How to Become Who You Really Are: Heal the Mother Wound & Reclaim Your Truth with Diane Sorenson
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
What happens when the “good girl” grows up, becomes a mother, and realizes the performance is killing her and hurting her family?
CW: Discussions of self-harm throughout the episode.
In today’s episode of Making Meaning, Reese Brown sits down with Diane Sorensen, former teacher, mother, coach, and host of Chaos to Connection, to unravel the mother wound, the good girl archetype, and the generational patterns that silently shape our lives. Diane shares the story of how her daughter’s mental health crisis became the unexpected catalyst for her own awakening.
Together, they explore:
- Why perfectionism, people-pleasing, and chronic self-abandonment get passed down through the maternal line
- How “good girl programming” disconnects us from our truth, intuition, and inner knowing
- The hidden ways self-harm shows up in thoughts, patterns, and body image
- Why awareness is a practice — not a one-time realization
- How to build healthy boundaries (the real kind, not the Instagram kind)
- What it means to live a meaningful life you experience, not just survive
- And the powerful idea that we are “universal energy in individualized form” If you’ve ever struggled with the weight of expectations, the fear of rejection, or the longing to finally live as your authentic self, this conversation will feel like a homecoming.
Check out Diane Sorenson’s work and the From Chaos to Connection Podcast!
Diane’s Website: https://www.dianesorensen.net
From Chaos to Connection: https://open.spotify.com/show/5crEBn4kp3kxqy8dH1PQyW?si=308a5252ecd44627
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Thank you for being here!
Smack,
Reese
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome & Setting Intentions
02:00 Diane’s Story: The Good Girl Who Became the Good Mom
04:30 Where the Good Girl Archetype Comes From
08:00 Motherhood, Expectations & Self-Abandonment
12:00 When Her Daughter’s Crisis Became a Mirror 16:45 The Bathroom Moment: Realizing Something Had to Change
20:00 Epigenetics, Generational Trauma & the Mother Wound
26:00 People Pleasing, Perfectionism & Emotional Avoidance
30:00 How Self-Harm Shows Up in Hidden Ways
36:00 Awareness as Healing: But Not the Way You Think
40:45 What Real Growth Looks Like Years Later
46:15 Surrender, Letting Go & Letting Your Kids Have Their Own Journey
50:30 Being Universal Energy in Individual Form
54:00 Purpose, Meaning & Trusting the Inner Knowing
1:03:00 Truth Over Approval: The New Way Forward
1:08:00 Why Boundaries Are Deep Work (Not Rules)
1:12:30 Final Reflections & Closing
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Reese Brown (00:02.002)
Diane, thank you so very much for joining me today. I'm so excited to be sitting down, chatting with you and to connect, hear more about your story and how you make meaning. Thank you so much for being here.
Diane Sorensen (00:18.918)
Well, thank you, Reese, for having me here. I am very honored to be here with you and your listeners. And I think we're going to have a great conversation.
Reese Brown (00:28.49)
Absolutely, me too. Well, my first question to hopefully just set a nice intention and tone for our whole conversation is what is one thing you're grateful for?
Diane Sorensen (00:39.686)
Something I am grateful for. I am grateful that I am sitting here in this conversation with you right now, Reese. This is the only place I need to be at this time. There's nowhere else I need to be, nothing else I need to do.
Reese Brown (00:58.296)
I love that. And isn't that such a beautiful thing to be grateful for too, when you realize like all of my sleep meditations that I listen to at night always tell me like, there's nothing else you need to do. Everything that needs to be done can be done tomorrow. And it's just like, yeah, that's actually true. And to settle into that feeling is just so like, so this is peace. This is what that peace feels like. And to tap into that is truly such a.
beautiful feeling. So thank you for being in this space with me. My second question to open up our conversation is what is your story? I know that's a really big and broad question, but whatever you feel called to speak to in this moment is absolutely perfect.
Diane Sorensen (01:43.782)
Yeah, yeah, thank you for asking. So my story is that I was a good girl who became a good mom, doing all the right things according to, you know, societal expectations. I was being, you know, the perfect wife and mother and teacher and everything.
And then...
My then 17 year old daughter went through a mental health crisis. And it was that experience that
showed me the pressure I was putting on myself, but also unknowingly putting on my children. And even though that was a really dark time in my life, it was also the catalyst for my own growth.
and transformation. And it was through that journey that took me on a whole different path and brought me to life coaching and working with other women and in particularly mothers.
Reese Brown (03:24.152)
That's so beautiful. I think something that a lot of my audience can probably relate to is the good girl archetype, right? And what that means. Talk to me a little bit about what that means to you. I know you mentioned doing all the right things through societal expectations. And I'm sure everyone starts to write our own stories of what that looks like. But
What did that look like for you and where do you think the messaging of you meeting or wanting to be a good girl originally came from?
Diane Sorensen (04:01.894)
Yeah, so what it means to me is to appear appear to
others in an approving way. And where it came from is my own mother was very, I can look back now and say, wow, she was very anxious about how people saw her. And then so of course, how people saw her children. And so there
Reese Brown (04:15.448)
Mm.
Diane Sorensen (04:42.362)
was never anything, nobody says, here's what you, this is who you have to be. But there's there's so many many attitudes and just through actions and experiences got the message that I needed to act in a certain way, behave in a certain way. Don't, mean, beyond everything else, whatever you do, don't upset anybody.
Reese Brown (04:49.677)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (05:12.004)
So it really made me very anxious about what I could or couldn't say or should or shouldn't say. How do I say it? What it brought me to was I I ended up living in this prison in my mind of what is everybody else thinking? What What are people going to think?
Reese Brown (05:31.81)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (05:43.276)
all my choices and all my actions were about what are other people gonna think. And really, I kind of remember as I went into high school thinking, okay, I used to be extremely shy. And I think that was the anxiousness of, I don't know what to say and who to say to, is this gonna be the right thing? Is it gonna be the wrong thing? Am I gonna get in trouble? I seem to get in trouble whether I spoke or not.
Reese Brown (06:04.942)
sure.
Diane Sorensen (06:12.8)
so as I was going to high school, I thought, okay, this shy thing and not talking to people is not working for me anymore. And I had to figure out a way to be in the world and be safe. And so
I presented myself in a way that I thought people would approve of me and like me and not cast me out or be mad at me or get in trouble. So I did all the things that I thought were the right things. And then I became a mother.
Reese Brown (06:59.246)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (07:03.566)
And all of it came along, you know, because these become patterns. We don't know that we're doing it. We're not, you know, getting dressed every day going, okay, I'm going to put on this performance for the world today. No, we just do it. It becomes an ingrained pattern. And then when you have children, I mean, that like 10Xs itself, because now,
Reese Brown (07:30.751)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (07:31.642)
What are people gonna think of these little humans that you're in charge of? And now I gotta control them. And yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on mothers and a lot of pressure on children.
