Bridging The Corporate & The Conscious Worlds with Shoshanna French
IN THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:
Who is Shoshanna French?
Religion vs. Spirituality vs. Psychic abilities
Walking into a bookstore & leaving with your purpose
The benefits of honing your intuition as a CEO
Intuition in Fortune 500 companies
Bridging the corporate and consciousness world
3 types on intuition
Shoshanna’s rock bottom that birthed her business
Energetic Cord cutting with an ex
Friends with benefits to walking down the aisle
Shoshana gives Cami a mini reading
Shoshanna’s self care routine and what’s next for her business
Podcast Transcript
Release date: March 4, 2021
Cami: Well, welcome, Shoshanna, to the Triggered to Life Podcast. I am so excited to have you on. I'm a Shoshanna super fan. I feel like every other episode, I mentioned your name to someone randomly. You pop in my head a lot. So, I'm really excited to have you on. And I also have Rishi (phonetic) here.
Shoshanna: Oh, hello, little peanut.
Cami: Yeah. For those of you listening, I have my dog on my lap. I guess Shoshanna really likes my dog and she always comments on my dog videos, which makes me happy. I thought I had to have her in the room.
Shoshanna: I love puppy vibes. I love puppy vibes. Sharp teeth and all.
Cami: Yeah. Her nickname is Fang because she's been quite the teether, but I figured the hack to getting your dog to not bite you as much is getting them really, really tired.
Shoshanna: Perfect.
Cami: Yeah. So, for those of you who don't know Shoshanna, Shoshanna wears multiple different hats, but she is a psychic, she is an intuitive business coach, she is a wife, and what else would you say Shoshanna is today? Shoshanna is also a healer, and I know that's a new hat she's trying on, and I really like that for you. I think it looks good.
Shoshanna: Thank you. I'm an aunt. I have nine nieces and nephews, and it's one of my favorite jobs on the planet. They range in age from the youngest. June, who was just born during the pandemic last year. So, she's like about eight--is that six, seven, eight months? All the way to the oldest, and he just will be turning in May--I'm going to say this wrong. Tyler, you probably will never listen to this, but Tyler will be turning 24, I think, or 23, in May. So, they're broad, broad age ranges, but it's really fun. I love being an aunt.
Cami: Oh, it's nice. Is that from one sibling or you have multiple siblings?
Shoshanna: Well, so it's both from my husband, Steven, his sister, she has three boys. And then, his sister, his other sister has two girls and a boy, and then his brother has two babies. And then, my sister has a son, and my brother has two kids.
Cami: Oh, my gosh, it's a full house.
Shoshanna: It is a real full house.
Cami: Were they all in Denver?
Shoshanna: Yes. I feel really blessed for that. My brother is talking about moving out of the street. I hope he doesn't do it, but if he did, he'd be the first sibling I have, or the first really family, like close family that moves away from Denver.
Cami: Yeah. For those of you who don't know, Shoshanna lives in Denver, Colorado, which--I had this as a question because it's coming up--I will ask it. I wasn't going to, but why do you live in Denver? What brought you there?
Shoshanna: I was actually born here, born and raised.
Cami: Oh, okay.
Shoshanna: Yeah. My husband was as well. My mom was, her father worked for--well, he was in the Air Force, and then he worked for--he was the aircraft, he was an engineer, and they literally traveled all over the world. And one of his favorite places when he retired, he was like, "Where would we want to live for our retirement?" And my grandmother and him decided they want to come back to Colorado. So, they had a house built here. This was in '69, and they moved here. And so, I was born here.
Cami: Okay. I love that. I'm always curious like what draws people to certain parts of the country.
Shoshanna: Yeah.
Cami: And if I'm remembering correctly, you grew up in a religious family?
Shoshanna: I did. So, for people who listen, religious is pretty broad-ranging. There's lots of interpretations inside of that. I would say that my mom called herself a Jesus freak. She was like hippie who found Jesus. That's how we say it in my family. And so, she was a truly a hippie, and also found Jesus. So, she talked about what you couldn't see as normally as what you can. So, when I was a kid, you'd come down for breakfast and she'd ask you about your dreams. And she does it with my nephew still, my nephew Deshawn (phonetic), who is my sister's son. And so, he talks about his dreams all the time. He's 20. And that was just like talking about what you couldn't see. So, I did not know until much, much later that that runs in our family. My mom and my grandmother both had this gift of being able to see things. But in a religious family, they call it a gift of the spirit, like prophecy. And so, it was that kind of thing that they talked about, but I mean, really not--we didn't really talk about what this thing was. Not really.
Cami: Interesting. So, when you started to develop your psychic abilities, did they scare you at all, or were you kind of like, "Oh, I already know what this is"?
Shoshanna: You know that word, "psychic," was one that had a pretty bad connotation when I was young. And so, even though I was super attracted to things like crystals when I was really young, we watched this--like the things you remember. Remember going to church and it was like, I'm quite a bit older than you are. I was born in '76. So, this was like early '80s. We went to church and they gave us video about watching out for crystals, and yoga, and meditation, and it was like to scare us off from cult kind of things. So weird, right? But, you know, the way that my personality is, I was like, "What's that thing I'm not supposed to like? What's that thing I'm not supposed to be interested in? Hmm, I wonder why we're not supposed to be interested in that."
