{"id":10263,"date":"2022-03-09T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T12:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.expertinhope.com\/?p=10263"},"modified":"2022-03-04T10:22:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T17:22:40","slug":"s09-10-reborn-through-fire-with-christine-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expertinhope.com\/s09-10-reborn-through-fire-with-christine-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"S09 | 10 &#8211; Reborn Through Fire with Christine Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"10263\" class=\"elementor elementor-10263\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-13a615e3 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"13a615e3\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-52289488\" data-id=\"52289488\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-12e0f1c2 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"12e0f1c2\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 25-04-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We make choices every day. Some choices, like picking up and moving across the country, have a bigger impact on our lives than others, like whether we will have that second (or third) brownie after dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But when we take these risks and experience the consequences, good or bad, we find transformation on the other side. A new chapter in our lives, a new adventure for us to go on, a new lesson to learn. Even if we have to endure trials to get there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today I\u2019m joined by Christine Powers, who rose like a Phoenix from the ash after watching her life (literally) go up in flames. She experienced her grief and fear, but did not let them define her, instead choosing to look for the potential and new opportunities available to her. Now she works to help others experience the same rebirth she has, as she continues to work on creating the next best version of herself.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Listen in to learn how she accomplishes this and how you can find continuous transformation in your own life, even through the flames of adversity.<\/span><br \/><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.simplecast.com\/ecaf315b-933b-42dc-8492-1d5547fbbb50?dark=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About Christine Powers:<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Christine Powers is a \u201cspiritual consigliere\u201d for women founders and CEOs, thought leaders, and change-makers. Clients benefit from Christine\u2019s 30 years of expertise in marketing, design and branding, PR, and fundraising alchemized with a lifetime of training in various mystical traditions East and West.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She is an ordained minister and certified death doula, walking side-by-side with clients into the places in our soul gardens that need the most love, the most weeding. Beyond leadership, she calls forth fierce guardians of wonder and wisdom who embody presence, stability, deep fulfillment, vitality, and passion. Clients experience growth in impact, service, and revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Christine is co-founder of Asa Adirondack, a 100-acre sanctuary in the Adirondack Mountains of New York where the body, soul, and psyche rest and rejuvenate in rustic luxury. She is the founder of The Philosophers Camp, a &#8220;great camp&#8221; nature immersion for leaders. Participants explore the wilderness within and without, cross-pollinate ideas with peers, and restore and expand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To learn more, visit her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christinepowers.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and find her on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChristinePowersSong\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/christinehpowers\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/christinepowers1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mentioned In This Episode:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/philosopherscamp\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Philosophers Camp on LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Burnout-Secret-Unlocking-Stress-Cycle\/dp\/198481706X\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.expertinhope.com\/wellness-webinars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wellness Webinar<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/expertinhope.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Expert in Hope<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Transcription:<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 00:03<br \/>Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Hope motivates action podcast. I&#8217;m your host Lindsay Recknell. And it is my pleasure to introduce you to Christine powers, the super fascinating human who is my guest today. Christine is a spiritual consigliere for women founders and CEOs, thought leaders and change makers. Her clients benefit from Christine&#8217;s 30 years of experience in marketing, design and branding PR, fundraising alchemize with a lifetime of training and various mystical traditions from both east and west. She&#8217;s an ordained minister and a certified death doula, walking side by side with clients into the places in our soul gardens that need the most love the most weeding. Beyond leadership. She calls forth fierce guardians of wonder and wisdom who embody presence, stability, deep fulfillment, vitality and passion. Her clients experience growth in impact