Reese Brown (07:41.57)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (07:49.743)
Absolutely. One thing that was a really big unlock for me and my own work, specifically with body image, but I think it relates back to what you're speaking to, is how the notion that the way that our moms speak to themselves and about their own bodies is how we learn to speak to ourselves and our bodies. And even though your mom may not be the one saying like, oh, well, that doesn't look good on you, or you need to...
count your calories or you need to do these certain things, if you do have a figure that is saying, well, this doesn't look good on me, I need to count my calories, I need to go on this diet and all of those things, subconsciously that is what your children internalize. And I know that a lot of your work speaks to the mother wound. And I think that it's a powerful one, especially as women
And it ties real nicely back into the good girl expectations because motherhood is such an expectation in and of itself, right? That society tells us that that is a way to fully express what being a woman is and what being a woman means. But even, right.
Diane Sorensen (09:01.85)
and it comes naturally and you know, we're supposed to be so happy that we these beautiful children and yeah.
Reese Brown (09:07.694)
You
All of that, yes. But also, there's no one right way to be a mother, but absolutely there is this like PTO soccer mom archetype that we see that is like, okay, well, I need to be this mom that's doing this type of thing and this type of thing. And also the million different things that that comes with. So it's this layered expectation of
womanhood that is so intimately tied to this relationship that you have to these people that are the most important little humans in your life. So talk to me a little bit about your relationship with choosing to be a mother and the good girl expectation there, but also
I suppose, let's just start there. I have another layer that I want to get to, but yeah, the expectation of choosing to be a mother and what the societal heft that motherhood brought to you.
Diane Sorensen (10:17.306)
Yeah. So I didn't ever feel pressured to be a mother. And I know that society does that. It's like, well, what's wrong with you if you're not a mother? But I remember from a very, I don't ever remember not wanting to be a mother or to mother. I loved children. I loved children younger than me. I was the youngest of five. So I loved children younger than me. And I just, yeah, I
Reese Brown (10:26.38)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (10:46.182)
always wanted to be a mother. And I just thought that was going to be the greatest thing on earth. And I thought I would be really good at it too. I have a background in education. I was a teacher. And so I thought I was going to be this great mother. And I became a mother and it was nothing like the image that I had in my head or even the image, that culture.
feeds us about again, about how this is a natural thing and everybody, know, every woman just knows how to be a mother and there's an expectation of it's a happy, you know, happiness. There's something wrong with you if you don't like being a mother. mean, geez, that would be like, I don't like my children. But here's the thing.
Reese Brown (11:41.538)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (11:43.558)
is that, I mean, I think for a lot of us mothers, that is a very unspoken sense in the back of our minds. Like, do I not like my children? Because there are a lot of times where it's like, it's not fun to be around my children. But here's what it is. We do like our children. We love our children. But oftentimes we don't like the way we feel.
Reese Brown (12:02.989)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (12:12.324)
when we're with our children. And it's not anything to do with our children. It's really to do with what is going on inside of us and that our nervous system is responding to what it is, it's kind of remembering and responding to what it felt like to be called disrespectful or out of control or any of these things when we see it in our children.
Reese Brown (12:14.798)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (12:41.774)
And so sometimes just being with our children feels so out of control and that it doesn't feel good. And then we think there's something wrong with us because we're not feeling this bliss of being a mother.
Reese Brown (12:48.674)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (12:58.016)
Right. That is so powerful because, you know, like you said, there are these cycles that get solidified and just subconsciously repeated throughout different family stories and different lineages. That is just something that occurs psychologically, but also energetically. We know this about family lines. But I've never thought about this piece of it that you just spoke to that is
not only are we repeating cycles as the same role, but you're switching roles in this cycle that is being repeated in a certain sense. And so being the good girl and feeling all of this pressure as a mom, I imagine this internal tug of war that is, I want you to be successful and happy and
all of these things and so I need to help educate and coach you and teach you to do these things. But then you find yourself, like you find your mother's voice coming out of your own mouth, right? Or things that you were told growing up just being said. And it's like, when did I become the same person who was saying things that were so hurtful to me? And in that moment, I can just imagine like,
what is happening, right? Like what is going on and it feels so out of control. And I really love the distinction that you made between the feeling of not liking your children versus not liking how you feel in certain circumstances. Because one, I absolutely believe you can love someone and not like them. I think we all go through cycles like that with different people in our lives. But also there is this certain sense of like,
I'm trying to think of the right way to phrase this. In relationships, we live out our past trauma in current present moments. And that has been something that has been such a powerful paradigm shift for me through my personal work, even just like with friendships and relationships that it's like, it's not that I have trust issues in the sense that like,
Reese Brown (15:22.442)
I can never date again and I always think someone's cheating on me. It's that when we get into an argument about, I feel like you don't trust me. I'm repeating what I've been told and you don't even realize that those subconscious patterns and beliefs are just like seeping out of you because it is such a nervous system thing, right? I think that is absolutely so powerful. And I know you mentioned that.
a lot of this you carried with you into motherhood and the big shift for you was your daughter's mental health crisis. Do you think that there were moments when this was happening that along the way you were like, these things are happening and I need to make a shift, but I don't know how to do that or I'm sensing this internal tension, this internal tug of war and
your daughter's crisis was just the moment of reckoning, so to speak, kind of the straw that broke the camel's back? Or was it really like a, yes, sorry, I'll toss it over to you.
Diane Sorensen (16:21.03)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (16:27.61)
That's okay. Yeah, there probably were small things maybe showing up that, you know, I just keep ignoring or I couldn't bring it to the forefront of my mind just because I wasn't ready to do that. And I think also I just really wasn't self-aware.
Reese Brown (16:50.456)
sure.
Reese Brown (16:57.197)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (16:57.28)
And so there were, I mean, I always said, I am not going to be like my mother. And then, yes, I got to a point where I'm like, how did I become my mother? When did this happen? But my daughter's mental health crisis, so what happened was she was self-harming. And what?
And to be really honest, at first, I... And this was 20 years ago, so self-harm wasn't really well-known. I'm like, what in the world is this? And how in the world did we get here is kind of the reckoning. It was what is happening and how did we get here? I don't know, but I'm going to have to figure this out.
Reese Brown (17:32.652)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (17:45.443)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (17:54.808)
And so I just got curious and things just sort of started to unravel where I started understanding, this isn't even so much about, know, because then I started, you know, books started coming my way and I started, you know, delving into research and I was a teacher. I was going, trainees were coming along that I'm like, I want to go to this one.
And what I realized as I'm kind of taking in all this information, it's like, this isn't really about my daughter because I'm like, how do I help her? How do I? And I'm like, wait a minute. This is all of this is talking about me. Like I can see all of this in me. And so, yeah, that kind of helped me to go on this path of.
understanding myself and now I know I understand it like this her her cutting on the outside was a representation of what I was doing to myself on the inside
Reese Brown (19:13.326)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (19:14.66)
Because for years I had cut myself down, calling myself names in my head, being very critical, trying to perfect and perform and please and bend myself in all these kind of ways just to gain the approval of everyone else. And her, this coming out on the outside really showed me
Reese Brown (19:36.866)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (19:46.338)
the generational patterns in our mother, know, it really showed my own pain. It showed my mother's pain and, you know, all the mothers before that. And so it really was, it was a dark time, but really now I know it was a gift because it couldn't be hidden anymore. And it had to be.
