Real Life Adventures in Living: Against All Odds! With Guest Jecara Rivera - Part II | EP 51

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Hi, I'm back with Jecara to talk about another concept. This is part two in our conversation that we had earlier. And I welcome you to listen to her first part one conversation and talk about gaining the courage and confidence to try. And in this segment or episode we're gonna be talking about against all odds. And you know, one of the things I talk about in my podcast is about there's three different directions we can move in. And when we're living our lives and moving down life's adventures, and there's certain experiences that allow us to float maybe need to float and just kind of see there's a real surrounding area that we're in and what's going on. Other times, we need to be on a trampoline. And we need to bounce to see a higher perspective about things and where the soul is trying to go and head. And on. The third one is, uh, sometimes we need to be on a skateboard. But on that skateboard, we're actually slowing things down. And we keep on moving and not being escaped by the situation we're finding ourselves in. But we're slowly enough to see what we need to see. So we can make the choices that need to be made. Those are the three types of areas that I tell my talk about what the soul is meaning out. So when we're talking about today, against all odds, I'll be talking about that a little bit. Jecara, introduce yourself.

Awesome. Yes, I Jecara Rivera, here, I help women to working women balance their lives, so they can advance at work as well as parent guilt free. And that's super important in a world where we have so many hats on, and we're trying to balance it all. So within my speaking and my coaching, I help folks in that area, give them some success strategies, so we can build up and I'm excited about the conversation today because I do come against us. So how do we overcome those.

So tell me I get some qualities and what you've learned and garnered from different experiences that you've had, that really hits that concept against all odds.

So odds are challenges obstacles that come our way, the one that hit first and foremost for me was being a teen mom, having a child at 16 years old, in the middle of high school, having dreams and goals and not being able to or feeling that I wasn't going to be able to fulfill those those goals at all. But as they're all different, they're all over the place. Right? I mean, heartache, who, when you have that first breakup, when you just knew he was in love, and everything was gonna happen beautifully, and things don't work out. Sometimes you can look back and realize, man, I'm glad I was saved from that. It's not until that hindsight that we can see that necessarily. So when AWS come, we have to, we are really looking at, hey, I've overcome things before, and it's normally for the good. And even if I can't see the good yet, being able to, to really say hey, there's good that's gonna come out of this, it's probably a good thing that this thing has passed me or I didn't get that promotion, or I didn't end up with that person, or that I had a baby at 16. Sometimes we look at life, and we just get stuck that this is the worst thing possible. But what is it that we see for ourselves after it's important to?

And yeah, and one of the things that you really nicely, kind of a commenting on is kind of how do we look at things, and how we go about looking at things does impact us in what direction decisions that we make, and the thoughts that we have and the feelings and reactions that go on? And so if we can look at it from a higher level, it's like, on that trampoline bouncing, seeing the higher level of what is this trying to help me to see that I if I didn't get that promotion, maybe it's for a reason. Maybe at a soul level. It's like your soul saying you don't know but down the road a year from now, you're not gonna like this. And so it ends up you know, that life is trying to move you in a different direction. Sometimes we resist that, but we're not asking the key question about what's happening. It's just something that you want me to see if there's something and greater that you want me to do you talking to your inner self, your higher self to those questions, so that it allows you to be anchored and saying, Okay, I didn't get it, I'm not disappointed, surely. But I know that my faith, my I Am Presence higher source has a greater something for me. If not this, there's something better Lord as the same goes, sometimes it's a direction that we have to take ourselves in, as opposed to being crumbled by feeling as if, wow, I must be not worthy, or it must not be right for me or it may me is not right for you. That's why you didn't get it. And so when you walk off a spiritual path or a faith based path, it means that you know that God is also walking with you, and trying to guide you and help you through your life experiences.