And so, when I went away to college--I tell this story so often, but I went away to college. It was in between my freshman and sophomore year in college. My friend at the time walked me into a metaphysical bookstore. And when I walked into the bookstore, the woman behind the counter name is Rosemary. She owned it. It's called Kaleidoscope, is the name of the bookstore. It is a crazy story, but she said, "Oh, there you are." And she had had a dream where a source told her a girl was going to come in and her job was to teach me everything she knew. And so, she used the word "psychic," and I was like, "No, no, no. I'm not that." And she was like, "No. Let me tell you what that word actually means." And then, she really did. She trained me and everything she knew. And I wouldn't say that it scared me as much as it was kind of a puzzle because when I was young, it was more about I could empathize with people, like I understood what they were feeling, like that, but then as I got older, it got more complex, right? So, children, pretty simple, sad, angry, in trouble, okay, safe, not safe. But as an adult, it's like, is that like a, "I'm angry, I'm frustrated, get away from me"? It gets more complicated, and then you have to develop it further. So, thankfully, I've met all of them when I was 18 and they taught me everything. So, it wasn't a huge gap to bridge to go from being pretty spiritual and believing in, as my mom would call it, the holy spirit, right, and then, jumping to spirit guides. It wasn't that big of a jump for me.
Cami: Yeah. And so, it's interesting because you mentioned dreams and it's almost as if your mom primed you to be accepting of like, "Oh, yeah, I had this dream and you're the person I'm supposed to teach all my things to." And you're like, "Oh, yeah. That makes sense."
Shoshanna: It totally did. I mean, she would say that. And she's funny about it now, but she calls it, she jokes about it. Like, this gift we have, she calls it the curse because it's different for her than it is for me. Mine is more mind and hers is more emotional. And so, she gets to feel what people feel, which is intense. She was a nurse for 27 years. So, it's the joke. Like, that's a curse, but yeah, I feel like she primed me for certain. I mean, she would say it's like we--though her exact words were, "God is always talking to us. We have way too much to say. We're terrible listeners. And so, when we're sleeping, God can talk to us without our mind getting in the way." And I'm using really adult words. She probably said it in a much simpler way, but basically like, "Listen up. The angels and God are going to talk to you when you're sleeping, and then tell me about your dreams." And I've had vivid, vivid dreams since I can remember, vivid, vivid, vivid. And it wasn't until Rosemary said, "Oh, that's part of being a clairvoyant." And I was like, "What's that? I didn't understand what that meant."
Cami: I love that. That so resonates with me because I'm just notorious for my friends for having the most insane dreams and having dreams where I will dream something and then it happens, or I'm also someone who runs into people quite often, or thinks about something and then they text me. I always just chalk that up to being like connected and whatnot, but I love hearing how it shows up for other people because sometimes you could brush it off so easily and be like, "Oh, yeah, that's just like a thing I have." Or you could be like, "No, that is your intuition speaking to you and that is your gift."
Shoshanna: People brush it off all the time.
Cami: And one thing I think that is so fascinating that you do is you help people bridge intuition in business. And I'm curious, how did you start to see that that was something that's missing in business and that could be a strength for people?
Shoshanna: Every direction in my business came from what I would say like being led by my own intuition, and I found myself--I mean, I've had clients along the way who are business people, but it probably wasn't until about eight years ago, I was leading like a class to just a group of people. And one of the people afterwards said, "I'm curious based on what you just taught us using tools, and asking questions, and connecting to intuition intentionally, does that look different for when you're in business than it would if I was asking about my relationship?" And I was like, "Oh, that's really a great question." And I said, "Well, let me think about that. Let me tap in about that." So, I just really thought about it and I looked at my own business and asked myself, "How did I use my intuition in business intentionally and developed something from there?" And then, mentoring was born. And mentoring is this program where I train people in really inside of business one-on-one over six months to really trust and tap into their intuition.
And then, I have other things besides that, but that was the moment. It was just because someone asked me, and that, just like Rosemary said, "I had a dream about you. Let me teach you everything I need to know." Just like the woman who sold jewelry on the campus where I went to school said, "You have to do this program. It's the best program I've ever done. Don't come back 'til you register." I feel like the universe has sent source--god, goddess has sent people along the way to nudge me when I'm being stubborn. So, not everybody has that same story, but for me, it's just been people along the way. When people ask me that question, when people ask me, "Well, do you do this?" or, "Could you do this?" or, "What about this?" I'm always like, "I don't know. I've never tried that before. Let me look."
In my own business, I had totally been using intuition along the way. I just hadn't--because you know it's different to use it than to teach somebody else how to use it. So, then I just formulated how somebody else could do it. And now, I teach people how to--because here's what I discovered really is that most people--someone like Shelly Bell, right? When her and I did mastering intuition together, and I really trained her in her intuition, what she discovered like most business people do who are successful is that they've been using it all along. But just like you were talking about earlier, your random thoughts, and then you run into people, or you have a dream and then the thing happens, you can write all that stuff off pretty easily if you're like, "Well, you know, I'm just kind of--"
You know, I'm really insightful about people. And Shelly follows her intuition in everything she creates, from her teepee in her front yard to, made by a black woman, the t-shirts and on and on and on. And when I trained her, it was to train her to trust herself more, and then how to hone into what her gift looked like, because her gift was--I mean, she was already using it. And most business people I work with already do. One of my clients right now is a founder of a fashion brand and she uses her intuition when she puts things together. But she just said, "Well, I just have a really good business acumen." That's what she says. And I was like, "Well, I mean, maybe, but when you build from nothing to a billion-dollar fashion brand, you probably are using your intuition a little more than you realize."
Cami: Totally. And just so the audience knows, the year prior to Shelly working with you--I mean, Shelly has always been a very amazing businesswoman. And since she's worked with you, her company has blasted off, like blasted off. And I've watched that process. And so, I think that's why I was originally so intrigued with meeting with you and working with you is because I got to see firsthand what your work has done for people, and it's so inspiring and so exciting because I love intuition. I've always believed in it, and then someone combining it with business, I was like, "Yes! That's what this is." So, thank you for that and it's been fun to watch.