Reese Brown (20:00.589)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (20:11.138)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (20:14.448)
dealt with somehow. And until we could see it on the outside, we weren't aware enough to begin any healing.
Reese Brown (20:26.03)
Thank you so much for sharing that. And I know we talked about before a little bit that your daughter is comfortable with you sharing certain pieces of your story. But I just want to speak into the space gratitude for your daughter as well in her vulnerability, even though she's not physically with us here. But I think that that is such a powerful framing. Because one thing that in the way that
our current understanding of the world is post-enlightenment, post age of reason and all of that good stuff. We live in a materialist world where what you see is what it is and there's nothing beyond the physical. And of course, that's just within the most recent couple hundred years that that's become the popular way of understanding things. And I think that it's really stunted a lot of us in this specific type of work that is, well,
I don't like I'm feeling these things and I have these mental states, like nothing's wrong. Like I'm, I'm fine. And seeing the physical manifestation of this generational pattern, of course is this powerful wake up of that's what this is. And having this like the energetic piece of it finally being like,
I can see it, I can feel it, I can touch it in this really real way. I think that's really powerful and perhaps a lot of, I think helpful for a lot of people that may be listening to this and thinking that they feel these cycles and patterns, but it's like, but there's nothing that I can put my finger on as to like what it is. You don't necessarily need the physical manifestation of that to be.
in your face or existing at all, you can absolutely own and honor and heal these patterns, too. But the other thing that I want to speak to is like how your daughter's pain was also such a catalyst for healing. thinking about these cycles, we often talk about, you know,
Reese Brown (22:53.55)
I think I've said this in the past in different conversations that we've had, but there's the saying, you heal yourself and you heal your family, you heal your family and you heal the world. That it does seem perhaps odd to say that your daughter was healing her family through her pain, but I think in some really beautiful, profound sense, she was. I would just love to hear your thoughts about that and maybe a little bit more about this cycle and
Diane Sorensen (23:03.814)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (23:22.734)
pieces that your daughter was carrying that came from her grandmother and your grandmother. And what is your thought on why there is this energetic passing down? Is it just the psychological piece? Is it just a, you know, internalized?
inner voice way of talking to the self or is there something genetic to it? What are the different components here that we carry and pass on through our lineage?
Diane Sorensen (23:56.452)
Yeah, I think it's all of that, Reese. We do have epi... I can't say the word. Epi... What is that word? Yes, there we go. Epigenetics. That say, yes, we carry the stress hormones are passed from mother to mother to mother because when you are conceived...
Reese Brown (24:06.021)
No, you're good, you're good.
Is it epigenetics? Epigenetic? Okay, okay.
Diane Sorensen (24:28.196)
When you're inside your mother, already... So when my mother was inside her mother's womb, she already carried the egg that would someday become me. you know, so that is already being bathed in stress hormones and, you know, all of this stuff, depending on what was happening at the time with her mother.
And then what was happening, what her experiences were, what was happening with her when she conceived me. So a lot of this is not in our control, right? It just is. So some of it is biology. And then I think two, where, and this kind of goes back to nature and nurture, but it's both, right?
Reese Brown (25:16.568)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (25:27.652)
where I think it can be triggered by different things going on in the family. So if there's a lot of stressors going on for whatever reason, whether it's actual things like divorce or a death or whatever, or it's just this mental load that we're carrying that...
creates all kinds of chaos inside because that chaos inside is going to create chaos outside. Right? So I always say inward is the new way forward because if we're not paying attention and choosing to turn inward and check in,
Reese Brown (26:00.897)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (26:15.895)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (26:26.33)
with what is going on inside of me in my thoughts, in my body, deep within, my emotions, in my feeling my emotions, my disassociating from them, in my distracted from them, because that's a huge one, right? That's a whole another, yeah. We distract ourselves from our emotions because they're painful. We don't want to feel uncomfortable.
Reese Brown (26:46.017)
Right?
Diane Sorensen (26:55.768)
And so that goes into this whole pattern of people pleasing and perfectionism that if I just do everything right and I don't upset anybody, then I will feel okay. I will be okay. I'll be safe. I'll be loved and everything will be fine. Yeah. And so I think it's all of that that you had.
Reese Brown (27:17.462)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (27:24.112)
had mentioned, it's all of the pieces. And healing is really just awareness of, don't, this isn't working for me, right? This is, you know, we get to a certain point in our life and, you know, we all have some version of a bathroom moment where we're looking in the mirror going, who are you? I don't even know you anymore.
Reese Brown (27:39.214)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (27:53.926)
And that is our moment to go, I need to come inward because otherwise we were like, geez, what's wrong with me? Why am I not happy? I have all the things. I've checked all the boxes. I've got the family, the profession, the house, the money, the whatever. Why can't I just be happy? Am I not grateful? What's wrong with me?
Reese Brown (28:02.872)
Hmm.
Reese Brown (28:23.21)
Right. Yeah, it's so.
multiplicitous, right? Like it really holds so, so much. And thank you for holding the complexity of that. And I love what you said about the bathroom moment, because as soon as you said that, I was like, yep, I know exactly what you're talking about. We have all had that bathroom moment and probably had a few along the way, right? Where it is just kind of like the self, for lack of a better term, like come to Jesus that is like, okay,
We gotta lock in, we have to go inward to go forward. And another thing that I wanted to touch on, I do want to move forward into what this healing process really looked like. But before we turn there, I also wanna ask you about how you described this sense of your own relationship to self-harm and that even though it looked very different than your daughter's relationship to self-harm, it was,
practice that was internally going on within you. I remember the first time my therapist told me something about how she's like, that's a self-harming behavior, I was like, well, I'm not cutting myself. I'm not self-harming the way that it's typically discussed in media. One,
while it's gotten a lot better out over the last 20 years to be able to have open conversations about these things and ending the mental health stigma, there is still so much to unpack and to hold and to bring awareness to. But I know that was really hard for me to reckon with that. But I, but I love myself. I like myself. Why, why would I do that? Why, why am I harming myself? And really to sit back and think about,
Reese Brown (30:21.642)
Exactly like you said, all the times that I'm cutting myself down or bending myself backwards or squeezing and morphing and merging to try and create a shape that I think will be pleasing to someone else. All of that is like doling your shine, right? It is watering yourself down. And one of my things for this year, I make a
vision manifestation board for my year each year. And one of the quotes that I put on this one that I'm feeling called to share with you is, I'm done watering myself down. You can choke, which sounds really aggressive, but also I'm like, you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea, you know? And if my tea is too strong for you, like that's okay, but I'm not watering it down anymore. So all that to say, talk to me about what that realization was like for you.
and this expansive definition of what self-harm can be and that your bathroom moment.
