be so divorced, I'd be so divorced. You know, like, that's, I know that there are people who get married in their early 20s. And like, stay together and are actually happy. Not me. I was a mess.
Caitie: Right. And I’m the same like I'm like, I accept it. If that is something that you had success with, and you're legitimately happy, and in a really good balanced partnership from the person you met when you were 23. So cool. That wouldn't have been me at all, personally, dating when I was 23. We're not for each other. And also, so being single and dating as an adult, both really, really cool things. And there's really difficult parts about it too. But we don't need to be pacified through that. We don't necessarily need someone to say oh, it's okay. Just wait, hold on. It's when you stop looking.
Whitney: Yeah, because it's like, I know all of that stuff. First of all, I cannot even get myself to go on dating apps for longer than five minutes. I cannot get myself to go on dating apps for longer than five minutes because I'm not a visual dater. I'm an energetic dater, which is also part of my frustration because when all my friends are in relationships, I meet less and less new people because they stopped bringing around single people. And so then I had a very long talk with my friends this weekend saying, “You have to start making single friends and introducing me to them.” Because I don't know how I'm gonna meet someone!
Like the dating apps. I just can't I can't do it. So it's just very funny to me. And people were like, oh, when you stop looking, I'm like, I have not been looking I promise. I'm not looking. I really like being single. I'm really happy. I sometimes worry about meeting the right person before I've had a chance to like go live abroad and go go travel for like six to nine months. You know what I mean? Like it's something that I'm looking to do next year, or. I don't know but that's also the thing it’s like, three weddings next year and that's a light year. So like,
Caitie: Right and yeah, there's a form of spontaneous adventure that's available when you're single that becomes unavailable, when you're in relationship, people can deny it left and right. It's just so true that there is a form of spontaneous fun that you get to have when you're single that doesn't happen when you're partnered, especially depending on who you're partnered with and what their work situation their life situation is, right.
So that is like, that's like key, that spontaneous fun, that ability to just have a sense of adventure, and to just never know what's going to happen when you wake up in the morning, it kind of fades a little bit when you're in a relationship. And it's not necessarily bad, because there's so many beautiful things about being in a relationship.
Whitney: There’s a lot of people who like that, you know, there's a lot of people who crave that routine and the, and the consistency and the support. I do too, to a certain extent, I also fully expect that the person that I end up with is just as much of a travel bug as I am, you know? I also expect that I will probably end up with an entrepreneur because I can't possibly imagine, like coming or talking to someone who doesn't get it in the same way, you know? Or doesn't have that sort of ambition, or at the very least, doesn't have that sort of freedom in their schedule to be able to pick up and go and go across the world.
Caitie: Right. And I think in general, what's coming through for me right now is that there's just a lot of assumptions that are made about people who are single at our age, I was at a bridal shower with friends recently. And someone came up to me because I've been single for about nine months. Now, someone came up to me and was like, “Caitie, I just heard about your breakup. I'm so sorry.” She literally said, “I'm so sorry,” with sad face.
I was like, oh, I cannot believe that. You first of all, just feel like you can just make an assumption that I'm sad. How do you know that I'm sad? How do you know I didn't instigate the breakup? I had just gotten back from Portugal, like 48 hours before, like on like a really nice solo adventure. It was so amazing. And this person comes up to me and takes my hand is like, “I'm so sorry.”
But these assumptions really also remind me of what I was just saying to you, when I was like, oh, there was probably a lot of grief that came with giving up the book deal, and also a lot of upsides. And you were like, actually, it felt like kind of just like a full-body yes. Yeah, it kind of it seems to kind of mirror each other a little bit.
Whitney: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's interesting, because I made this video on TikTok. I made a video on TikTok talking about how I don't ever say “I'm sorry” to people who go through breakups. Never. I have a rule. It goes: if people are going to break up, I go, “Oh, how are you feeling?” I'll say, “How are you feeling?” first to kind of test the waters. Usually I'll say congratulations. And then sometimes people give me a weird look when I say that especially if they're in the thick of like, it's bad.
But like, my instinct is to say congratulations, because I've never seen a relationship end where it was for the worst. You know, I've never seen a relationship end where it was for the worst, it's always for the best. So I like to honor that. Even if it's really sad and full of grief, I like to honor that.
Caitie: Yeah. And it just reminds me that there are so many relationships that start but are not for the best. And a lot of people are so quick and ready to celebrate, oh, you're in a new relationship, let's celebrate it. This is amazing. This is the best thing that ever happened to you. We're so quick to assume that every new relationship that starts is for the best, and not so quick to assume that an ending or a breakup or a transition, in that sense, is something that is for the best for both people.
