#39 - Flourish As A Woman - A New Focus For Season 2
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Knowing who you are. Who am I really? And what do I want? When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Welcome to IndieWay. I am your host, Mikaela Trenz, and this is a Fragment of the Podcast.

Hi there. I'm Ella, and this is the In Bloom Podcast. Welcome. I'm thrilled that you're joining me today for our very first episode in this new season of sorts. Before we dive in, let me set the stage for what we're about to explore together. So what I've been noticing recently is that young women today are in an incredible position. This includes me. This includes a lot of my friends. This includes a lot of people that I care about and love.

We women have more opportunities than ever before in every single major aspect of our lives, careers, relationships, and personal lives. It's an exciting time, but here's the complication.

Despite all of these opportunities, many of us are feeling unfulfilled, anxious, and uncertain. We're struggling with unhappiness in our careers, dissatisfaction in our relationships, insecurities about our bodies, uncertainty about the big life decisions that we face, so many things. And if we don't address these challenges, we risk settling for less than we deserve, experiencing burnout perhaps,

and missing out on the fulfilling, impactful lives we could be living instead. But I believe that we, as individuals, have the power to shape our lives intentionally.

We can become the women that we aspire to be, loving, successful, impactful, fulfilled. It's not about having all the answers right now. It's about embarking on a journey of growth and self-discovery. By joining me on this journey and listening to every episode, you'll gain clarity on who you want to be, learn valuable lessons without having to make all the mistakes yourself, and create a life that's aligned with your personal values and aspirations. So are you ready to become the best version of yourself?

Let's dive into episode one. I'm going to start this episode extremely honestly. I'm going to tell you exactly where I feel like I'm at right now. When I sit down and I ask myself, who do I want to be and what life do I want to live? I can't help but want to be so much more than I am right now. I don't think that I'm everything that I could be. And you know what? I think that's okay. I think it's more than okay, actually. I think it's exciting. The person that I want to be is caring and loving and

I want people to feel good around me. I want them to feel like I genuinely care. I want my life to impact people positively. I want to be successful in my work, have an amazing love relationship, and look in the mirror and be so proud of the woman that I am. I want to have kids someday and raise them to be good humans. I want to be a present parent someday, and I want to be a friend that others can count on. I'm on a journey to that vision, to those ideals, and I want to invite you to join me.

For it all to make sense why I care so much about this topic, why I care about fulfillment, why I care about making conscious and intentional choices, why I care so much about who it is that I am right now and who it is that I'm trying to be, let me take you on a little journey through my life.

So growing up, I felt like I did not fit in at all. I was this wannabe girly girl. I was stuck in a house with three boys. I was this weird mix of like tomboy and lost girl trying to figure out where I was going to fit in best.

I was always trying to make friends, but I always picked the wrong people. And I felt like I didn't really have many great female role models in my life. People that were in the places that I wanted to be. People that exuded the things that I wanted to exude. And that did not help one bit whenever my parents divorced and then I lived with my dad and brothers alone. So naturally, I spent a lot of time doubting myself and second guessing basically every decision that I made.

This is the good thing though. I was very observant. And that skill turned out to be my secret weapon throughout all of these ups and downs in my life. So if I look back at my life and I kind of analyze it and think it through, I'd boil down my life into two major themes. One is love and one is work or the pursuit of passion, something like that.

So I was obsessed with love as a kid. This idea of falling in love, romance, weddings, dating. I loved it all. I could not hear more details about it. I would always ask people for all of their relationship tea. I was always trying to understand what was going on.

on. I was always trying to understand why things worked, why things didn't. And then my parents got divorced. And love became something that wasn't just about the good, but also became more complex. It became a problem to figure out. So the observant thing.

Anything in my life that I recognized I didn't understand or I didn't like became a problem to solve. And I would become like mentally obsessed with things. I would start to pay attention and watch and try and analyze. But in this particular instance, I saw firsthand how a broken relationship tore a whole family apart. I lived through years without my dad around and

I lived through years where my mom felt so distant and I lived through years where I didn't see my brothers almost at all. And I lived through years without seeing my extended family members at all. And that experience made me care.

so much about good relationships. It made me care so much about the relationship that I would eventually have. I would observe everyone around me. I would ask questions to everybody around me and I would test my theories. And slowly but surely, I started to piece together what I wanted in a relationship and more importantly, who I needed to become to have that kind of relationship. So this topic of relationships and love, it basically began my whole journey into self-

knowledge, self-growth, self-discovery. And eventually it started the whole topic of what does it mean to live a fulfilling life? Because I started to recognize how important it is to get your relationship right

It's so important to have a right relationship with yourself. But if you're going to maximize for just the most fulfillment possible, you want to make sure that you end up having a love relationship that is so good because it just impacts so many aspects of your life. And I saw that with my parents, how it tore everything.

whole family apart. It created so much dissatisfaction. And so I'm about 15 years old. My parents got divorced when I was about 12, about 15 years old. Whenever I start to realize that, that for me to have a great love, it's going to start with me becoming a great person, me becoming a person that's capable of cultivating this great love. It was about high school. So I had this huge awakening and wake up call. I got the impulse to start

looking at myself and who I was and trying to evaluate whether or not I was the kind of person that would cultivate a good relationship. And then I started looking at the relationships around me that were not romantic. And I started realizing that I didn't treat other people very well. I was about 15, 16, 17.

I recognized that I could be rude sometimes. And I recognized that I judge people really quickly. And I recognized that I was not really disciplined. And I created this list where I just listed out every single characteristic in myself that pertained to relationships that I didn't think were conducive to good. Just the word good. Like, do I have good relationships? And I realized that there were so many things in my life that were not good.