Diane Sorensen (31:30.01)
Yeah, yeah, I think self-harm, you know, I was harming myself on the inside, criticizing myself and starving myself to have the shape, like you said, that would be appealing to everyone else. And I mean, that is self-harming right there. I was gonna say something and I lost my train of thought.
Reese Brown (31:59.535)
That's okay.
Diane Sorensen (32:00.371)
but yeah, I mean, I was going to say that society rewards that. Society rewards as harming ourself to look good.
Reese Brown (32:10.606)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (32:19.162)
whether that's starving ourself to look thin or having surgeries to make our face look younger or I mean, whatever it is, I mean, we are rewarded for that.
Reese Brown (32:37.324)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (32:39.978)
And it led to, you know, disordered eating and eating disorders in our family.
Reese Brown (32:47.208)
Mm. Yeah. That's such a powerful point because it's true. We are rewarded for it. And also in going back a little bit to these expectations of motherhood, but also what womanhood means, it is to be small in a lot of different ways, like physically small, noise small, quiet, petite, and don't take up space energetically and
look pretty, right? not, right? Yup. And that's the good girl. Yes. And it's like, not only is it rewarded to do all those things, it's also punished to be big and loud and quote unquote abrasive, right?
Diane Sorensen (33:16.89)
Yeah, and I did all these things. That was the good girl.
Diane Sorensen (33:35.77)
Right, because we divide the world into two halves, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. And whatever you put in that wrong and bad column, don't be any of that. It will only be what goes in this column. So that means like only all the time.
Reese Brown (33:45.048)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (33:52.109)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (33:56.577)
and
Right. And to go back to this good girl thing, it's like, if I feel any inclination towards something that may be in the bad column, we got to shut that down. We got to fix that. We need to change that. need to whatever it is, because that's only going to bring rejection, shame, fear, being abandonment. Right. Like the list goes on and on of all of those different feelings and what that can tap into.
And so as you began this self-healing work and realizing as you're going to these different workshops and reading these different books, this actually resonates with me, not just what my daughter is going through. When you had that awareness, I know you spoke to earlier that awareness is so much of healing, but I think sometimes when we say
Awareness is 90 % of the battle. People think that that means, I'm aware, and now 90 % of it is done. And I'm always like, well, I think it's actually bringing your mind to awareness consistently over and over and over again during all of these moments. Maintaining this awareness and presence of mind of the reality of the situation consistently is actually what awareness looks like.
to be able to contribute to healing because that's how you can hopefully change behavior, but also internal dialogues and the awareness of bringing what is subconscious to the conscious. But I would love to hear more about your journey through reaching awareness, but also maintaining this awareness and how that sparked this healing journey for you and your daughter and the mother wound.
Reese Brown (35:55.872)
generational piece too.
Diane Sorensen (35:59.109)
Yeah, yeah, you know, for a while it was just bringing all this awareness and I just soaked it up. I mean, I never knew, but I was starving for this information. And for the first time I felt seen because I was, you know, reading these books and going to these conferences and it's like, geez, I'm not the only one, what?
Reese Brown (36:14.338)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (36:26.606)
reflecting back a lot of the things I was thinking or feeling that I thought it was just me. And so that was, you know, a door open. And I think we just keep opening doors. We just keep going. We keep going. We keep going. And then eventually I was like, OK, now I need more help. I need, you know, I kind of got to a point where I'm like, OK, I've got all this information.
Reese Brown (36:50.648)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (36:56.258)
I'm trying to implement the pieces as I can into my own personal life as well as in my classroom. So I actually completely changed the environment in my classroom. But that's another story. And I got to a point where I'm like, OK, I need more help. So that's when I hired my first coach.
and just more layers started coming off. So I don't think this is work we can do by ourself. We can start out, you we can read the books, we can, you know, go to the speaking engagements or whatever it is. But we really do need to do the work, which means taking action and practicing.
Reese Brown (37:33.582)
Mm.
Diane Sorensen (37:55.557)
these skills in a meaningful way. And I just don't think we can do that just on our own. We need the accountability and we need somebody to hold the space for us to be able to even reflect and ask questions because when you can work with somebody who is curious and is asking questions and helping you explore and discover,
Reese Brown (38:12.749)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (38:25.102)
and you become curious and that opens up a whole nother layer of self-awareness and then figuring out, okay, here's where I'm at and here's where I wanna go. So now what are some small actions that I can take to start moving.
me in this other direction, in the direction I want to go. And so that's kind of how healing happened for me and it continues. It's not a linear thing. It's circular, right? We just keep going around the sun and these, you know,
Reese Brown (39:09.375)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (39:14.886)
core limiting beliefs, you know, if I'm not good enough or whatever, we bump into those every time we hit a growth edge, right? And then, boom, there it is. I can't do that. So resistance comes up and then, you you reach out for, you know, some support or whatever, however you do it. And so you can actually take the action that will get you to the next point.
Reese Brown (39:23.948)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (39:41.991)
And you keep doing that you keep rinse and repeat rinse and repeat rinse and repeat and it also helps to Surround yourself with other people like-minded people who maybe are on This type of journey too so that you do feel supported and you don't feel alone
Reese Brown (40:02.55)
Yeah, yeah, it's so powerful. And one thing that's been coming up a lot for me in my own kind of cycles of growth is that the life of your dreams will cost you your current life. Because in order to be somewhere new, you have to be somewhere new, you have to move forward. And I think everything you're speaking to about surrounding yourself with people that are going to support this work, but also
changing your classroom, right? And changing your day-to-day and your career and the way that you engage with the world, it really does call you to a different level of presence in, I'm now bringing this energy to everything I do because this life that I'm working on is worth everything. I am worth everything.
Diane Sorensen (40:56.474)
Yeah, and that's truly integrating it across your, into every bucket of your life. That's an integrated life.
Reese Brown (41:03.394)
Right. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, I'm like a coherent life, if you will, which is my favorite term, right? And it's like this internal coherence that exactly like you were talking about that is tapping into what that is internally to then represent it externally across all of these different buckets of our life. And sometimes I think we all, especially with the good girl baggage, I'll say,
Diane Sorensen (41:10.532)
Ooh, yes!
Reese Brown (41:33.913)
pin to really struggle with the selfish quote unquote feeling that healing can bring up. And I know for me, I love me some of the self care. I love me the self love work. I love the I am worthy stuff because that is one of those wounds that comes up time and time again for me on those growth edges, exactly like you're talking about. And I think especially as women and as mothers doing this work for ourselves,
and that being good enough can be so hard to hold. And of course, you had this beautiful positive benefit of helping your daughter through this work too in a deeply unselfish and giving way. But I think sometimes that negative voice of, well, why do you deserve to take all this time just for you?