Whitney: It's very interesting to see the response of people where when you get engaged, or get married, obviously getting engaged, getting married, it's a huge deal. I'm never going to stop celebrating that for my friends. But like I pivoted my business, for example. And that was a big deal. Like that was like a monumental life changing moment for me.
Did not get the kind of like, you know? It was a lot of people who were just concerned, because people don't know, people project their fear of change onto other people so much, unless it's change that's societally accepted, like getting engaged, getting married, having kids, even if the person that you're marrying is awful.
I see engagements all the time now, where I know for a fact that one of the people in the relationship has been screwing around, you know? And all the comments of other people who also know this to be true are like, “Oh my god, congratulations. This is amazing.” And I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing?
Caitie: Yeah, I really appreciate that you bring that up because of course it comes full circle to what we were talking about before. You pivoting your business you choosing to make that change in a world that is not set up for single female solopreneurs to be successful, is huge. I've said a million times how much I appreciate that you share the financial hardship of that and the emotional hardship of making that decision.
I think I appreciate more, though, that you share how fucking awesome that is, and that you're owning it all the way. How often do we see people start to become entrepreneurs and then kind of back away from it — especially women, especially single female solopreneurs?
It's so easy to back away from doing the thing. Because even just today, my health insurance was canceled out of literally nowhere. I had no idea and I had to find a new health insurance in like 24 hours to get that January 1 enrollment date. And it was so annoying.
I was like, What am I doing? They just decided to stop supplying insurance to Colorado and just didn't notify me. Like the company is leaving Colorado, not having coverage. And they just canceled it. I went to go make a doctor’s appointment, unaware that I didn't have health insurance. And they’re like, you're not on this plan anymore. And I was like, oh, okay.
This is entrepreneurship. And this is what it's like to be a female solopreneur at 28 is having these crappy health insurances, and people telling you to get married to a man who works in finance.
Whitney: Yes, yes, I know, it's wild. It is very interesting. The membership that I'm creating is literally for people who are at the start of this journey. Because the hardest part of starting this journey is the mental and emotional piece. It's not the strategy piece. Everyone thinks that strategy. It's not.
The basics of marketing are available anywhere. Like you can pick up any marketing book, and you will learn the basics of how to market your business. You can go to a number of different websites and learn how to file an LLC. You can hire a tax person, whatever. It's the mental and emotional piece of it, it's the like, there will be people who you have had in your life, your entire life, who love you dearly, who will actively try to talk you out of it, and be like you're making a mistake.
There are going to be people who literally just are looking at evidence that you are failing, because they themselves just don't get why someone would want to leave the, “stability” for a life like this. But this life is like, in my opinion, if you're called for this — and I don't think everyone is, I don't think everyone is called to be an entrepreneur. Most people are not. But if you're called for this, this life is so much more fulfilling, in my opinion.
Caitie: I think that you can take it and apply it copy paste it to anything that anyone's kind of taking a leap to do. So maybe someone is thinking about taking a leap and becoming an entrepreneur and they've got their family, their loved ones in their ear saying don't do that, don't leave stability, you're making a mistake, maybe someone else is just like, you know, staying at the job they have right now with a salary.
But they feel called to travel somewhere for a month by themselves or like take on a new hobby, or just do something that is unconventional and the people who supposedly have their best interests at heart are kind of in their ear telling them you're making a horrible mistake, I think that you can take this to anyone who wants to do something that's outside the box of what people can understand at face value quickly.
Whitney: Because they'll project their fear onto you like that's, that's really what it boils down to. So like, I always tell people don't take it personally, if you want to do these things that are outside the box, whether it's entrepreneurship or not, don't take it personally, because it's people's fear. It's other people's fear that they're projecting onto you.
It's kind of like that thing that parents do sometimes where they're like, “Oh, well, the world is harsh. So I'm going to be harsh to my kid in advance so they get it at home, as opposed to in the real world.” And it's like, well, you just screwed up your kid way more than the real world would have, you know? You could have been the person who gives your kids so much self confidence and self esteem so that they can handle the real world, not break them down in advance so that they're expecting to be broken down. That's not how this works.
So people do the exact same thing with like, dreams that don't stay within a certain box. It's like well, let me let me project all my fears onto you so that you're too scared to do it. So that if something were to go wrong, you don't even have to be in that situation.
Caitie: And something that I think is one of those “unconventional outside the box” kind of thing is is not rushing for a marriage in your late 20s. Not rushing.