And I find that most people who don't have that, that thought or wherewithal to, to know that we all have spirit soul inside of us that we're just we're working through this fleshly thing, that we don't see that we end up instead of being on that trampoline, as you share, we just let life hit us and knock us down and and it's so well, you know that we go back to the This never works for me. And I never it because you're looking at yourself that you're the only one that's a part of this journey, that your ideas, your thoughts are the only ones that are there. But until you look inside until you start your soul, then you know that there's much more outside of you that can help determine what's best for you in that future. And having those self reflection moments are super important. Because when you don't, you'll just keep making these ideas based on life experience only and not on intuition, not on soul not based on hey, there's an inner knowing or an outer knowing that there's something outside of me that's going to help guide to the next steps and the next inspired steps that I may need to take. So I love the idea of the trampoline, because it is it's how do I see much bigger and when you live a have a faith based life, I think you are a little more optimistic in life, because you know that this is not the end this this thing that happened and it's not the final chapter, or it may in this chapter, but it's going to open up another one, right. So there's always something more that we can look forward to and keep the optimistic look out on outlook of life is I think is important when we look at the bigger picture.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I love what you said it because there is kind of that spiritual focus or the awareness of that faith that whatever that faith may be for you, you have something that you're holding to that is greater than yourself. And that you know that God is molding, you know, and helping you to be your best self. And just because we went through that experience, and maybe you had to go through the experience, for whatever reason, and there are many possible reasons. But you know, even on the outer, you don't quite know, but the inner, you know, God wouldn't let me go through this. If I didn't have to go through this. Sometimes we go through certain experiences because of the choices we make. And so those choices guy says, Okay, this is you know, what you want to experience, but I'm always there with you, I'm always going to try to guide you, I'm always going to try to help you because God loves us. And sometimes we feel as if, like you said in the first episode, my mother loved me. And I felt that love for her when I became pregnant. And that was so comforting to me. And so even you know, with life experiences that go a while or they don't go the way we want, we have to pull down the fact that God is with me, God loves me. Because what happens is people get to the other side and just say, Oh switch and say, How could you have this happen to me? You know, why did this happen to me? And it's like, no, we live in a planet of freewill. And we have freewill to make choices. And so we have to be aware of that, that God can say I'm gonna swoop in and and save you is that but did you ask me to? Free Will the call compels the answer you didn't ask? So my advice, it's like our soul, you didn't ask my ask for me to step up and help in any way. And in fact, sometimes you don't even know I'm here. Right? I'm in the back. I'm the basement. I'm in the attic. I'm not in the house, you know the major part of who you are. Mm hmm.

That's awesome. It reminds me of a formula that I've learned Jack Canfield, who wrote the success principles and many of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Um, he, where I first learned e plus r equals O. So the events that happen in our lives, plus our response to those events equals our outcome. A lot of times events come odds come things that you know, it rains today or we win the lottery, whatever it might be, there's an event that may happen to you, but it's your response that will determine your outcome. We can't change every event that comes our way. Right? And it's not until we take 100% responsibility for our lives that say, You know what, how am I going to master my thoughts to be able to, again we talked about it can be a disempowering thoughts and questions or Why did it have to rain today? Why did my mother have to die? Why did I lose my house in this financial turmoil, and we stay there, then the outcomes we're gonna get, again, what you focus on is what you get, then you're going to start seeing more financial turmoil, you'll start seeing that everyone's dying around you, you'll start seeing that it's always bad weather, versus you know what, I'm not sure why my mother died. And I'm gonna grieve, and I have to go through that it's okay not to be okay. But I trust that I can learn from the life lessons that she put down for me, or I'm going to do the exact opposite of what she did dependent upon the story that you might have write that will change your outcome, because now you see life differently. Now that I can focus on more empowering questions, or take the time to self reflect, my outcome will change. Because a lot of people go through the same things. There's some teen moms that were in my pregnant class, as we call it in high school, who didn't graduate who went to night school, and that's all they didn't go back to go to school and get any further education or training. And they're working a menial job. And they just, that's all I can do. That's all I was told I could do. And that's what I focused on. So their response to the event of having a child was a teenager was different than mine. And we have different results. So a lot of the things that we do, like you said that response, did you check in with yourself? Did you align yourself with spirit? Did you are you looking at life at a bigger perspective, so that your outcomes will be different. So one plus one equals two, if you want for, the only thing you can change is your response, the way you look at things, the way you think about things and your behavior will change your outcome. And if you want a better outcome, change your response.