So admitting that was the first step to changing it. And for about three or four years, I honestly just spent so much time trying to become more conscious about how I made other people feel.

At the same time, I was graduating high school and trying to figure out where I was going to go in life. So I graduated high school in the year of 2020, which was the year that the pandemic came around. And I was trying to pick my college. I was trying to decide who I was going to be, what I was going to develop inside of myself.

But there were two, I mean, tiny problems. No school felt right for me. I looked at a ton of schools. I never had that, you know, the light shines upon you and you're like, yes, this is a school. And the second problem that I had was that my parents were not going to be paying for my college tuition.

So there I was, I was clueless about what I wanted to do. I did not have any work experience because I did not work throughout high school because my life was so hectic with my parents moving and me going to all these different types of cities all the time with each different parent and family and doing all these things. I had no idea where to start and I was so lost. So

I did online classes for a little bit. I worked part time. I became a podcast junkie listening to tons of podcasts and I was trying to figure out my options. I was trying to figure out, you know, what could I potentially do? Then out of nowhere started a, an amazing program. And I also started a couple of internships. And from those opportunities, I got the chance to build and work with amazing people on a tech startup and,

It was absolutely terrifying. And also it was extremely exciting. I made the gut-wrenching decision to drop out of school, which was really, really hard in the moment because nobody agreed with me. It was insane. I remember there was this one moment I was at the startup. It was one of my first weeks. I got tasked to write the daily newsletter, which was about six editions per week.

And I was only supposed to write three. I was like, okay. But I was in an industry that I did not understand. And I was trying to write in the voice of professionals that I also did not understand. And I spent hours trying to sound professional and techie and write something that was worth anything. And when I finally showed it to my boss,

He spent about 20 minutes marking through it, every grammar mistake, every single tiny change, every single structure change. And by the end of it, my email did not look anything like my email had started. I learned so, so, so much in that moment. But it was definitely humbling. Anyways, so I was in the startup. I was with them for about two and a half years. And in that time, I got so excited about my career potential.

I got so passionate. I was so, I was on this high almost this idea like, oh, I could be, you know, this awesome, awesome person. I always felt the need to prove myself. And I thought that this could be the way that I proved myself. Like I could become, you know, this amazing marketer. I could become this amazing content writer. I could become this amazing X insert, whatever. And

I had all these aspirations in my head about who I wanted to become, what I wanted to do. And I went into overdrive. I worked about 90-hour weeks all the time. I would literally, no joke, wake up, jump on my computer, allow myself, I think, two quick breaks, one for meals and then one for like...

a half meal, maybe I would work until I could not keep my eyes open and then I would do it again. I did not go to the gym in this period. I did not go outside very much. I did not even eat many good things for myself. It was so bad. I was learning so fast, which looking back was such a gift, but at what cost?

I ended up hitting burnout very hard after about a year and a half. And then as if I didn't learn my lesson, I did it again and I hit it after two years.

It was funny because in the moment, I told myself that it was worth it, that I could work like crazy now. I could focus on relationships and family life later. I didn't need community right now. I could just put all of the effort in, all of the investment in up front. And then later on, I'd look at my life and I'd be more satisfied with it.

I told myself that it was worth it, that, you know, if I worked like crazy right now and I focused on my relationships and community and balance later, that I would have more and I would have a more fulfilling life and people would look at me. And comparatively, I would have jumped years in advance.

Um, and I think a lot of people can relate. It's like you look at the first part of your career and you say, okay, well, if I invest upfront, maybe I'll get all the other things afterwards. And then I'll have this too. It was like, okay, well, if I learn marketing now and I become really, really, really great at it, and then I have my family, then I'll have both. But I think it's interesting because, um, I ended up hitting a wall, um,

Physically first and then mentally. Physically, I gave myself PCOS symptoms for about two or three weeks. I was just not having a good time. I was anemic. I was having issues with sleep. I was having so many issues with my health. I had told myself that I was passionate and excited and this was great. But whenever I really took a step back and I slowed down, I wasn't actually fulfilled. I wasn't actually happy. I was sacrificing my friends, my health, my happiness. I

I was not the person that I wanted to be whenever I looked in the mirror. And so I did a total life reboot. I fixed my sleep schedule. I started exercising again. I ate better. I made time for friends. And it was funny because my work performance improved and I became a much better and more enjoyable person to be around. Why have I shared all this with you? Why am I sharing all of this with you?

I am seeing so many women, friends, colleagues, acquaintances stuck in situations that drain them. They're settling for less than they deserve. They're making choices that close doors rather than open them. And I want to help break that cycle because I know that it could happen to me. That is what this podcast is about. It's a journey of discovery, a journey of discovery of ourselves, of our potential, of the lives that we want to create. And

As a teaser, a couple of topics that we will be talking about eventually. It's personal growth, personal fulfillment, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a woman in today's world, how to advocate for yourself, how to communicate well, how to live out your femininity, how to find the great relationship that you want, how to cultivate that.

how to define what it is that you want, how to define what it is that you are willing to wait for and what it is that you should not wait for. And so, so, so much more. Remember, you're not alone in this. We're all works in progress and that is what makes life exciting. So until next time, keep growing, keep learning and keep believing in the amazing woman that you're becoming. I'm so glad to be doing this season two of the In Bloom podcast with you.

I hope that you found this episode enriching. I would love to hear your thoughts. If you would like to write a rating or be fantastic, you can also follow me at I'm looking forward to our next episode. Cheers. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.