Shoshanna: One, it's especially fun because I was just talking to a client about this yesterday, who is a consultant and works with all different kinds of companies, but specifically, companies who contract with the Department of Defense. So, she works with mainly men, and we were saying process and data-driven companies. And she uses her intuition and she is attempting to get these room of men to acknowledge that intuition is actually more useful than being process and data-driven. And so, that's what we were talking about yesterday was processes and data that you could be in the reams of data trying to sort something out. You could get really confused and not know what to be focused on. And I think this goes across the board for all entrepreneurs.
So, if you're looking at where should I market, that's a data-driven thing, right? That's a process-driven thing. But you could waste a lot of time and money being focused on the thing that somebody else told you or what the market says would be good. But sometimes you just have to go with what your instincts, what your intuition tells you and focuses you on. And so, that's the part that's so fun. It's to watch business people go, "Oh, I don't have to do things like other people. I can actually [00:16:19 unin] that I am, and then be focused in on and bring my mission more to light." Because when someone like Shelly Bell is deeply successful and blast off, what that means is her mission gets fulfilled, and her mission is really important. So, that's what gets me juiced up big time.
Cami: Yeah. I love the reminder that--because I am an entrepreneur and I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends and dated entrepreneurs. And what happens is I start to see like when I'm spending a lot of time with my entrepreneurial friends, I'll be like, "Oh, well, I need to do, do, do," but then I have to remember that my process is completely different. It always has been and I'm always--I cannot do something unless it's completely in alignment with my soul's purpose. And when I try to operate differently, I feel so crushed, like my spirit feels so dead. Just a good reminder to remember that, like, "Yeah. It's okay to do business differently, and it's okay to lead with the intuition." And oftentimes, that is the edge over other people.
Shoshanna: Well, on people listening to your podcast, when they hear something like soul's purpose and they say, "Well, I don't know what my soul's purpose is," for me, what I would say to someone who doesn't know what their soul's purpose is is you know when things don't feel right even if someone else is telling you to do them, like, "No, you really should build a funnel. No, you really should have two free offers. No, you really should, blah, blah, blah," whatever they're saying. If it doesn't feel right, ask yourself why. I mean, the engagement with intuition is not any different than engaging with your intellect. So, to me, it's not like intuition exists over here and intellects over here. They actually are intended to work together. It guides us to what we've already learned and know. I mean, I think that's why I can work with skeptical people because I'm not asking them to--I'm also not asking them to not do the thing that doesn't feel right to them.
Cami: Yeah. You're impeccable with language, and I think that makes you really accessible to a lot of people because you know how to talk to the skeptic, you know how to talk to the person that is deeply, deeply spiritual. And that is so important because we need more connectors between the--this is like between the corporate world and the conscious world. There needs to be more bridges because they can't be separate anymore, like, we're past that.
Shoshanna: Agreed. One of my friends, Abby (phonetic), she's a DC crew member. You'd think you know her. We talk about that quite a bit about people who bridge and how important being the bridge is. And it's funny that she used that language and you just used that language. So, I don't believe in coincidences that your body is the conduit or the bridge between intuition and action. And so, when we apply intuition or when we're using intuition, it's not a separate from us, but we are bridging something, the unseen to the seen. And being kind of that like in-between space, between what sounds, like what is hard to explain or not totally understandable, and then what's really concrete, the bridge is needed in the middle, and I think intuition is part of that. It guides you between these two states.
Cami: Yeah. I love that. One thing you explained to me on our last call, and I don't know if you can just sum this up in a few minutes, but the three types of intuition and how people can determine whether or not they are the mind, the heart, or the feeling intuition, that was so helpful.
Shoshanna: So, there are two parts of intuition. The first part is the part that most people talk about. It's how the body translates. So, some people see, like I was talking about having dreams, you were talking about having dreams. Some people know, like Shelly Bell is a knower. She's a knower. Some people hear, I hear things as well, and some people feel, like they get sensation in the body. So, that's one side of intuition. The other side, which is what you were just mentioning, is what I call your external orientation. So, it's the way in which you like to connect naturally. One is the body. Body intuitives, the way they like to connect, is through experience. So, they want to move through something. And the way that they want to connect with people, if they want to connect with people at all, honestly, because most body intuitives find people super overwhelming because their body is like a sponge for people's uneasiness and disease. That's just how body intuitives work. But when they do want to connect, they're deeply connected to how someone is, physically. That's the thing they're reading. They read spaces and they read bodies.
Heart intuitives, they're emotionally oriented. And so, the thing they love more than anything else is that deep and profound emotional connection. So, my husband's a heart intuitive. If he asks you how you are, he doesn't want to hear about how your day was necessarily. What he means is like how you are right now because he's already sensing how you feel because he's a heart intuitive, he's connecting. He wants to connect with you emotionally. Mind intuitives, which is what I am, mind intuitives, how we want to connect is through understanding. So, we sort of like pull things apart and try to understand how things work, and we connect dots and see how things fit. So, those are the three types. Now, everybody has a body, everybody has a mind, everybody has a heart. So, everybody has all three in them. However, there is one of the three that will rise to the surface as the strongest that you automatically use.
Cami: I love that. It's so helpful. Because the podcast is called "Triggered to Life," I like to talk to people about those moments in their life that changed the course of their life forever. And you've already talked about one, like walking in that bookstore sounds like that was a huge moment in your life. And I also think that being triggered to life can also happen when people feel a deep sense of resistance. I'm curious, is there a time in your life where you just [00:22:43 unin]?
Shoshanna: Oh, yeah. Well, knowing that, knowing what the name of your podcast was, my husband's like, "What's that podcast about?" And I was telling him, "You know, it's about those moments where you are triggered and it creates all new life after that moment." And he was like, "What are you going to talk about?" Because then we talked about what are all the--he's like, "Are you going to talk about when you met me?" Which was adorable. And certainly, that was a moment, but the one that came to me this morning in my meditation that I was like, "I totally want to talk about this one."