Whitney: Oh my god, yes. Oh my god. Literally like what is the rush guys? I mean, I get it and this is what I talked about in my post is the baby thing. I get- I do get the baby thing. I don't personally have that feeling of wanting a baby, which makes it hard for me to really understand. I think that alone comes with a lot of grief of. Like, am I gonna get that? Am I gonna get that feeling? Does that show up one day when you're with the partner that you want to procreate with? Or is that, you know, are there just some people in the world who just don't?
I mean, Chelsea Handler, right. She talks about this all the time. But it's like, I do get people who really want to be parents are in a rush, but at what cost? First of all, that's going to be an expensive divorce. And second of all, I heard and this is a little bit bleak, so sorry, in advance, but I have a friend on TikTok named Maddie and she makes a lot of content. She's a single mom. And she was talking about how even when she was with her partner, raising their child together, you're always a single mom, to some extent, because moms are always on the hook for more than dads are in hetero relationships, right?
Moms are always on the hook for more of the responsibility. And that ever since I heard her say that, that has just been ringing in my head as so true. Another reason why it is so important to be mindful about who you decide to partner with.
Caitie: Yeah, and it's another thing: women are always on the hook with this biological clock, which is something that you wrote about in your post, which is that men to some extent, do get to run around a little bit more loosely and freely into later stages of their life, not with a worry in the world that they might not be able to have a kid because-
Whitney: They will be able to! I know so many guys who are like easily not going to grow up till they're, you know, in their mid 40s, who are just in their mid 30s getting their first relationship and learning how to like not be avoidantLY attached to the point that they hurt everyone that comes in contact with them. You know what I mean? It's just wild to watch because that to me, we do have to grow up a lot faster, not only in adolescence, but in adulthood as well.
Caitie: And therefore, when we want to step outside the box and do something unconventional, whether it is start an unconventional business, or just travel to an unconventional place, or do an unconventional hobby or whatever, all these things that I was saying before, we have to calculate our biological clock in there somewhere if we're one of the people who does feel called to have a kid and I can speak on the end of that I am someone who feels deeply called to be a mother.
It is really difficult to be in this place where I feel like I've got no long term, no long term relationship partner plan in sight. And people in my ear kind of saying, well, well, when is that coming? What are you doing? And then I'm also trying to be a single female entrepreneur at the same time.
Whitney: Yeah, exactly. I mean, if it makes you feel any better, my mom had me at 42 because she was engaged a number of times prior to my dad. And the engagements didn't work out because the men were trash probably. She ended up meeting my dad at 40. They dated for six months. And she was like, “Okay, you either have to marry me or get out. I am literally out of time.” And so, you know, it was very expensive to have me but they had me somehow and she wanted more than one kid. But, you know, I was a medical miracle as it was. So. But that gives me a lot of hope. Because I'm like, well, that's my gene pool. So yeah, that gives me I figured, I have a decade.
Caitie: Yeah. I feel like that's a very spiritual moment for me onl this podcast.
Whitney: Good. Really tell everyone about that. Like it. Yeah, it may be an expensive process if you wait till 40, 41, 42. But it's not impossible. But anyway, yes. And that was in the 90s. That was in the early 90s. So it's like.
Caitie: Yeah, people weren't doing that, then. That's not that's not nearly as common as it is now.
Whitney: Yeah, my mom had nine fertilized eggs. There were nine of me and I was the survivor. So I was always going to be a little bit rambunctious, I think. Resilient.
Caitie: That's actually so cool. I think it makes so much sense, honestly. As we're moving towards the end of our conversation, though, I do want to see if we can pull something tangible from this, what you were describing before about how it is the mindset that gets in the way, when people do want to break out of the box.
What are the tools that you offer people for mindset that you feel like you don't see enough business coaches offering to clients that kind of inspired you to break into this field instead of staying in dietetics?
Whitney: Okay, that I don't see a lot of people talking about. I mean, I think for starters, is just accepting yourself. One, accepting your desires. I think a huge problem is that people do not accept their own desires. They have these desires to do certain things and then they shame themselves or judge themselves or get in their own way and then shame themselves for getting in their own way. Like it's this cycle of judgment that it will go round and round till you go crazy. So it's for starters, like accepting that you have these desires that are different and that you have them for a reason, I think it’s huge.
Then the second thing is just that, like, you will fail, you will embarrass yourself, you will fuck up you will, like be terrible at something at first. You will. All of the things you're afraid of, except for like, the actual big fears like being homeless or being in a place where you're like, never gonna be able to pull yourself out. But all these little failure, fears of not being perfect and fear of screwing up and fear of failure, whatever. They're gonna happen, get over it, like get over it. You have to. You have to do it.