You have kids, you have a partner, have students, you have all of these people that you have promises to and you're taking time to rest, to figure out purpose and passion. Okay, beg for your britches, are these little demons that I know will pop up for me. Did you experience any of that? And talk to me about that too, because I think so often
Of course there are giving things that come out of it, but we tell ourselves that doing this work in and for ourselves isn't enough and it really is. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Diane Sorensen (43:13.22)
Yeah, I would really like to put a different spin on that selfish thing because I really think it's selfish to be serving everyone else at the cost of yourself because that is not sustainable and you are not genuinely serving. You are
Reese Brown (43:18.382)
Please.
Reese Brown (43:29.262)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (43:42.085)
really doing it to be enough. It's a survival skill. It's a coping skill. And so to stay in that, even when you know there could be something else, that to me is selfish because you cannot give from an empty cup and you're choosing to keep your cup empty. And that's what I did for a long, long time until
Reese Brown (44:02.018)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (44:11.616)
my daughter in that very specific way was really saying, my cup is empty, your cup is empty, this is not working. All of our cups are empty.
Reese Brown (44:25.002)
Yeah. Wow.
Diane Sorensen (44:26.04)
So I really had to let go of...
trying to fix her or try, you know, yes, there was some support pieces, but I really had to let go of her and turn towards what I needed to heal in myself. That was very giving to her because in that process, she started over time to heal inside as well.
Reese Brown (44:49.678)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (44:55.777)
Yes.
Diane Sorensen (45:04.87)
And it wasn't until I'm able to truly let go, you know, and we don't just let go of a sudden, there's, you know, pieces of it. And even now, I catch myself going, ooh, I need to let go a little bit more so that they can have their, she can have her own experience and her own journey and heal in her way.
Reese Brown (45:04.885)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (45:13.624)
course.
Reese Brown (45:27.186)
Mm. Yeah. That is so powerful because just the selflessness of letting go, Like, whoa. And how hard surrender is. And I think any mother, of course, seeing your child in pain is immediately, what can I do to alleviate this? I would do
anything to take this away. But what you had to do to take it away was to let it be and turn inward.
Reese Brown (46:11.33)
Wow, that is just such a powerful paradigm shift. And of course, now it's been, like you said, about 20 years since that kind of moment of reckoning in this experience that you've had. Talk to me about what growth looks like now and what personal work and...
motherhood has shifted to become and of course, exactly like you said, I still have to remind myself certain things and I still need to work on things and it's a cycle and it is never an end point but
My great mentor, Katherine Hart, always tells me rock bottom is the solid foundation on which we can build our life. And I just find that so inspiring. And I don't know if you would categorize this as a rock bottom moment or not, but it does seem to me like you have built a really solid foundation for continuing to grow something. So what is, what does this growth and healing look like now?
Diane Sorensen (47:04.678)
we are.
Diane Sorensen (47:14.522)
Yeah, so I think now I mean life is still messy, right? And we allow it to be messy is the thing now. And so when challenge arises, as it will because it's inevitable, it's more about
seeking solutions or it's more about the journey of healing than it is about fixing something or hiding it or just ignoring it. And we can really talk about it with somebody if one of my daughters is struggling there was a time where I'd be like well I don't you know
if they're struggling, probably won't even tell me. So I don't know if they're struggling for sure. Now they do. We've built trusting relationships enough where if one of them is struggling, they can tell me that knowing that I am not going to fix it, but I am there to listen if they, you know,
Reese Brown (48:18.03)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (48:36.804)
want my input, then you know, I can give them my thoughts. But ultimately, I think we've gotten to where we each have our own journey and experience and we really honor that. And I can see
Now that I have grandchildren and I have grandchildren ranging from 20 to two and everything in between, I 10 grandchildren. So I can see a shift in how they engage with each other and the relationships they have with each other, but with themselves. I can see a shift, not that it's...
perfect, yay, because we don't want perfect. But I feel like I am seeing generational patterns heal in real time.
Reese Brown (49:32.903)
Right, right.
Reese Brown (49:43.63)
Mmm.
How beautiful and what a blessing, not just that you've given your family, but that your family gives you, right? It's such a reciprocal blessing to be able to be in it together and witness that and hold space for all of these things. A thing that's occurring to me right now is a notion that I've come across recently in
generational and ancestral work that is the same way that.
We honor our forebears and ancestors and people that came before us and imagine their lives to be. There was also a reciprocal imagining for how our lives will be now too. And you to your grandchildren is like a beautiful microcosm of that as well, that it's like you had an imagination of what was possible for them and now you get to see that in real time.
also them through living this work, get to share that with you too. And it's just, that's really beautiful to me. It's really, really cool.
Diane Sorensen (50:59.28)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And that's my passion here and why I share my own pain and turn it into power because I think the power of it is we can set the path for future generations on different path, on a more meaningful, connected, healthy, functional path for them. And one that they still get to struggle.
Reese Brown (51:01.741)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (51:18.766)
Mm.
Reese Brown (51:26.018)
Yes.
Diane Sorensen (51:28.442)
and they still get to mess up and fall down and get up and all of it but they get to experience the fullness of life rather than perform a life that looks good to somebody else.
Reese Brown (51:36.791)
right.
Reese Brown (51:43.701)
Mm-hmm. Well, and decide what that looks like for themselves too, right? Like be the own arbiter of what happiness, joy, success, expansiveness, wholeness, what is the fullness of life that they get to choose that is, to me, that's like the greatest privilege of being able to choose. And I think this takes us right into where I wanted to go next, that is,
Diane Sorensen (52:07.898)
Yes.
Reese Brown (52:13.356)
why you're passionate about this work. So of course you were a teacher and this really informed a lot of, like you said, you transformed your classroom and it changed how you lived your life and your family and your relationships. But now you're a coach and you help other people with this work and you have your own podcast and you talk about this. Plenty of people heal and are on this journey, but aren't called to
take this path that you have taken of sharing it openly and really hoping to support other people in that work. What was that moment of calling like and why have you chosen to walk this new path of, I'm gonna share this story. I am going to own my narrative and use it to empower others to do the same.
Diane Sorensen (53:08.038)
Yeah, and I'm not sure if it was something I necessarily planned. It kind of just unfolded, right? I just followed the breadcrumbs, as they say. And yeah, this kind of all unfolded. I saw the...
Reese Brown (53:24.418)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (53:35.259)
I saw other people, other mothers suffering, feeling like bad moms. And I wanted to let them know that there's hope. And to be inspired to, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to prove to anybody at all your worth.
because you're here. And I know cognitively, we hear that. you don't have to your worth because you're here. That means you're worthy. But it's true. And to do the work to truly know I don't have to prove myself. And this is coming from somebody who
Reese Brown (54:07.843)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (54:34.808)
I was addicted to approval.