service and revenue. Christina is co founder of Aisa Adirondack 100 acre sanctuary in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, where the body soul and psyche can rest and rejuvenate in rustic luxury. She is the founder of the philosophers camp, a great camp nature immersion for leaders, participants explore the wilderness within and without cross pollinate ideas with peers and restore and expand, I cannot wait to go to Christine&#8217;s retreat center and explore for myself. As a reminder, if you&#8217;re interested in any of the books, resources and tools I mentioned in this episode, all the links you&#8217;ll need can be found in the show notes of your favorite podcast player, or head to the blog and pod page of my website at expert and hope calm and you&#8217;ll find more there too. I truly believe that the future will be better than today. By taking action over the things we can control. conversations like this really reinforced that hope. Can&#8217;t wait to get into it. So let&#8217;s get going. Hello, Christine, welcome to the show. I&#8217;m so excited for this conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 02:01<br \/>Thank you. I am too I&#8217;m really delighted to be here.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 02:05<br \/>When you and I connected earlier in the week to sort of preview what we were going to talk about. It was a highlight of my day, you know, over dinner table conversation with my husband, he&#8217;s like, how was your dinner, I met this woman you have gotten to hear her speak. She&#8217;s just got so much experience and so many cool insights to share. So I&#8217;m really excited to have this conversation and continue, continue from earlier in the week. So maybe we&#8217;ll start with you. Can you share with us how you use hope to motivate action in your life?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 02:36<br \/>I would be happy to. So there&#8217;s this little voice inside of me that when things get really tough. It just I hear it and it says Get up, get up, get up. Right. So there&#8217;s there&#8217;s a force within me that strives for life every day. There&#8217;s a force within me that wants to see another day, my husband and I have this little joke where you know, we&#8217;re in our 50s now. And we&#8217;ve been together almost 20 years. And we have some health challenges. I have a bad knee, he just had shoulder surgery, you know, we&#8217;re going through what we joke and say, you know, we&#8217;re going through a midlife tune up for the next 50. But when we meet each other for coffee in the morning, he usually gets up before me makes coffee, you know, he looks at me because baby, we got another day. So, you know, it&#8217;s it&#8217;s possibility, you know, hope is possibility. And things can always change. In fact, that&#8217;s the only thing that we can count on is things changing. So, so I think that&#8217;s how I how I use hope it&#8217;s it&#8217;s an outlook. It&#8217;s a cultivated set of tools and choices. And underneath it all Lindsay, the biggest choice is that I really want to be here on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 04:07<br \/>Hmm. Well, I love it. I love when people describe hope as possibility because I couldn&#8217;t. I couldn&#8217;t agree more with that. I mean, I, people who listen to the show, they recognize that my definition of hope is that the future will be better than today, by taking action over the things we can control. And possibility is inherent in that future being better than today. And I love that you&#8217;re so conscious of your place in this earth and your, you know, presence in this life and that you share that with your husband because I also believe strongly, strongly, strongly believe that hope is contagious. And so when you&#8217;re having these conversations with the other important people in your life, that&#8217;s the way to continue to cultivate that hope I can continue to cultivate that possibility. So I love that it&#8217;s beautiful. But<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 04:53<br \/>energy is contagious. Right? Right. So yeah, that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s important where We choose to put our energies in with who?<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 05:03<br \/>Yeah, isn&#8217;t there something that I&#8217;m going to mess up? Who said this? But the idea being that you are the five people you choose to surround yourself with the most often? Yeah, right that you, you&#8217;re the five of you, or the six of you really cultivate the same kind of personality and energy and ambition and, and all those kinds of things, and how important it is to surround yourself with people that lift you up and urge you to encourage you to be better.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 05:32<br \/>Yeah, and I wish I could help you with the attribution. But I don&#8217;t recall that either. You know, when I get in a, well, there&#8217;s contraction, and there&#8217;s expansion. Those are the two states. And when I get into a contracted space, just like people, right, my one of my best tools, because I know you&#8217;re all about the science of hope, right? So the one of my best tools is to immediately just I&#8217;ve learned over the years to drop what I&#8217;m doing. excuse myself, and sometimes that&#8217;s actually excusing myself from myself. Right? Because usually, it&#8217;s an internal dialogue, and find something that expands me. So it&#8217;s the same thing with people like I love to hang with people who are expansive, optimistic, I think that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m enjoying you so much as well.