Caitie: You will be judged is a big one that I say to my people.
Whitney: Oh my god. When I was pivoting, I had a girl DM me, and she was like, yeah, you've just been seeming like pretty unhinged recently. And I was like, well, I feel unhinged! So what! You know?
Caitie: Thank you for delivering your judgments directly into my DMs!
Whitney: Like, I know, like, we're going through a global pandemic, I'm pivoting my business, I'm absolutely spiraling. I'm borderline manic, I swear on my life. I haven't really slept in days. Like, I know. You don't have to tell me that.
Yeah, so it's like, you are gonna embarrass yourself. And it's fine, because you'll get on your feet. And that's your story. That transformation, the things that you overcome to get here, it's not only your initiation, it's not only required for this, you cannot do things outside of the box without going through this, like, dark night of the soul initiation period. But it is your transformation story.
Caitie: Yeah, I love that. I love how that applies to things beyond entrepreneurship. Because I'm just thinking of a friend right now that is thinking about moving across the country with no real reason to. There's a lot of fears that come with that and a lot of judgments that are coming from her parents who live pretty conventional lives.
When those things, those hardships, those lonely nights, those financial blips inevitably happen? You're right, that is your story. That is how you become who you are. You could stay exactly where you are, and not do the thing that you're contemplating doing. But then how do you become the person that you're intended to be?
I think that that's so cool that you said you have these desires for a reason, because that kind of brings it back to what you're saying about how, when those things happen, those really hard things happen and you have a story to tell because of them, that's who you become.
Whitney: Yeah, exactly. And it's like, people always ask me, you know, how am I so vulnerable and authentic online and all this stuff. And it's like, I'm just sharing in real time. It's really not, there's no secret to it. There's no like, there's no thing that I'm doing that someone else can't do. It's just that everyone else is trying too hard to be perfect.
I'm just like, this is what's happening because I'm building my story, in real time, and then I get to go back and say, well, this is my story. And like, a lot of you saw me go through it.
Caitie: That's really, really inspiring to me, actually. I do feel like that is one of the things that not a lot of coaches are sharing is just like, let yourself be imperfect. Let yourself go through it. Right now. Go through it in real time, share in real time and accept that, yeah, you're not going to like build the thing, and then start sharing the thing. It's like you can share along the way.
Whitney: It's more powerful if you do. People will respect you more, people will, you know, it's- people prefer it if you do, so it's not even just like, it's okay. It's necessary, especially in the direction that our society is going. We value vulnerability and authenticity more than anything else, and not just in a buzzword way, but like in a really real way. So just lean into it.
Caitie: Yeah, I mean, that's what I've learned on this podcast, too, is that I could like try to spend all this time preparing for interviews, and I can have the perfect questions. And I can have an arc and a structure that I want the episode to go in. Nothing does better than when I just relaxed after the first 15 minutes of the interview. And I'm just having a chat.
Whitney: Exactly.
Caitie: So I love to end all the episodes with a processing prompt and an actionable experiment that people can kind of take away and apply in their lives. So the processing prompts can be thought of as a journaling prompt, but it could also be thought of just as a prompt as something that you can use to talk to another person, to talk to yourself on an audio note on your phone to just sort of think about what is something that you think you can invite people to process when it comes to breaking away from these sort of conventional ways of doing things? Whether that's related to relationships and dating or that's related to what you did with your career.
Whitney: I would say, to sit down and like uncensored — do not censor yourself — ask “If I guaranteed that it would be successful, if I could guarantee that I would be successful, what would I do?” Whether it's a life change or career change, whatever. What would I do? What would my life look like? What would I do if I can guarantee that it would work out?
Be really, really mindful of when your brain tries to tell you oh, but it won't. You know. Be really mindful of your brain trying to censor it, just do the, just do it, you know? Do that writing prompt, and let me know what you decide or like what it is? And then what was the second thing?
Caitie: That was the only question. I just said, what is the processing prompt that you invite people to explore, and I think that's so cool. If I knew I was going to be successful, what would I do? What are the desires that I have? I honestly think that that applies to dating in adulthood, too.
If you knew that there was a person out there that had all the things that you felt you're searching for in a partner — and we're not talking like six feet, and blonde and whatever,. Those really, really surface level things — but the actually tangibly specific things maybe like, they are an entrepreneur, maybe they do hold this really specific set of values. Maybe they have been to this specific type of therapy, or whatever it is, what would you do?
Whitney: Yeah, and like, if you knew you would be okay. Would you stay with your partner currently? Like, if you could guarantee that like you, you're gonna be okay, no matter what, would you stay?