Exactly. And it has so well with what we're talking about today. And that's against the laws. So the part of the dance part is for God part, when we're for for God, then the odds don't really matter what the odds are, because we're always going to be for God. And so whatever is going on in our world, and whatever is happening for us, we know we're anchored in the god principle, the soul principle, the higher self principle. And so we can, as you said, have the optimism to know that this experience doesn't define me. It helps to grow me. Beautifully said, yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about too, because one of the things in some of this is what we're talking about really ties into the financial turmoil you had at one point in your life, and how it was against all odds. In summary, guys, is that fair to say?

Yes, very much. So it's one of those I went to school, got a bachelor's degree in finance, got my Masters of Business Administration, working in the finance field, I've really felt that I should know that there, right. I've gotten all the tools, I've got education training, I do it for a living with my corporate job. So when things are on 2008 2009, you know, world when their America went through a recession, and I've got swept up with everyone else, and had you short, sell my house, we were in the middle of moving, so I was renting a house, selling one, it was crazy. And I just could not keep up with it all. And I felt so defeated, I felt and being vulnerable here because it took me a while to even mentioned this out loud. Because I felt that I should know better. And if I tell people that my finances were in a rough, we're in a rough patch, and I'm supposed to be helping them with their finances. Oh, that hit my ego really hard. But then I learned from that, that we all you know, the decisions that we make, we think they're good at one point, and they don't work out for us or the event that happened, the recession I wasn't prepared for. And I just had to be able to stand in that and be truthful with myself that I was not prepared for that. And the response I needed to come away from is, you know, that happened to me. And it took a few years to overcome, because a lot of things start hitting your credit, oh, my goodness, when it comes to finances, I have to take a long term view that it's not going to get better overnight. But now that I know better, even though I take that back, I already knew better. Now that I'm going to do better, I know that it'll take time to get there. And I think we as we go through eyes that come and we may get the foresight or the insight that I know what to do to do better. But we need to also give ourselves grace, that you're not alone, you're not the only one that's made a mistake or messed up or learn from it. And it's going to take time, give yourself the grace that is not and may not be an overnight fix that your your outcome will take time to get to. So I believe that you know when we give ourselves the grace and be vulnerable and be honest, take the sting out of it. Don't try to hide it. You know, maybe share it with some trusted people. Because when you're you know you go back to your CCJ right where the criticism we start criticizing ourselves condemning and judging. And then we don't want to be open and honest with others. But the more that when I started opening up about it, I realized that wasn't the only one and there's others that knew better and, and fell into the trap and, and now we all we can work out life together. And life is always better together, it's always easier to journey with someone. So being able to get myself off the pedestal, that girl, you're not perfect sit down somewhere, be vulnerable be open and give yourself grace to overcome these odds and know that it'll take time. But it'll come, you know,