Cami: Yeah.
Shoshanna: So, in 2005, that's when I started my business. But before I started my business, I went on a trip with a group of women. We called ourselves the Monarch Migrations. And there was four of us, and we were going to Europe to do women's circles. Now, prior to that moment, in a nice way, you could say, "I was unconscious about money." That would be the nice way to say it. Probably more accurately was resisting money, spent more than I made, always broke, borrowing money, on and on and on. Like, just kind of a jerk about money. I had a pretty craptastic relationship with money.
So, I went to Europe knowing, with this group, knowing I did not have enough money to be there for six months, and I just pretended like I would be fine. So, we get there, and we're in London for about a week, and it's freezing. This is like March. I've never been that cold in my entire life. And we decided to go to Southern Spain where it'll be warmer. So, we fly to Southern Spain, and it's beautiful. I've never seen the Mediterranean Ocean before, and I have no money. I have no money. I do not speak Spanish. I have no means with which to make money, and the other three women had plenty of money to stay for six months. I did not. So, I was trying to figure out how I was going to make money, and I couldn't figure it out, and I got stuck. So, I had to call my best friend in the United States to buy me a plane ticket.
And I'm going to tell this whole story because really, this illustrates the experience of sometimes it's like you were hooked on drugs and that's the bottom of the barrel, right? For me, it was literally being stuck in Spain. I did not speak the language. The part of Spain we were in, people did not speak English, they spoke French, Moroccan, and Spanish. That was it. I spoke almost no Spanish. And so, I was stuck. I had to call my best friend from the hostile phone and ask him to buy me a ticket from London back home, so I wouldn't be stuck. And I had to fly from Spain--I'd only been there like three weeks.
Cami: Okay.
Shoshanna: Yeah. I mean, I was not there all that long. Everybody else was staying. And I told everybody at home that I was going to be gone for six months. I was deep, deep in the lie. I was in the lie. And I was hopeful. You know that feeling like, "Oh, no. This will work out. Like, it's all going to work out." I think it's different to be like magical thinking and magic. Those are not the same thing. This was magical thinking like, "Huh, money grows on trees." No, nope, that does not work. So, there I was, call my best friend. He buys me a ticket to fly from where we were in Spain back to London so I could use the ticket that I had. So, I pack all my stuff up. I say goodbye to my friends. I'm horribly ashamed and embarrassed because they're staying. They're going to go do the Camino. They're going to do the Camino, they're going to meet people, they're going to do women's circles, and I am headed back home.
I'm 28. I get to the airport in El Maria, which is where we were, and I give them my ticket, and they are speaking to me in Spanish, but I didn't understand, and I was like, " Más despacio," like, "Slow down." And basically, I got it. This ticket was for yesterday. I was like, "Oh my god, are you kidding me?" And I just, all of a sudden, know that my face got white and I just start crying. I'm like, "I'm stuck. What am I going to do?" And it was like this, I don't know, it was like a light switched on, like a little flip. And I was like, "I have no choice other than to trust someone and figure this out." So, I'm looking around this little tiny airport, I had two runways, trying to find somebody who could help me translate and figure out what to do with a ticket that my friend bought me, right?
So, I'm walking around, and there's a guy, he's sweeping the floor. He's at janitorial services. And he looks at my face and he was like, "Que paso?" And I was like, "Very bad! Muy malo! Very bad." And I'm like in my broken Spanish trying to explain what happened. And he can see my face, and he hands me his cell phone, and he was like, "Call." So, I call Steven, who's now my husband, my best friend at the time, and I wake him up because it's the middle of the night, and he's like, "Hello?" And I was like, "Honey, the ticket you bought me was for yesterday." And he was like, "Oh, shit. I got the date wrong." And I was like, "Can you buy me the ticket that's for right now?" So, he's like--you hear him. He like drags his ass out of bed, gets to his office, starts--on the thing trying to buy me a ticket. Can't buy me a ticket, it's too close to when it takes off. It's within that 45-minute window.
So, I walk up to the British Airlines ticket window, and there's all the stewardesses, or flight attendants, and I was like talking to them with my broken Spanish, and this woman puts her hand up and she goes, "I speak English." And I was like, "Oh my god, thank God." I tell her the whole story and she goes, "I can't do anything. I can't give you a ticket." And I was like, "No, no. My best friend's on the phone. He can give you a credit card." She goes, "I could lose my job for taking a credit card over the phone." I was like, "You don't understand. If you don't let me have a ticket, I'll be stuck here and I have 11 euros to my name." So, she's here. She's like talking to the other two girls, and then the guy, and he looks at her, and she looks at the phone. So, I hand this guy's phone to her. She gets on the phone with him and she explains who she is. Buy the ticket. A whole thing happens. I get on the airplane, right? I get on the airplane. I'm like, "Oh, thank God, thank God. I'll be able to get on the airplane at Heathrow. I'm going to be okay."
And I get to Gatwick, which is this little tiny airport outside. And you have to get from Gatwick to Heathrow. They're really far away from each other and I have 11 euros, 11 euros. What am I going to do? I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm like screwed. And so, in that light switch, I'm like, "Okay. I'm just going to have to trust." This is like a moment where you're just going to have to trust this thing that you've been talking about since you were 18 that actually works. So, I walk up to the ticket thing to look at how much is a ticket on the fastest train because I cannot miss this other plane. It's a three-hour train ride and the flight leaves in three--I mean, it's like close, close. I was like, "Okay. Let's look at the list of all the plane, all these train rides." And I see the one, and I was like, "That's the one. They're not going to check tickets."