Reese Brown (54:37.388)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (54:38.982)
I would do anything to be approved of. And really it's because I would do anything to not be rejected. That was so fearful for me. And what I've learned, it kept me in so restricted, so small. And I just want people to know that there is another way.
and change is possible. And yeah, so this beautiful life just unfolded. And I will tell you this too, that it is my soul pulling me into this direction because there have been times where I've been like, okay, this is too hard. I'm just gonna go back to what I was doing before because this growth edge is like,
If I become fit, you know, it's like, oh my God. So, but there is something inside me that keeps saying, don't you quit, don't you quit, keep going, keep going, keep going. So.
Reese Brown (55:37.608)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (55:54.05)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (56:00.141)
I love that. And that is the thing to me that is like, I deeply believe because exactly like you said, you are here and so you are worthy and going back to the awareness and not just cognitively being aware of that once, but calling our awareness to that truth time and time and time again, every single moment that the perfectionism or the shame or the self-doubt
clocks back in those old thought patterns and neural pathways and making the choice to say, no, I'm here, which means I'm worthy. And that's what I choose to believe and live my life in alignment with. It's hard, exactly like you said, it is hard, but it is so worth it. And I truly believe that everyone has that pull, like you're saying, but it is hard to hear it when
the noise of all of these other things are happening. And I think so often so many people do go through their healing journeys and then start to hear this pull or feel this pull or see the breadcrumbs because the noise is cleared up. And it's like you reach this clearing in the woods and it's like, ooh, what path do I get to take now to use what I've learned from this journey and inform whatever I.
go do and create and become next. Where do you think this, you use the word soul, where do you think this soul pull, the breadcrumbs, this feeling comes from? Is that something deep within us as a human being? I know we've talked a little bit about the energetic transfer between generational trauma and so there is something
non-material that perhaps you believe in, but talk to me about what that root is, this steep facet of being a human being that pulls you to your meaning.
Diane Sorensen (58:10.79)
Yeah, for me, yeah, I think it is deep, deep within. Call it soul, call it intuition, call it my inner knowing. That, yeah, it's just this note. For me, it's just this knowing. Like, don't really, I don't hear a voice. know, people will talk about, you know, I hear something. But it's more of a feeling for me.
Reese Brown (58:31.054)
Hmm.
Reese Brown (58:40.001)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (58:41.25)
And I do think, you know, there's a higher power. I connect to universe. And I think deep within each of us, there is a part of that energetic universe within all of us that is the oneness of being human. Right? I am.
Reese Brown (59:04.238)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (59:10.522)
I am energetic, I'm universal energy expressed in individualized form. And that's true for every one of us. And that's the oneness of humanity. We're not actually separate.
Reese Brown (59:24.865)
Hmm.
love that. I love the I am universal energy expressed in individualized form. One of my favorite writers has, he writes in Spanish, so I don't actually, this is a translation of something, but I really like this translation, but it's Jorge Luis Borges and he says, are all fingertips of God's consciousness. And I really love this image of fingertips, right? That it's like something
Diane Sorensen (59:50.278)
you
Reese Brown (59:56.213)
extended and outward, but still individual and yet connected to this oneness, this wholeness. And in the same way that there is this oneness, I am also one. And it does create this bigger cycle of expansion and contraction that goes back to this non-linear
experience of healing that we've been speaking about too, right? Like so much of this energy is cyclical and nonlinear and goes through these cycles of expansion and contraction. For you, when you first started to feel this pull, this knowing, was that something that you feel has always been there and now was kind of awoken?
Or was it something like you were allowed to have listened to it now at this point in time? Or was it discovered? I won't ask any more leading questions. Talk to me about your experience with that moment of knowing.
Diane Sorensen (01:01:10.32)
Yeah, I think it has always been there, but I think I have been disconnected from it. You know, living in my head instead of living, you know, being connected deep within. But I can look back and there's, you know, a few experiences where I'm like, this is deep. this is, you know, I like, I was very self-
Reese Brown (01:01:16.974)
Mm.
Diane Sorensen (01:01:40.261)
I mean, I have a lot of self doubt. I did not trust myself. I did not trust making decisions, but I can see a few times, you know, before I did any self development work where I was sure about something like this, for example, the school system that I ended up working for for 25 years. I remember I really, really wanted to be in that system and
I remember thinking, and I ended up, you know, of course getting hired on there, but I remember thinking, this just seems like this is where I, this is my next step in life. This is where I'm supposed to be. And so I look back and I think, you know, there it was, but I don't think I...
could hear it because there was a whole lot of noise going on inside of me. just, you know, there was a lot of inner chaos. So I don't think I could really connect to it or, you know, and I do remember after I started, you know, doing a lot of this work at one point, there was also a moment where I was, you know, kind of doing this guided meditation.
Reese Brown (01:02:45.867)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:03:02.722)
And all of a sudden my eyes opened and I just had this feeling again, it wasn't words or it wasn't a voice, but it was this feeling and it's like, I'm supposed to quit my job? Like then it was like, okay, now you're supposed to leave this system. It's time to go to the next place. And I thought, what does that even mean? Like, I'm like, okay, okay, I'm just gonna go with this.
I'll give it a year. I'll revisit this idea next year. But what I did was I started sharing that. I just started telling people, yeah, I'm not going to be there that much longer. I'm going to be quitting. I don't know what that means, but I just knew that I wasn't going to be there for another 10 years or anything. Well, six months later, I ended up leaving that job and that teaching.
Reese Brown (01:03:35.822)
Sure.
Reese Brown (01:03:46.755)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:03:59.523)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:03:59.591)
And then my path began with coaching and becoming certified and this whole other season of my life. So yeah, think to answer your question, I think it's been there, but I haven't really, I didn't trust it. Maybe that's it. And as I...
Reese Brown (01:04:11.618)
Yes.
Reese Brown (01:04:21.992)
Mm. Mm.
Diane Sorensen (01:04:26.416)
continue to understand more about my own self. I trust it more and more.
Reese Brown (01:04:34.338)
Yeah, well, it's hard to trust it, right? Especially with what you're talking about with all this noise and self-doubt and self-criticism. So much of trusting the center knowing is trusting yourself because yes, it is the piece of the universal wholeness that is within us that feels somewhat external in that sense that it is bigger than who I am.
but also it's the piece of it that is also me. And therefore it asks a lot of trusting in myself to believe it, right? And I find that a lot of the time when people go through this and they start to get the glimmers or the whispers or the breadcrumbs, exactly like you said, however we want to describe it, intuitions or downloads, you know, there's all the different words to talk about it. People are like,
that's just a thought. That's not anything, but there's a different quality to those hits. That's different than something else.
Diane Sorensen (01:05:35.162)
Yes.
Diane Sorensen (01:05:41.319)
Yeah, we pull it away. We're just like, that's, I don't know what that is, but yeah.
Reese Brown (01:05:47.533)
Yeah. Well, in just hearing you tell that story gave me goosebumps because it's like, I've had a few moments like that in my life too, where it's just all of a sudden boom, it's there in your eye. you're like, now I need like, there it is. And we have to follow it because how could I not follow that? But it does ask all of that trust.