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 06:24<br \/>Well, the feeling is mutual, my friend. Let&#8217;s talk a little bit about kind of some opposite. So in my definition of hope, I talked about control and taking action over the things we can control. And in our conversation, you challenged me to think about the things we can&#8217;t control. And that&#8217;s not something that I focus on a lot other than to say, you know, let the things that you can&#8217;t control sort of take care of themselves and work on the stuff you can because otherwise you might, you know, go blank or bananas. So can we talk a little bit about some of your ideas and philosophies over around focus or not focusing on but around the things we can&#8217;t control?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 07:05<br \/>Absolutely. Yeah. Where do you want to start? We talked about grief, we talked about death. We talked about rebirth, transformation?<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 07:13<br \/>Yes. Let&#8217;s talk about transformation. Because I think that&#8217;s the bigger concept of which all of those other things fall into maybe can we start start with philosophers camp and what you do there? As far as transformation goes?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 07:34<br \/>Absolutely. So philosophers camp is a it&#8217;s an idea. It&#8217;s an event that actually happened in 1858, here in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and I&#8217;ve resurrected it in a modern day paradigm. At that time, it was transcendentalist theologians, the scientist Robert Agassi&#8217;s from Europe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Lowell, the poet for a month. And this was a trip that was three years in the making. They went deep into the Adirondack Mountains for several things happened there one scientific discovery, to philosophical discussions and cross pollination of ideas on how they could uplift, you know, America, because if you think about 1858, that was on the eve of the Civil War, they went for rejuvenation, there was this big thing about going deep into the Adirondacks and going into the pristine wilderness to rejuvenate their bodies and souls. So paintings happened fishing happened, you know, all these things. And they spent a month doing this, right. So all these grown men turned into Peter Pan little boys. Amazing, but but there was a lot of really cool things that happened. So today, what I have created is a is a space that&#8217;s that&#8217;s highly confidential and safe, five days running people through the woods, on my 100 acres in the Adirondack Mountains. And the goal is for those who are always giving transformation to come get it for themselves, right. So there&#8217;s this aspect of stretching them enough. So that shift happens, but not stretching them so far that they go into survival mode. So what we do is we love on them with little pieces of rustic luxury along the way, let you know little things to pamper them. And so what happens to these thought leaders, author, speakers, healer, CEOs, whoever they might be, when they come and they unplug from the world, which is a prerequisite we take everyone&#8217;s cell phones and we give out a landline emergency number period. No ifs, ands or buts. Terrifying. It&#8217;s not for the faint of heart. Um, what happens is the moment they begin to let down, right, and space begins to creep in. There&#8217;s a breakage, there&#8217;s a grief, there&#8217;s a release of energy that has been pent up within them. And it begins this process, which we see over and over of a dying pieces of themselves die during those five days. And new aspect aspects can arise. It&#8217;s kind of like a professional Phoenix. It&#8217;s kind of like the experience you had I read your bio, I was fascinated when you were in your car, right? You had this sudden realization that you were on the backside of an experience that pieces of you died and new pieces were born. So we play with curiosity, we tend to the gardens of our souls, we die to ourselves and we move through this this grief, that is very natural. It&#8217;s just it&#8217;s natural. It&#8217;s part of being human. It&#8217;s an accumulation of experiences. It&#8217;s we&#8217;re making choices every day. We cannot do it all. And so along the way, we were constantly calling and cutting those things that don&#8217;t make the cut of our daily existence, but we&#8217;re leaving things behind. We&#8217;re leaving opportunities behind the conversations not said the conversations where we said too much, right? So when people come to philosophers camp, there&#8217;s this huge space that welcomes and brings their grief and their release of energy. And then curiosity comes curiosity comes and we begin to ask those questions. What&#8217;s serving me? What&#8217;s not serving me. And that begins this whole beautiful unfoldment and by the time people leave, they are literally the next iteration of their best selves.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 12:10<br \/>Those be those that are not just give shivers down your spine to hear you speak people that are listening like I just Christine, I can hear you I could listen to you talk forever. Does your your the language you use and the tone of your voice, it just feels it doesn&#8217;t feel so so safe. And I&#8217;m as I&#8217;m hearing you speak about grief and this kind of breakdown. And I&#8217;m picturing, you know, stereotypically high powered, ambitious, driven, stoic kind of people that would might be drawn to the experience it is philosophers camp. Not only does it feel terrifying to, like, think about what that would feel like because sometimes, often, maybe, I don&#8217;t know, speaking from my own experience, as someone who didn&#8217;t always feel all the feelings. The idea of coming to a place like that, where grief is going to be expected. Feels triggering even before I get there. What like, how does that experience play out?