And I have like my backpack because I was backpacking through Europe, and my guitar, because I was going to play and sing, walk through the train station, walk down to the platform, get on this train, and I listen and it's like, "Go to the last car." Okay. Walk through the whole entire train, sit in the last car, sit down at the back of the last car, put all my stuff down, and this is the fast train. And I'm like, got my fingers crossed, and I'm like, "Oh," because I look up and it said, "No ticket, no ride," and then it's a 50-pound ticket, and then they kick you off the train. I'm like, "I have no money. I have 11 euros and I don't have a ticket." And so, I look, and I see the conductor guy checking tickets, and he's walking train to train. And he gets to the last train, our train, opens the door, steps through, and goes like two, and then the train shutters, and he was like got distracted by something. He looks forward and he's like, "Oh." And he walks back out, he never came back.
So, the tail end of that story is get on the flight at Heathrow, fly back to the U.S. And to punish myself, I rode a greyhound bus from New York City Penn Station all the way to Denver, which by the way, is a 48-hour bus ride. It was like my penance because I felt like such a complete loser for lying about how much money I had, and then having to beg, borrow, and steal to get my butt back to Denver. And I was like, "I'm going to the mountains. I don't know what to do." My mom's like, "Go see your grandparents. They always make you feel better, right?" So, I go to my grandparents and bring my Tarot cards with me and my guitar, and I end up on the top of this mountain. And I start shuffling cards, and I put all these cards out, and it was like, "Stop lying." Like that was the message. And then, there was the Tower card. And anybody who's ever read Tarot, the Tower card is terrifying, right? but it was not more terrifying than what I had just gone through. I was like, "Got message received, message received."
So, about three weeks after that, I started a money group, like, went into a money group with a coach friend of mine. And she said, "The way to get ahead in money is, one, you have to deal with money. You have to deal with what's true about money. You have to deal with your old conversations about money. And then, three, you have to figure out ways to make more money than just a job, like multiple streams of income." And she had us go into meditation. Thank goodness, she was that kind of coach, had us go into a meditation. And the words, simple, spirit came to me. And I was like, "That's it." And so, I started my business, and that was almost 16 years ago. So, that was the moment, like that was the--like really, if I look back at my whole life, that moment was probably one of the lowest moments I'd ever had. And it was like the thing that had me realize, either you're going to follow your intuition, you're going to trust God, and the universe get you out of this, or you're not. Like that's it, that's the moment, and that was the moment.
Cami: Wow. Okay. That's incredible, like, that story.
Shoshanna: Oh, I still shake my head about it a little bit because I'm like, "Oh, Lord, have mercy." That was not my finest moment, and thank goodness for intuition, right? Thank goodness for my connection to intuition, and it literally guided me all the way home, all the way home.
Cami: Wow. And what do I say like, all the way home to your "best friend," who--
Shoshanna: Yes.
Cami: And so, just like a quick little story into that because I'm always curious how people meet their loves. And I know you and your husband have a really special relationship.
Shoshanna: Oh, we do.
Cami: It's like a little quick tidbit.
Shoshanna: I was working for a transformational education company. I was a salesperson. I was like responsible for the seminar program. And I worked Saturdays. I worked all the time. Let's be honest, you work all the time. That was my martyr moment. And I was in the back of the room listening to people's share on the microphone, kind of in a transformational course to get pumped up before I got on my calls to sell stuff, to sell transformation programs. And he was at the microphone, and I was like, "Who is that tall drink of water?" He's big, tall, Viking-looking dude, big blue eyes, and I was like, "He's hot, like wicked hot." And then, in my head came, "That's the man you're going to marry." And I was like, "What? No."
So, at the break, I walked up to him to kind of like introduce myself and make an attempt to ask him out, which I have no game. So, let's be honest about that one. And I walk up to him and I have a white nametag on. In every center for this educational company, there's only five people who work for it, but there's hundreds of people who do programs. So, if a person with a white nametag walks up to you, you think you must owe money or didn't fill out a form right or didn't sign something. So, I walk up to him like swagger, like, "Hey." And he's like, "Oh, did I forget to sign something? Did I not give my credit card this morning?" And I was like new. "My name is Shoshanna. I heard you sharing. I just wanted to introduce myself." And then, he got really shy and kind of embarrassed because he was sharing some pretty deep stuff.
And when you're up there sharing it at the microphone, I don't think you think about the fact that there's like 300 people listening to your story. And he got really shy, and then I didn't see him again for a while. I called my mom, told her I met the man I was going to marry, and she was like, "Honey, I thought you didn't even have time to date. What's this person's name? I really want to hear all about him." And I was like, "His name is Steven." "What's his last name?" "Don't know his last name." And then, she got it. She goes, "Wait, wait, what?" She goes, "Uh-huh, okay." [00:35:56 unin] my mom would say.
And then, all this time passed, and he came back to volunteer at the center. And I saw him like twice a week, and it's hotter than I remembered, and I tried to ask him out like four or five times, and it just never went well. And to be fair, he had moved back to Colorado. His mom was sick with cancer and moved back to Colorado after working for the Olympics in Salt Lake City. And so, he, as an event planner for the Salt Lake City Olympics, he'd come back to be with her since she was sick. And he's doing deep transformational work. He's like, "I cannot date anybody. Are you kidding me?" So, I just said, "Let's be friends." And he was like, "Yeah. All women say that." And I was like, "No. Really, I want to be your friend."
And so, we just became friends. And we were friends for--that was in 2002. I was friends with him until I came back from that trip, the one I just talked about, where he basically saved my behind twice, right? He bought me two different tickets, including that terrible ticket on the greyhound bus. And we were in a hot tub at a friend's party, and I was like, "This is done. I'm seducing him now." I was like, "I must seduce him immediately." And then, things led from there and he'd never been FWB before, friends with benefits. I was like, "You've never had friends with benefits. Let me introduce you." And really, I didn't have designs on that that would have him date me. It was just like I just want this guy in my life.