that's wonderfully said, there's so much richness in what you were saying there, you know, one of the thoughts that came to my mind was this kind of, when you talked about the rough patch that you're you had gone through, and either you could go the Avenue of the ego. And the ego says, Don't tell anybody, girl, you didn't do it, right, you know, not gonna, like, you know, you're not gonna have any more business, on and on and on. And this is what the ego persona does. And he wants to have a good image, you got to have the best image out there. And the reality is, is that when we are more vulnerable, and that vulnerability opens us up, like you're saying the openness to it allows us to share our story. People connect with us in ways that he would never never thought about, because it allows us them to see, we can make mistakes, and we can be in rough patches too. And that take place. And it's okay, that event doesn't define me, it helps to be like I said, one of my analogies be the skateboard, you're on the skateboard, you're traveling, you're not going too fast, but you're observing, you're looking and you're being aware of what you're learning from the experience, and how you need to turn along the different way to move in a different way from that experience, but you're not getting off the skateboard, you keep on moving through the experience, so that it doesn't make you feel like you're gonna get stuck, but you didn't, you don't have to. And so that's the beauty of what the soul wants to know is like, don't get me stuck here, you know, because, you know, we're on the skateboard together. And we keep moving through this and learn from it and grow from it, and see the beauty in it and see some gems that come from it. That you know, like sparkling diamonds and rubies, you know, that we can be able to say, wow, it was rough truly, but I guarantee I garnered so much from that experience. And it makes me more of who I am today. And it makes me more aware of how I need to maybe coach others you know, we're in a similar situation are rough spots that they're experiencing financially in their lives.

Very true. And, and I'll even take the same thought is with our kids. And I learned this with my oldest daughter, my son, he wasn't a big talker, you know, but my oldest daughter, she would just tell me everything what's going on in school what's going on with the boys what's going on with everything. And she was in tell me Mom, you just don't understand. You've never you've never had a boyfriend you've never lived life. You don't know what true love Oh, she would just assume because I was very I would grew up in a household where you didn't talk about your business as a parent, you don't need to know my business, I just tell you what to do. So she felt like she was being so open with me. And my conversations back to her were very sterile were very, okay, this is what you do to overcome that. And it wasn't until I became open and vulnerable to tell her Oh, no, I've had heartbreak. Oh, I've had a, you know, made some bad decisions. And or, here's what I did, you know, in my life and gave her the details behind it. I always felt that, okay, she's a child. She's only 1315. She didn't need to know all that. But when I again, take my ego out that I'm supposed to be perfect in my kid's eyes, and tell them I'm not perfect. Don't do things right. I don't always make the right dish. I don't always know the answer, I may pretend like I do. So I had to be I had to remove that. And then say, let's be real here. I don't know what I'm doing. When I was a teenager, and here's the examples that I can give you and learn from that learn from my mistakes. So you don't have to make them. But also that to be vulnerable enough that you know, as a best person, I'm not perfect. And don't come to me assuming that I am. And I think I had that persona for a little while to with the kids that I felt like I had to know every answer, I had to know exactly what to say. But it wasn't until the vulnerability happened, right? That I was able to connect in a deeper way with my own kids.

You hit hitting something that a lot of parents think is like they've got to be perfect. And there's no textbook. There's not a textbook you can read that allows you to know, oh, this is what you do in this situation. This what you do in this situation, and it's Trial by Fire sometimes,

all the time. Know the fire.

But the goodness of it is is that you want the best for your child and you're wanting to have have a greater sense of grace to self grace to them, as well as an openness and vulnerability to share. And yes, I don't think parents need to show every detail of what's going on in their world. But if it's instructive and helps them to the child to understand there's some power in that because they realized, oh, that happened to you. You know I Getting something you asked me to do that and do a little bit differently, whatever that is that you get. And then it clicks in your mind say, Yeah, I can do that differently, I can see why I need to do that differently, or how can be helpful to me. Exactly, which is the learning process that we're all a collective and nucular or blended, and whatever type of family or have is learning from each other. And that's the beauty of having the matrix of a family that you can be able to learn from each other. as well. Agree that last piece about this is in terms of in our conversation about against all odds, we never think about how the soul has to be always against odds. The soul is always if you never pay attention to me, you never acknowledged me. So how do I get your attention? We never think about it, you know, the soul is trying to get our attention. So our soul is trying to get our attention to the experience that happened to us. And then it gives us inspiration about how to navigate differently. And you realize, hmm, I didn't think about that. It's like, it's like, out of the blue icons. You know, it's like, out of the blue. It's like, yeah, I can do it that way. But with inspiration come from, you actually came from your soul, your inner self, your higher self, that it came. And we don't realize that the soul is against all odds, because we have so many distractions to out here in the world. There's always pulling us externally, that the soul says, Please, I'm in a desert right now. Give me some water, please give me something to drink. It tries to help us by giving some inspiration, the intuition, and that recognition and acknowledgement and some of the words you used earlier, the grace, so we have enough space and grace, then the soul starts to pick up and just say, Oh, you're willing to hear me a little bit more even willing to take more quiet time or steal time, reflect the time because that's when the soul is ready to speak to us. Thoughts about that?