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 13:17<br \/>Well, you know, it&#8217;s interesting, I debated whether I should share this with you because it&#8217;s been our little secret. Like grief happens, right? So it&#8217;s not it&#8217;s not expected. But it happens. And it&#8217;s to couples of things. You know, we everyone signs a confidentiality agreement. What happens at camp, there&#8217;s a cap, right? And we have like, for instance, if we we limit the participants to 12, we usually end up with a group of eight we have six people on the care team. So everyone is so tended to so loved on right? I mean, we just so it takes time. And what happens is, you know, you go everyone is in charge of their own pace. Everyone makes that choice of how deep they want to go. And we&#8217;ve had a few participants who just haven&#8217;t, you know, we so to back up a little bit couple things. I&#8217;m also an ordained minister. I&#8217;m also a master energy healer. And I&#8217;m also a certified death doula, right. So I watch people energetically and, and I just nurture them for as far as they want to and can go, period, right? So yes, and people do kind of come in scared. But they&#8217;re drawn to it at the same time. It&#8217;s like It&#8217;s like drive a drive by accident. You know, it&#8217;s like that repulsive. You know, but that fascination like I have to see, right. The other thing is we have so much fun too. It&#8217;s so much fun. We play with the sacred we play with the profane, we laugh and laugh and laugh. So it&#8217;s not all you know, deep Deep and deep and Well, it&#8217;s interesting, deep and dark, like the forest, like the forest is our metaphor for teaching. Right? We think in just a minute imagine, in this moment all the childhood stories, how actually horrific they are. You know Hansel and Gretel not happy story. Right? So what happens is people nature is a mirror for our relationship with ourselves, some of us are terrified to go into the deep dark forests, some of us can&#8217;t wait to get into the deep dark forest. Because what&#8217;s there is life on edited. So those that come in with really tight control may have a more challenging time letting go and letting down then others who, you know, are a little more surrendered to the organic pneus of life. And we we love to work with all it doesn&#8217;t really matter, you know, it doesn&#8217;t matter, because what&#8217;s perfect for each person is what happens for them.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 16:05<br \/>I love that I and I love the analogy of the accident, because that&#8217;s sort of how I feel about philosophers camp. I am super intrigued, and I absolutely want to come and attend one. But it also, you know, it&#8217;s it is a bit uncomfortable, for sure to think about what kind of experience I would like to have there. You know, it&#8217;s that desire to have that death and rebirth. But also, there&#8217;s a ton of uncertainty around what that will feel like in the moment. And it is it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s fascinating to think about, but I think that&#8217;s part of it. charm for me, for sure. That&#8217;s part of its attraction. Nevermind that I just love to be in the mountains. I mean, anybody who knows me knows how important being outside and in nature is to me. It feels very hopeful. Sorry, please. Yeah, please go ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 17:00<br \/>It is hopeful. And then and what&#8217;s interesting is, is here&#8217;s why you&#8217;d want to come, anyone would want to come. Those of us that are in roles of leadership and amplifying and uplifting the world, which is what you are all about. We we can only make an impact that goes as deep and as wide as our energetic footprint of who we embody. Right? So the more we embody things like stability, presence, vitality, passion, the more we embody those qualities, we actually become more fearless. So you may come in with fear and you leave fearless, more fearless. You come in with some wonkiness in your you know, you. We talk about the proverbial backbone, you leave with more backbone, you leave with more boundaries, strength parameters. So it&#8217;s it&#8217;s an upgrade for sure. But let me be clear, like, gosh, if you look at the testimonial videos, everyone&#8217;s smiling. Laughing. Everyone talks about this was the most transformational thing that that&#8217;s ever happened and, and we laugh as much as we go deep, I really need to emphasize that enough because one of my architectural qualities is Coyote, so I&#8217;m never not joking around about something. Right? And and one of my mentors once said to me, if you can&#8217;t laugh about what&#8217;s happening to you, in the moment, you&#8217;ve gone way too deep in the weeds, and you&#8217;re taking yourself way too seriously. So we keep that context in mind as well.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 18:41<br \/>Well, in interesting, I was just listening to a podcast before we joined up. Some of my mentors these days are doctors Amelia and Emily Nagurski. And they wrote a book called burnout. They&#8217;ve written a number of other books, but the one that&#8217;s really resonating with me is burnout. And one of the things that they talk about is laughter being a way to complete the stress response cycle, which is one of the ways that we can stop the slide into burnout. And so I love that you bring so much of that to your work and to your life. I mean, any conversation you and I have always had has been uplifting and hilarious and full of little, you know, little jokes because of how important it is to our overall well being. Just that not taking yourself so seriously, recognizing serious moments, but definitely lightening it up and closing that stress response cycle with laughter and how important that is physiologically in our bodies not only directly to our mental health but physiologically as well.