Caitie: Oh, that's, oh, my gosh, I just feel like full body chills hearing that. Because that is ultimately the question that I ended up asking myself when I ended my last relationship is that like, if I knew everything was gonna be okay, and things were gonna work out, and there are going to be a million opportunities for me at the end of the road, would I still be with this person? Answer was absolutely not. I need to get out of here. And I think that's so beautiful. And I hope that someone who needs to hear that right now.
Whitney: Life's too short to be with shitty people, you know? Yeah, it just is what it is.
Caitie: Yeah. And I also think this idea of settling is becoming another buzzword of like, oh, don't settle, don't settle. But just to make it a little bit more tangible and a little bit less buzzwordy: what you were saying before, about how you have the desires that you have for a reason.
If there's something that you're desiring to have in a partner, and you're in a relationship, and your current partner does not have that thing that you're legitimately desiring to feel, to feel safe, to feel your best, to feel your happiest, or you're kind of like dating around and you haven't found that person who has that thing yet, trust that you have that desire for a reason. There's a reason you need that thing. You can explore and figure out what that reason is that you're looking for what you're looking for, and make sure that it's actually something that you do need. But there's something there, there's something to explore within that desire.
Whitney: Yeah, because it's not always that the person is shitty. Sometimes they're just not great. They're not the one. They're not yet. They're good enough, but they're not it. So it's one of those desires for sure.
Caitie: Yeah. Which I think is such a permission giving thing to like, someone gets to be a good person, a great person, and be absolutely not the one for you.
So as far as an actionable experiment, or some kind of experiment that somebody can run in their life, I actually think you already said it, which is putting down the thing that you have resistance to for as long as you can put it down. This is a cool reframe of procrastination. It's like we're not telling you to procrastinate the thing. It's putting down the thing. What's the difference?
Whitney: Procrastination, you're fighting yourself the whole time. You're actually beating yourself up. I've never procrastinated, because procrastination is a label that we've put on an experience of something. We're still not doing the thing no matter what it is, right? But we've labeled it procrastination, because what's actually happening is that we are fighting ourselves the whole time. We are actually avoiding it. I mean, like, I'm avoiding it, and I'm doing all these other things. But inside, I feel terrible about the fact that I'm avoiding it.
Putting it down is acceptance. And like, I cannot emphasize enough. If you are not accepting every part of yourself in every part of your life, you will continue to be stuck in cycles that you don't like. You have to lead with acceptance. And putting things down for a minute is a radical act of acceptance.
Caitie: Well, that was a banger. I think that needs to be the quote at the beginning of the podcast, that. Love that. And I think that is such a good way to wrap things up. And it also is another way of looking at what so many spiritual teachers talk about us as mindfulness, right like Eckhart Tolle and all of these people that we read or are too intimidated to read are all basically saying except the thing is if you chose the thing, for a moment, accept it. Lean into it and see what happens there. Yeah, I mean, that's like the main principle behind the Untethered Soul. That's like, the main idea behind it. Yeah.
Whitney: It's grounded- Buddhist teachings like this is just all different forms of the same Buddhist teaching. So it's like, wherever you learn it, learn it.
Caitie: Yeah, there's just so many different ways to say the same thing. And you just need to hear it from the right person at the right time. And I think that there are a lot of things that I've heard in a million different ways, and I just didn't hear it in the right way. When you’re ready to receive it in the right way it comes through.
Thank you so much for your time. Can you tell people about where they can find you how they can work for you- not work for you like how they can become your employee, how they can work with you.
Whitney: So you can find me Whitney Catalina on every social media platform, TikTok, Twitter, except Facebook, obviously, but like TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and then you can work with me, I do one on one, business and life coaching.
So my life coaching is very internally driven, but also matching your life to your insides. And then business coaching takes that a step further and designs your business around your alignment. And then I will be picking up my membership site again, and actually launching it in January, which is going to be great, because I am getting over the fear and just friggin’ doing it. So look out for that.
Caitie: Good stuff. I mean, get over the fear of that, for the sake of all of us, please.
Whitney: I know. It's like, I know, it's gonna be great when I do it. I just, you know, had to put it down. Here we are.
Caitie: And that's great. And that's great. I'm glad that you took the time to put it down and practice what you preach in that sense. And I'm so excited to see what comes through with that. And this will be published in January, so hopefully, it'll be right around the corner if not already available.
All right. We'll be back here on Whole, Full, and Alive next week. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review on Spotify or on iTunes, Apple podcasts — iTunes, who actually uses that anymore? — Apple podcasts and signing off here.