And so, we just became really, really good friends, and with benefits. And his mom, sadly, got really, really sick, and she passed away. That was in 2006, in the summer of 2006. And right after that, he just said, "I can tell you're waiting for me." He's like, "If I woke up tomorrow and was ready to be in a relationship, one, I don't know if that's ever going to happen. And two, if I woke up tomorrow, I don't know if it would be you." And that was like such an honest thing to say, and I was like, "Alright, cool." And I went and dated other people. And I didn't do that. Like people ask me now, like, "Did you do that to make him jealous?" "No, I did give him space." I mean, he was my best friend, saved my behind, and he was grieving. And I was dating this guy who's super sweet. We did not speak the same first language and I was telling Steven like, "I'm going to break up with him. He's a super nice guy," I said, "but we don't speak the same language." And he was like, "Good. You should break up with him so we can date." And I was like, "What?" And that was all [00:38:31 unin]. That was December of 2006. So, we've been together in relationship ever since then. So, this summer in June, we'll celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary.
Cami: Oh, I love that. Great.
Shoshanna: Yeah. He is a delight to live with. I'm kind of intense and serious, and he is a big goof. So, he keeps me chilling out.
Cami: Yeah. That's a really nice balance. Wow, I love that story. I love hearing about people's loves and how they met. It warms my heart.
Shoshanna: Yeah.
Cami: So, one interesting thing--so I worked with you this summer, and I went through a bad breakup, or not a bad breakup, but I went through a breakup. That was my triggered to life moment, about almost a year ago now. And one of your specialties when you work with people is something called cord cutting. And I've heard about it before. I had visualized some cord cutting, done some visualizing meditations of cord cutting. But after working with you and cutting cords from my previous relationship, I had--well, one on the phone. Like I had such a visceral physical reaction as you were energetically helping me to cut these cords. And I had never experienced something so physical from an energetic separation, and I don't know if I'm explaining this well, but--
Shoshanna: I think you're doing a great job explaining it.
Cami: Can you explain a little bit why it can be--like, why, when you separate energetically, it can be such a physical visceral reaction? Because I was crying hysterically. It felt like someone was cutting something out of me. And even weeks afterwards, I went back into a grieving period that I just did not expect. And then, like two weeks later, I started dating someone else, and that was just like an interesting turn of events when like totally unexpected.
Shoshanna: So, I always like to give credit to my teachers. I learned cord cutting from a woman, Patricia, who is a like a Reiki master and massage therapist. This was probably 12 years ago. And she did a cord cutting on me. And she had kind of a different way that she did it, but when she did it, I was like, "What is that?" I was like that. And then, I just felt really free, like I felt freed up. So, I just always like to give credit because without her, I would never have learned that particular skill. So, if you take the case that everything's energy, right? This is like one of my favorite things. Physicists talk about this, which is that 20% of the cosmos is made up of matter, but the other 80% is energy. Energy also includes thoughts, feelings, physical sensations are actual physical body, and even emotions.
Cami: Yeah.
Shoshanna: And so, when we're doing energetic work and we cut cords, there's going to be a ripple in your emotions, your thoughts, and your physical body, because that's energy, too. It's always just like to set that understanding first. And I now tell people different things based on our experience doing cord cutting together. I give people a little more of a heads up now than I probably used to because you had such an intense clearing release that I was like, "Okay. I don't actually warn people that this could be intensely emotional and physically painful." I was like, "I should probably tell people that." So, thank you. I now tell people that before I do cord cutting work with them entirely from our work together.
So, what I'm doing when we cord cut. So, when we are connected with people on whether it's someone we're worried about, whether it's someone that hurt us, or just even someone we love, like, I cut cords with my husband quite often, but we don't know what's going on with them, like, we're kind of curious about what's going on and we have a cord, they tug us and we tug them. I always think of it like conjoined twins. It's like you're sharing energy, you're sharing space. And that can be amazing when you do it intentionally. Like, I do this thing with people sometimes where I teach them how to do partner meditations. That's amazing. You're sharing energy intentionally. You know it's the work they do in certain types of tantra, right, where you share breath and things. But when you're doing it unintentionally, it can be completely exhausting, and then you're experiencing their experience as your own, and you don't even know that you are.
I mean, you just gave your example, but I have another client that I worked with who was on depression and anxiety medics, medicine both, and they had stopped working. And she's just like, "I'm throwing my hands up and you're one of my spaghetti on the wall options. Someone told me about you. I thought I could just try this because I don't know." And I was really clear with her, like, "Do not stop taking your medication after we talk." But in the process of doing cord work with her, we discovered she had a cord with her mom, and her mom suffered from really, really intense depression, from like 45 until she passed at like 60. And she'd already passed away, but she had this cord of energy to her mom. And when we cut that, her medication started working again. And I was like, "Well, I don't--"
I mean, you know, this is an experimentation. This is all R&D to me, right? I'm like, "Well, why don't you tell me? Because I want to understand." I was having her tell me what happened. She said, "My depression feels like I'm just really tired. That's what my depression feels like. Like, I can't quite get myself out of bed." She's like, "My mom's depression is more like physical pain, and that I hate everyone." So, she was like hating everyone in physical pain and couldn't get herself motivated to get out of bed. It was like that's what it felt like. But when we cut the cord, she just went back to being tired. She was like, "I can deal with tired. My medication works so I'm tired. But my medication does not work on hating people and having physical pain." She was like, "I just all of a sudden--" she got tested for fibromyalgia. She thought something else was going on, and it's so--I will say, as someone who does this every day, it's odd, because it's not like there's a whole lot of explanation other than I will say that Dr. Joe Dispenza has been doing a lot of research along with Bruce Lipton and even Deepak Chopra, physicians who've done a lot of research about heart coherence, and heart math, and how we match energy.