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 19:45<br \/>Yeah, and it clears for those familiar with their energetic systems. Laughter clears our chakras laughter massage physically massages our organs. And so here we go with the attribution game. I can&#8217;t remember who said it, but There was the, you know, studies like proverbial studies, but it is demonstrated scientifically that we retain information and we absorb and learn and process information much more effectively through play than through anything else. Right. So there&#8217;s a there&#8217;s a huge aspect of play. And I&#8217;m a big fan of that, you know, I you know, it&#8217;s it&#8217;s interesting people look at me with interesting faces expressions when they learn I&#8217;m a certified death doula, because it seems a little odd. But really, what I&#8217;m doing is I&#8217;m a shepherd for rebirth. Right? And what&#8217;s more exciting than a new adventure, a new chapter, a new perspective, a new you. So I apply that knowledge training, and passion for the game of transformation. Not so much, you know, physically assisting people going to the other side, although I have done that as well.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 21:05<br \/>And that&#8217;s one of I think the excellent beauties of you and your work and how you&#8217;re moving through the world is you have so many aspects perspectives on on life, and you&#8217;ve you&#8217;ve brought them all together. I mean, you mentioned your ordained minister, you&#8217;re a death doula you&#8217;re, you know, I know you&#8217;re a Reiki Master and surprise, surprise, this person skilled in soprano singer. And, and, you know, XYZ other things. And I, I love that, especially because one of my biggest values is lifelong learning. And I feel like that is very well aligned to how you live your life. And all of this, all of the lessons you teach all of the coaching, you supply, all of the uplifting that happens comes from all these different perspectives that you would give you the skill, I think, to meet really meet people where they&#8217;re at.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 22:06<br \/>Yeah, and believe me, I&#8217;ve been through the school of, sadly, in a way doing it the hard way. You know, Chiron, the wounded healer is a great archetype that there&#8217;s a myth, you know, there&#8217;s a mythology of philosophy, a body of work that says we endure traumatic things in our life, so that when we heal from them and become whole, we can then reach out a hand and assist others, right. So almost any kind of garden variety trauma I&#8217;ve had, right? So, you know, it&#8217;s, and unfortunately, that&#8217;s the way that my soul body spirit has chosen to get a lot of lessons, right. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve ever heard, like, I talked about, like, the feather on the cheek, you know, the whispers in the night, you know, I should leave this job, it&#8217;s boring. It&#8217;s, you know, we slip into this state of, you know, survival versus thriving, we slip into doldrums, we slip into not an optimal state of living, when we don&#8217;t listen to our higher wisdom when we don&#8217;t listen to those whispers in the middle of the night. So that&#8217;s the feather across the cheek, and we might get a slap across the face, and then eventually get a two by four to the head, which will take us out, and it will necessitate and it will force a rebirth. Right? So that&#8217;s kind of the game of transformation, the game of life in a way for someone who&#8217;s awake and striving for meaning. So, so I&#8217;m very comfortable with it. And I&#8217;ve been through a lot. One quick example in 2016. We made a bold decision to leave our kind of a country club lifestyle in Albany, New York, way too big house. You know, my husband is a mountain boy at heart. He&#8217;s a builder, and he&#8217;s a wilderness guide. Me I&#8217;m the daughter of an attorney. Right? So I grew up in suburbia. So this was a big change, but we sold everything. And we decided to buy these 100 acres surrounding our like little second home cabin, which was rustic and off the grid and start an adventure at the time. You know, holding myself out as a inspirational leader, one of my colleagues said, Well, what are you doing in your life? That&#8217;s inspirational. And I realized I wasn&#8217;t taking any risks, like really not much at all. So selling everything moving here was a risk and it was an adventure and the universe right the universe or whatever, higher guidance, whatever you want to call it, which I in You know, this is my life operating system. Wanted to make sure that we were all in on this move. So in between moving from our big house to Up here we we had taken everything we owned, put it in my husband&#8217;s business warehouse, my business, my computers, my backups, you know everything I had a communications firm at the time. It all burned to the ground, catastrophically. I was alerted to it when someone told me to turn on the TV and I saw on the kid local cable news, this warehouse fire and watched my life go up in flames. You can see the the flames for 50 miles around because it was a you know, it was a it was a place that had chemicals because