Diane Sorensen (01:06:09.722)
Yeah, and I think when we don't follow it, we just really start, know, those are those bathroom moments where it's like, who am I? How did I get here? And we really start to feel like we're dying inside. there's, you know.
Reese Brown (01:06:17.302)
Mm-hmm.
Reese Brown (01:06:27.98)
Yeah, because you're rejecting, at least to me, that inner peace that we're kind of talking about, that piece of self that is connected to wholeness, feels so much like truth. And if you're living out of alignment with your truth, it's like, who am I if I am not this certain sense of truth? But truly, going all the way back to what you were talking about in the beginning with the good girl expectations.
There are so many little t truths. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Diane Sorensen (01:06:59.344)
We can't live in the truth. We can't live in our truth if we're being the good girl. And going back to, you know, what I'm seeing now, like in my relationships with my daughters, it's actually that we're speaking truth now. We're not just trying to make each other comfortable. We're speaking our truth, and that builds trust.
Reese Brown (01:07:16.974)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (01:07:27.662)
Yeah. Yeah. I love Brene Brown's clear as kind, unclear as unkind too, which is a little different than I think what you're saying, but connected in the sense of like, if I'm clear on my truth and I can own that when I come to the table, that does offer a certain sense of I know where you stand. And that
Diane Sorensen (01:07:33.638)
Thank you.
Reese Brown (01:07:53.027)
builds emotional safety and energetic safety in relationships. And I'm even thinking about what you said about your daughters for a really long time wouldn't even come to you if they felt like they were struggling or uncertain. And now you know that they would. And it's like, clearly this journey of owning your truth has cultivated in a very real lived sense, emotional safety. And I just think it's so powerful how
I'm just constantly struck by how these more energetic, numinous, ephemeral topics that we talk about, to me, have the realist world implications. That it is like, it has completely changed the trajectory of your life and your relationships.
Diane Sorensen (01:08:43.163)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:08:43.694)
I have like, there's, don't know if there's a question in there, but yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:08:48.548)
Yeah, I was going to say something. You know how you do that? You get these thoughts and it goes somewhere. It was Brown's speaking the truth and you know we have to actually know what our truth is though. I know what I was going to say. One of the things we want most as a mother is that when our children are struggling they can come to us. We really want that.
Reese Brown (01:08:54.039)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:09:15.31)
Mm.
Diane Sorensen (01:09:17.968)
But here's the thing, we don't realize that when they struggle, we're trying to always fix it. We're not listening to them. So we're always saying they need to listen, they need to listen, they're not listening. We need to turn that around and say, how am I listening?
Reese Brown (01:09:38.144)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:09:39.333)
When we can't be with our own struggle, we can't be with the struggles of our kids. So we will just, you know, they'll say something like, so-and-so was mean to me at school today. And then we'll go, well, you know, you don't need to have them as a friend anymore and go with these people because you're so wonderful. And, you know, we want them to feel good, but we're not in the meantime, we're kind of dismissing how they actually feel. And that is exactly what my daughter told me.
Reese Brown (01:10:05.805)
Right?
Diane Sorensen (01:10:08.774)
later years when we were able to really talk about these things. And I said, why didn't you ever tell me? And she's like, mom, I tried. It was always, you're fine or you're overreacting. And we just do this often. It just automatically comes because we're so afraid of their struggle.
Reese Brown (01:10:20.162)
Wow.
Reese Brown (01:10:37.666)
Well, and I have to imagine part of it too, because this is something I've really been experiencing in friendships and just all relationships, is that we really, as a society, I think, have a difficult time withholding discomfort. But we really need to work on getting comfortable with the discomfort. And so often,
when someone brings something to us, especially if it's about us, like, hey, you said this thing and it hurt my feelings. At least for me, I wanna be like, I'm so sorry. I absolutely hear you. I'm the worst. I will not do that again. I'm making a note of it and it will be fixed in the future. Discomfort solved, we're good. But just because you've apologized and quote unquote made right doesn't mean the repair has happened.
doesn't mean that those feelings or the hurt is gone. And that person may actually need a little bit of time to sit with their feelings and what happened. And they may not want to go right back to the way things were before. It's going to take space and breath to be okay with it. And same thing when we're having conversations that are really difficult with people.
And as someone who is not a mother, please correct me if I'm wrong. But I would have to imagine, yes, it's difficult to sit with our own pain and discomfort, but 10 times so to sit with the pain and discomfort of our children. And so of course, we just want to solve it and say, OK, how can I get from discomfort to comfort as quickly as possible? Because this is so painful. exactly what I'm hearing and what you're saying is,
What is being asked is to sit in the discomfort.
Diane Sorensen (01:12:31.846)
Right there. Yep. Yep. We do not tolerate discomfort well. And that is the piece that we need to build upon. We need to work on being more tolerant of emotional discomfort.
Reese Brown (01:12:34.51)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:12:47.79)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (01:12:56.534)
Yeah. Well, and I think that goes back to the people pleasing perfectionistic good girl who the rejection is discomfort and it's this kind of proactively wanting to avoid discomfort by I'm going to be perfect in all of these ways so I will never have the discomfort of someone not liking me, of someone not approving of me, of someone rejecting me because who could reject this perfect image and yet
Diane Sorensen (01:13:02.747)
will be.
Reese Brown (01:13:24.46)
Rejection still comes, abandonment still comes, because also who can actually accept you, who can actually hold space for who you are if you're not showing that to people either. And that's something that I've experienced, this feeling of being rejected by everyone. it's like, who could, have you ever really been rejected or did you reject yourself and then not give anyone the opportunity to accept you?
Diane Sorensen (01:13:50.385)
Right, and so what happens is we trade short-term comfort for long-term resentment because giving up ourself and abandoning ourself at the cost of making everybody else happy or comfortable to regulate our own self, to make ourself comfortable, we end up with resentment.
Reese Brown (01:14:00.943)
Hmmmm
Reese Brown (01:14:17.622)
Yeah, yeah, that is exactly that.
Diane Sorensen (01:14:18.734)
because why, you know, I had to be who everyone else wanted me to be. And that is a barrier to connection and to healthy, meaningful relationships. We're the foundation of all of our relationships. So however the relationship you have with yourself, that is the foundation all of your other relationships are built from.
Reese Brown (01:14:26.722)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (01:14:31.512)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:14:35.308)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:14:39.928)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:14:49.41)
Yeah, so, so powerful. So to think about this in terms of truly what it then means to build these meaningful relationships is something that occurred to me as you were talking about being able to hold the discomfort with your children was also, that's kind of what you're called to do as a coach as well in a lot of senses. Do you consider this work and this
mode of holding discomfort with people to be part of your purpose, to be your purpose. And what does purpose mean to you along this new path? I certainly think that our purpose evolves with us. And to speak to your story about I was really called to be a teacher in the school system, and then that shifted. So with the asterisk of my question that is, it's not concretized, but talk to me about purpose.
Diane Sorensen (01:15:45.861)
Yeah.