So, when you're at a concert and then you get hyped, that's matching energy. When you're at a funeral and you get really sad, that's matching it, like you match energy. So, when you're corded with someone, you're matching energy but you don't know it, because you don't know that you're corded. So, when we release cords, what gets restored to you is your own energy that has been over there. And then, you get to return their energy because their energy doesn't belong in your body, it doesn't feel good.
Cami: Totally.
Shoshanna: That's what cord cutting is.
Cami: Yeah. And it was so interesting because it was like--I then went through like another little period of grief. And then, after that, I felt really just--like, I wasn't constantly thinking about this person. It was just so natural, and it's actually allowed us to have a friendship that isn't--there's no hints of like longing to be back together anymore. I always tell people about this because it's so--when you have obsessive thoughts and then you no longer have them, and the only thing that changes is going through a cord cutting ceremony, you're like, "This is real." For me, that was one of those moments that's like, "Yeah, of course. All the stuff you talk about is real, energy is real." And yeah, I love the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, too. His meditations are some of the first meditations that made me feel one way, and then at the end of them, I felt a completely different way, and that was just so eye-opening to me.
Shoshanna: Yeah. Well, and now, I love this time, right? So, when I was 18, that would have been in '95. So, in '95, science really hadn't caught up yet. So, when I learned all these ancient wisdoms and I studied metaphysics, and I learned meditation, and tarot, and kabbalah, and all this stuff, just science hadn't caught up yet. So, now, they've done a ton of research on what visualization can do. So, the reason why I lead people in cord cutting, but you cut the cords yourself, is because if I cut them for you, then it wouldn't feel as real to you. And I believe that what we're doing is really actually releasing energetic cords, right? But whether that's real or not, who cares because your brain thinks it's real. So, it is releasing the connection you had. I've watched people transform themselves, and I've transformed myself. I let go of people from the past. That very first cord cutting was about an ex. And after that, I just stopped having dreams about him, which was a huge relief.
Cami: I love this subject.
Shoshanna: I know. Me, too. We can just geek out on science and woo-woo, and it's so fun.
Cami: Yeah. It is so fun. Can I be selfish for a second?
Shoshanna: I would love for you to be selfish for a second.
Cami: Do you have any like messages for me? Do you have anything--I mean, I know I could tap into my own intuition myself, but is there anything in my aura that you want to let me know or [00:48:41 unin] anything for the audience?
Shoshanna: Yeah. Well, for you, in particular, as you asked that question, how my intuition works as I see and hear messages. So, immediately, I heard more group programs in your business, like lots and lots, and I heard make them longer. So, I know you do kind of like a certain number of days cleanse, but then what I heard was like the cleanse, and then there was like a thing in between where people can interact with you, like as they come down off of having the insights about the cleanse, and then they do whatever that next piece is, the reintegration into regular food or something, or whatever. So, it was something that was longer, and it had a bigger group. So, that's what I saw.
Cami: I love that because I have been talking a lot about that I want to do group programs.
Shoshanna: Makes sense.
Cami: Ding, ding, ding.
Shoshanna: That's that ding ding. And then, the other thing that came to me when you asked was--and people who are watching me as I look up, it is to help me find because I'm seeing a whole bunch of stuff, so it helps me find what I'm looking for. So, the other thing I heard was more video content about what you mix together, like the cocktails you mix together that are for anti-inflammation. Yeah.
Cami: I love that.
Shoshanna: Yeah. So, it's like, I don't know if you've seen--I just saw it the other day. It's so silly, but it's Selena and the Chef. Have you seen that show?
Cami: No.
Shoshanna: It's on--I don't know. I can't remember which. We have like eight of those streaming things. I don't remember which one it was because we have that many nieces and nephews, they all borrow them. But anyway, it's the show where she's in her kitchen and then chefs on Zoom teach her how to make something. And so, what I was more aware of was more like you and your kitchen showing all the options for people, and like more engaged content where people can see what you mix together so they can see all the different things you mix together.
Cami: I love that. I do a lot of cooking classes for the residential wellness programming I do, but I don't really make that available to other people. So, maybe I'll have to start making that a public offering.
Shoshanna: It's the source and your guide say that is a good idea.
Cami: Hmm.
Shoshanna: Yeah.
Cami: I love that.
Shoshanna: Alright, cool. You asked something about your aura, but the best way I can describe it is behind your left shoulder, there's like something there. And when I ask what it is, I just hear, just continue to open up to vulnerability and open up to new love, like opening up fully to new love and be willing to do that uncomfortable feeling where you fall.
Cami: Shoshanna, gosh, you're good, you're good. I've been doing a lot of like--I'm in that place where I feel really happy doing my thing by myself and with my dog, obviously. But I was joking with a friend the other day and I told him, I'm like, "Let me know if you have any cute athletic, whatever, friends. I'm like emotionally available." And he looked at me and he goes, "Are you emotionally available?"
Shoshanna: Now, that is a good friend.
Cami: Shout out to Dr. Mike. He's been on the podcast before, but he was the one who asked me that. And I was like, "Touché, Dr. Mike. That is a great question and I'm working on it."
Shoshanna: It's good. If people watch this and they're like, "Well, how does she do that? That must be something special she has." I've been training for 26 years, so I have a pretty honed gift. However, how my gift works is I was drawn to your left shoulder, like visually, and then I was like, "What's over there?" And then, I know left side is about the feminine, right? It's about receiving. And then, it was like just this energy behind you. I was like, "Oh, it's about like the willingness to drop your shoulder to let someone in." And then, it came as like a knowing in my head, right? So, that's how my gift works.
Cami: Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing your process.
Shoshanna: You're welcome.
Cami: And my last question for you is you work with a lot of people and your self-care practice is a pretty well-oiled machine at this point, and that's something you have crafted and created for yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and what that looks like for you, and why you need that sort of practice?