there were other businesses. So it was a massive, catastrophic fire. The thing that happened though, that&#8217;s so fascinating is when I scanned the horizon of my life, I saw nothing but potential. Because the slate had been wiped clean, have so much baggage good and bad. And life had quote unquote, broken all the rules. So I was not bound to play by many rules, and a whole bunch of limiting beliefs and mores and shoulds literally fell away. And that was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. And that&#8217;s how we came to the mountains five years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 26:23<br \/>Amazing how your perspective of looking back on something that could have been the undoing of you wasn&#8217;t, you know, resilience comes to mind. And one of the workshops that I teach is all about resilience and how we have to go through hard things to recognize what our level of resilience is, and how to build that resilience to come out the other side. And we talk about perspective being your lived experience, and the lens, which you see the world through and your mindset being what you do with that perspective. And I feel like your perspective on the fire. And what happened to you was this optimistic, positive, opportunity driven, hopeful mindset, and has led you to this place five years later, which is so so cool. And also feels quite profound in its ability to support you in caring that for other people.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 27:29<br \/>Yeah, you know, it&#8217;s, this is and this goes back to the very beginning of the show, right, though the things we can control the things we can&#8217;t control, right, I could not control that fire. I could not control my life burning up. But I did react, right. At five o&#8217;clock in the morning, you know, my husband came rolling in, and I we were staying at a friend&#8217;s house because we had already sold our house. We had no way you know, nowhere to live at that point until we move north. And I took the truck down to the site and it was smoldering and nasty. I mean, it was it&#8217;s it&#8217;s a thing. It&#8217;s a thing. And there were still fire trucks and ATF was there with their drones and mean it was it was a crazy thing. And I went up to the fire tape, the caution line and I literally fell to my knees and I screamed. I mean I this visceral visceral, I was furious. I screamed, I screamed, I screamed, I cried, I wailed, I call it my wailing wall of Jerusalem. And then I literally got up and I brushed off my knees. And that&#8217;s the voices of get up, get up, get up. Right I did grieve it over time, right? In the appropriate. So even for me, I grieved it fully when I was at another workshop, right? So I went to get the transformation that I needed. And it took time the grief came out and bits and spurts but it never held me back. It never defined me. And I by that time in my life had the tools to respond. How was I going to respond? That&#8217;s what&#8217;s in our control. And I know you&#8217;re a big fan of that too.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 29:10<br \/>We&#8217;re coming to the end of our time. But before we before I asked my final question, can we talk a little bit about the Phoenix? I know that that important image? That story is really important in your life and hearing your story about the fire. I can see how it&#8217;s all kind of coming together. Can we talk a little bit about what the Phoenix means to you?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 29:32<br \/>Yes, I, I call myself a professional Phoenix. It&#8217;s kind of a joke, Coyote that the best way that I can serve others is supporting them through this constant very natural life cycle. That&#8217;s another reason why I love to do my teaching and my retreats and workshops here on the mountain. Everything has a season in a cycle and things are always being born, blossoming, hitting their apex, then this period of decay, death, and then rebirth, this beautiful cycle. And my message is that it&#8217;s nothing to be terrified of, that this happens to us over and over in our lives and the more comfortable we get with it, the moment we can see it from the perspective of the witness, right? We don&#8217;t, it doesn&#8217;t have to define us and it doesn&#8217;t have to destroy us. We&#8217;re always transforming, we&#8217;re always creating that next best version of our highest fulfillment as a human being. And to me, that means joy, laughter, fulfillment, vitality, passion, love, relationships, contribution, that is a meaningful life. So being a professional Phoenix, who&#8217;s very comfortable with that process, I think that&#8217;s one of the greatest gifts that I can provide and support for others.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 31:07<br \/>And it makes me feel like it&#8217;s a privilege that we get to overcome these things. And we get to grow through adversity and we get to, you know, change and transform through these life, things that happen to us. I really do feel like it&#8217;s a privilege that we have to engage in that kind of work.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 31:27<br \/>Yeah, I think it&#8217;s part of the preciousness of being human. Yeah, and and I love your work, I&#8217;m, I love your work. It&#8217;s important. It&#8217;s really important. And you are an example of this. You know, what you&#8217;ve gone through with your personal shifts and changes the last four years and you&#8217;re just exploding with this positive this message of positivity and support and you&#8217;re giving people the tools you&#8217;re you do the same thing I do. Just different language, right? Yes, different language, a different different spin, you know, but it&#8217;s the same<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 32:02<br \/>same. Yeah. Well, and it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s so resonating with me, this relationship that you and I are building is so resonating with me, and like we talked about yesterday, I can see us, you know, combining efforts, you know, with with my coaching clients and your philosophers camp, and however that looks in the future. I&#8217;m very excited to see where that will go for us. And Christine, what gives you hope?