Oh, is this floating? Dr. Judith is this when we sit? And we're like, okay, so what do you say I'm listening, I'm all ears, I'm still I'm gonna removing the distractions. So again, the importance of the stillness, the importance of checking in, and making it a habit, whether daily, weekly, so for me, like I said, I know the importance, but I don't always schedule it, I don't always make it a habit to check in. And I think for I'm definitely a scheduler, so I may need to 6am, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, let me schedule my check in Hello. So this is definitely floating, this is where we need to be. So we can get those inspirations and, and we and when we get them, we can register them, we recognize them. Because sometimes we get them in like, where they come from, or we hear them and don't take action. I think that's the other issue is we get these inspirations out of the blue in the shower, and we don't take action. So number one, check in to get the inspiration tick to step to take action on whatever you're hearing

held true. Because when we get the inspiration, we think, Oh, now I can do it later. You need to do it now for a reason. That's why it's like when you're driving, it's telling you take this exit in later. And then you landed up in all this traffic. And now you're stuck there for an hour. And did you have an appointment? That's half hour ago, right? So the more that we can trust that inspiration, that soul prompting that's going on, the more we're enlisting grace, and therefore the more that we're willing to navigate in different ways knowing that we have the right voice that is speaking to us, we know that voice now because it's our soul, whatever image you want, and I say this in another episode, whatever image you want for that soul for yourself in mind is a white light, you know, other it may be a Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, or over others, it may be something more inspirational for them nature, some aspect of nature. And that's whatever it may be, but you're trying to figure a way to connect, just as you were saying earlier conversations, our first episode, part one about communication being so important. We also communication with our soul is just as important. Agreed. So any last comments to this part two that we're doing right now on from looking at all against all odds.

Now I love what to add to your last statement, right? Being able to recognize the voice I have a friend she says her voice is a sister girl on the corner like Girl You Know Better let me tell you what to do that so her voice anytime she hears that she knows Oh, so the speaking Spirit is speaking let me let me act right. So I love the idea of recognizing the voice and the more you tap in, the more you'll hear that voice and you'll know when it comes so who's to trust your gut. Know your instinct. If you've not tapped in you don't know what voices is yours. You may think you might be hearing social media you might be hearing you Know your parents when you were three, you could be hearing your own negative thoughts. But when you tap in and you start hearing, then you'll know that voice I think I believe the audience with that is tapping enough that you know it when you hear it and then take action immediately. So know your voice. I love that.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much a car. It's been a delight for having this part to conversation with you. And there's been so much information that has been shared in our discussions that we've had and I really hope our speakers will be able to go and listen to part one as you're listening to this part two if they listen to part two first. So how many how many they reach you they want to reach out to you and connect.

Oh, I love it. So a gift for your your seekers is please contact me at Jecararivera.com forward slash confidence. I truly believe when we get the confidence and we build that the we can continue to make connections in our lives and continue to become better versions of ourselves. So once you go there jecararivera.com forward slash confidence. You'll see my socials, you'll be able to contact me for further conversations and get a quick guide on boosting your confidence.

Excellent. And again, against all odds when your soul is with you. It's not against the odds at all. It's actually connected to something greater than yourself, making you more powerful and having a more meaningful and joyful life. Thank you. Bye for now.