Shoshanna: The thing I'll say about COVID for me last year is that prior to COVID, I had an okay self-care practice, and my business was busy, but it's not as busy as it started to become. COVID had my business get really busy. A lot of people needed a lot of support. And I started doing 18 client appointments a week. And when that happened, I really needed a way more clear and flexible kind of self-care. So for myself, the three key components of self-care for me, one is movement. Like Brené says, "Got to move the issues in the tissues." I'm an athlete at heart. And so, I love cardio, I love weights, I love yoga, I love to run, I love bicycling like really long distances. So, that's a key component for me is movement.
The second piece for me is meditation. And there is no shortcut in meditation that I have found. I've been an on and off practicer since I originally learned meditation when I was 18. Your brain is like a puppy. Your brain is like a puppy, it just wants what it wants when it wants it. And until you train it to focus, it just won't. So, there are moments for myself even being a regular practicer where my brains like does not want to shut off. So, meditation is hugely important. And then, the third really, like for me, the third is about what brings me joy, and that changes. I have different seasons of life. We're in a pandemic. However, I miss the people I love. And so, as long as we're all in good practices, I see people because in Denver, we're not fully shut down.
So, I meet friends in small groups, two people or less. We have dinner together. I play guitar. I've been playing guitar for 30 years and singing and songwriting. And so, that's another part of my joy practice. I love learning and I usually read 40 books a year. And so, I'm always reading something. Canoodling with my husband, it's total joy. I love just ridiculously funny sitcoms. It's like my guilty pleasure. I love Big Bang Theory, makes me laugh. So, we're watching all the seasons over again and they're just as funny as I remember. But I have lots of things bring me joy. So, mostly, it's nature, and people, and learning, engaging with my mind, that kind of thing, being outdoors. So, those are the three components of my self-care movement, meditation, and joy. And as long as I do that, I'm good.
Cami: Yeah. I love the joy component. That is huge. Just something that is so easily forgotten sometimes. Like, we're here to have fun, we're here to be happy, and it takes work to get there, but making it a priority really helps.
Shoshanna: It does, it does. And I'll tell you, I talked to enough women that, especially entrepreneurial women, that joy is not a thing that gets sort of like in the list of priorities, personal joy doesn't get in the top 5, and sometimes not even the top 10 when I ask women that during initial coaching sessions. And I just say, "Well, how's your joy bucket? Is it empty? Is it full?" They're like, "I don't know what brings me joy because they're so oriented towards taking care of other people. And then, when they think self-care, they think things like, make sure I'm exercising because it's important and making sure that I nourish my physical body, like I'm eating enough and drinking enough water." But those things are not joyful, not necessarily. And so, joy is revolutionary. If women were focused on their joy, it would literally change the world.
Cami: Yes, yes. Round of applause for that sentence. So, Shoshanna, you're writing a book on intuition, or maybe it's finished now?
Shoshanna: Not yet. We're working on it.
Cami: Amazing.
Shoshanna: Yeah.
Cami: So, where can people find you? How can people engage with you? And if someone wants to work with you, where can they find you?
Shoshanna: I'm super easy to find. You can find me on Instagram. You follow Cami, you can find me, super easy. Shoshanna French Stokes, it's my married name on Instagram. You can find my website, simplespirit.com. Working with me is not hard. We do an initial session, and then after that, some people just want to do only one session, some people want to do sessions every once in a while. And I offer coaching programs. I can come in and work with leadership teams. I love doing that, training leadership teams how to trust their intuition. And what often gets asked of me, and I think it's related to people finding me, is how do you bring intuition into a more corporate environment? And the answer to that is translation.
So, it's just a matter of translation. So, when I worked with the CEO, who gets really clear visions, people believe him, it's easy for him to communicate the initial. But when it comes to execution, that's really where the translation is needed. So, when people want to go to the place where they're like, "Okay. Let's look at the data now. Let's look at the process now because now we have this idea that came through our CEO." But having then in the process of how you actually get it out to the market, that's the part where translation about intuition is really needed.
Cami: It is so important because the hang-up is always--well, not always, but can be oftentimes with the big ideas that aren't quite being translated perfectly.
Shoshanna: A hundred percent, 100%, yup. So, people can find me there. I'm easy to find. If my PR company has anything to do with it, that will change. But for now, I am super easy to find. And hopefully, that book will be coming out soon. We're thinking fall of this year or spring of next. It's with editors, and we're doing revisions.
Cami: I am so excited for that book, and I'm so thankful for having you on. You're one of my favorite people, and this has been such a treat. I feel so full.
Shoshanna: Like in a good way, I hope.
Cami: Yeah, yeah.
Shoshanna: Okay, good.
Cami: It's full.
Shoshanna: Okay. Good. Me too, that was such a fun conversation. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Cami: Of course. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your week. Rishi says, "Oh, bye, little peanut." Look at that little face.
Shoshanna: Oh, you really did wear him out.
Cami: Well, I also am sitting on a BioMat because the heat really calms her down.
Shoshanna: Oh, that's good. She's all like, "I'm chill, mom." I'm like, drug her a little bit.
Cami: Well, thank you, Shoshanna. I'm excited and I'm excited to book another session. I always get excited, right?
Shoshanna: I'm excited to work with you more. And thank you again. I'm excited for all the people who listen to your podcast to have access to their intuition. If you don't want to work with me one on one, but you're curious about how your intuition works, go to my website, take the test, the intuitive blueprint test. It's totally free. And now when you take the blueprint test, a video from me comes and explains what the results mean. So, it can explain more of what it all means, and I hope that every person who listens to this podcast goes and takes that test because--anyone, anyone, anyone. And I really do mean anyone can learn how to use their intuition, and it is so useful, obviously.
Cami: Yeah. We'll link that so people can easily access that in the show notes.
Shoshanna: Awesome. Thank you.
Cami: Alright. Bye, Shoshanna.