<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 32:29<br \/>Love hmm, yeah. Two things come to mind. One, which is gonna, you know, date the recording. And one, which is one of my favorite movies is Interstellar. And there&#8217;s a scene where Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey and their characters are talking about how love transit love, transcends space. It transcends time it transcends gravity. And this very deep existential discussion about love kind of being the fabric of all right. And then I just recently watched matrix resurrections, which was a kick in the pants, right? And so it also plays on this theme that love right, this this powerful bond of love can transcend and explode into such power, that it&#8217;s beyond the beyond. And for me, love is acts of love, devotional love, selfless love, sacrificial love, friendship, love, romantic love. It is the building blocks. And it is the underpinning of everything, everything. And I learned a long time ago that every act no matter how twisted, is reaching out for love.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 34:00<br \/>Oh, I love that. I love that. That is so beautiful. And what a great way to end our time together. Thank you for sharing your brilliance. Thank you for putting your hope into the world. It is it is contagious and hearing you speak. I&#8217;m not joking. I can listen to you talk forever. hearing you speak and just what you the gifts that you bring to the world is a very hopeful thing and it feels like a very hopeful place to be. So thank you for being with us today and sharing your story.<\/p>\n<p>Christine Powers 34:31<br \/>I am honored and smiling people can see but I&#8217;ve been smiling from ear to ear and really grateful and and I want to thank you for your work. You know if it wasn&#8217;t for you, I wouldn&#8217;t be here. Right and if so, it&#8217;s a beautiful thing. I&#8217;m grateful to be invited and be a part of your podcast. It&#8217;s awesome.<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell 34:54<br \/>It is my pleasure who look forward to connecting again very very soon. Take care I hope you enjoyed this latest episode of the hope of motivates action podcast. These episodes are a labor of love inspiring conversations with hopeful people make my heart happy. If you also love this episode, it would be amazing if you could go to Apple podcasts and leave a review five stars if you&#8217;re into it. It&#8217;s these reviews that encouraged Apple to promote this podcast to their network and the more people that listen, the more hope we can spread into the world. Don&#8217;t forget to check out the show notes of this episode to find all the links to my guests books and other resources referenced in this episode. You&#8217;ll also find the link back to my website where you will find additional support and resources for you, your team and your community. I truly believe that the future will be better than today. By taking action over the things we can control and hearing from these guests on these episodes. I know that even more hopeful future is totally possible. I&#8217;m always looking for inspirational guests so if you or anyone you know would like to be a guest on the show please reach out you can find me on the contact form of my website at expert in hope calm or by email at Lindsay at expert in hope calm. When I was a teenager, my sisters were leaving the house to go out for the night. I always made it a point to remind them to call me if they need me. It was my way to tell them that I cared and would always be there for them. I&#8217;d love you to know the same so all of you listening out there Call me if you need me. Again. Thank you for your love and support of this podcast my work in hope and your intentional focus on making your future better than today. After all, hope without action is just a wish<\/p>\n<p>Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<\/p>\n<p>Lindsay Recknell | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.expertinhope.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Expert in Hope<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/expertinhope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/lindsay-recknell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lindsayrecknell\/\">Insta<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lindsayrecknell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">g<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lindsayrecknell\/\">ram<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.expertinhope.com\/shop\/\">Take Hope Home!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this and all episodes of the Hope Motivates Action podcast wherever you listen to your favourite content.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christine Powers joins Lindsay to share her story and inspire us to see the potential and opportunities in our lives, even when it all goes up in flames.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,108],"tags":[25,51,388,406],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - 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