Yeah, think purpose for me is, yeah, that inner drive and what it's pulling me towards. I don't think of it so much as what is my purpose? That's a big question. And I think a lot of people are like, do I have a purpose? I don't know. Maybe it's more, for me, maybe it's more paying attention to those things that show up for you.
Reese Brown (01:15:57.816)
Mmm.
Reese Brown (01:16:17.059)
Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:16:18.79)
and are pulling you in a certain direction. Yeah, so it's really paying attention. Yeah, being present to that.
Reese Brown (01:16:25.507)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:16:34.252)
Yeah, I love that. I really talk about purpose as like a true north on a compass as you're being pulled, right? So I absolutely resonate with what you're saying. And then in terms of meaning, because I think, like you said, a lot of us, I think, are struck with this idea of purpose anxiety and what am I doing here? And surely my purpose isn't just to people please and be a perfectionist. And is my purpose just to be a mother? Is my purpose
Diane Sorensen (01:16:40.539)
Bye.
Reese Brown (01:17:03.938)
Like, what is all of this? How has your relationship with living a meaningful life shifted and changed as you've gone through this healing experience? Because I would imagine being a mother is an extremely, extremely meaningful part of your life. But of course, there's so many other facets of who you are and what you do. So what does a meaningful life, yeah, yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:17:04.966)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:17:26.63)
I don't
So I don't know, I don't know that be.
that being a mother means it's meaningful. I think for me, what brings meaning to it is actually experiencing it instead of surviving it. So for so long of my life, I was surviving. I was performing this.
Reese Brown (01:17:51.639)
Mmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:18:03.015)
you know, bending myself, I was the chameleon, who do I have to be in this situation, in that situation? That is survival. I was not experiencing my life. I was surviving it. And this journey is now allowing me to experience it. And that means the highs, the lows, the...
Reese Brown (01:18:25.454)
you
Diane Sorensen (01:18:31.876)
you know, all of the glimmery things and all of the mucky things too. And feeling it all, experience, being in the experience, that has brought meaning to my life.
Reese Brown (01:18:50.272)
Hmm. That is truly the sentence. I wrote it down because I think we just need to sit with it for a second. What brings meaning is experiencing it, not just surviving it. that gave me goosebumps again, rereading it. That is such a profound unlock because I think with the hustle and bustle, the rush, the
even the anxiety that can come with what we've taught to think and feel about purpose and these bigger questions, we can still get so caught up in. But what does that mean? how do I live a fulfilling life? how can I reach happiness and joy and make the world a better place? even then we're just constantly spinning our wheels towards it. And so often the
moment of like, profundity of peace, of tapping back into that inner sense of oneness and wholeness is pausing and experiencing it. I thank you for sharing that. Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:20:04.966)
slowing down, slowing down this being busy, that survival, proving ourselves.
So what I do now is, mean, truth over approval. That's it for me.
Reese Brown (01:20:26.104)
Yeah. Yeah.
Diane Sorensen (01:20:28.438)
And sometimes I have, don't know what the truth is for me. And so I pause, like you said, pause and check in.
Is this, what is true for me in this situation? How do I want to respond? What do I think? What do I feel? What do I want to experience?
And then.
Reese Brown (01:20:51.565)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:20:52.102)
you know, respond with wh for me rather than what's
Reese Brown (01:21:04.536)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:21:09.654)
I love it. The sacred simplicity of that is so great. Well, as we reach the end of our time together, I do have two final questions that I always like to ask to lead us into our final moments. One, in light of our conversation, in everything that we talked about, is there anything that you want to...
Return to, underline, highlight, clarify anything that we didn't get to that you're like, we really need to touch on this real quick. Anything at all, this is space for you to speak to it.
Diane Sorensen (01:21:47.611)
Yeah, I think I'd like to say one, how I wanna, the thing that I help women with at finding their truth is boundary work. I, know, boundaries is a whole nother conversation, but that is something that is very, very misunderstood. And I like to call it boundary work.
Reese Brown (01:22:01.048)
Hmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:22:17.08)
instead of just boundaries, because there is work to it. There are foundational pieces that we need to work towards to have the ability to set and maintain boundaries that are true for you. It's not something we just set and maintain. And so
Reese Brown (01:22:45.442)
Mm-hmm.
Diane Sorensen (01:22:47.546)
That is how it's possible to find your truth and to finally speak your truth.
Reese Brown (01:22:55.212)
Wow, absolutely. Thank you for adding that. And I completely agree that boundaries are very misunderstood as a concept and as a practice. And it's something that
Diane Sorensen (01:23:06.82)
And I think there can be a lot of people get triggered with it because I think there's shaming that goes on around it too. That, you just need some boundaries or you need to, you know, just have some boundaries. And it's not.
Reese Brown (01:23:20.396)
Right.
Diane Sorensen (01:23:23.044)
I got to a point one time where I kept hearing boundaries, boundaries, and then I'm like, I don't think I know what boundaries are exactly. Yeah, so then I went searching for that. that's curiosity. Curiosity is a big, know, that'll open a door for you. And then just keep following the curiosity. And I think it's very powerful when we know what we don't know.
Reese Brown (01:23:33.23)
What does that even mean? Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:23:43.448)
Yeah.
Reese Brown (01:23:47.66)
Yeah, absolutely.
Reese Brown (01:23:53.847)
Yep. Yeah. Well, and like you said, we can't do this work alone. It can't be done in a vacuum. And that is why knowing what you don't know and knowing that you can't always know what you don't know too is like, that's why keeping your eyes and ears and all of your perceptive agents open to let curiosity guide you is so, so important.
Well, if anyone wants to learn more about you, your work, of course, your website, access to your coaching services and to your podcast will be linked down below for everyone to go check out. Please, please go support Diane and her work. And if you are struggling with boundaries, the mother wound or anything else that we have touched on, Diane is absolutely a wonderful resource to not be doing this work alone. Is there anything else that you would like to plug while we are here?
Diane Sorensen (01:24:49.926)
I think you did a great job right there. Yeah. Yeah, I would love to have listeners come on over and check out the podcast, Chaos to Connection. Follow me on Instagram and send me a message. Send me a message. Let me know what you are taking away from this conversation. I love to have these conversations and I respond to all of my messages.
Reese Brown (01:25:05.516)
Yeah!
Reese Brown (01:25:16.184)
I love that. That's awesome. Well, my last question to hopefully put a little bit of a bow or a button if possible on this expansive time together. Diane, what is one word to describe how you are feeling right now?
Diane Sorensen (01:25:32.102)
authentic.
Reese Brown (01:25:34.844)
I love that. And it speaks right to truth is better than approval. Thank you, Diane, so, much for sharing your authenticity, your truth with me today with the Co-Hear Collective, with the Making Meaning podcast. I have so enjoyed chatting and learning about you more and connecting, and I cannot thank you enough.
Diane Sorensen (01:25:55.579)
Thank you so much for having me, This has been a gift. Thank you.
Reese Brown (01:26:01.519)
Absolutely. Thank you.