With Love & Optimism for Our Future - EP 028

In this final solo episode of the first season of Pleasure & Profits, I reflect on the transformative cycles that have shaped my life and work over the past year. I share the lessons I’ve learned about personal growth, integrity, and alignment, and invite you to join me as we envision and create a more authentic and impactful future together.

Tune in as I explore how to navigate change, embrace authenticity, and do meaningful work in a rapidly evolving world. This episode is both a reflection on what’s been and a bold step into what’s next.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• My journey through 15+ years of entrepreneurship and personal growth.
• How cycles of transformation have shaped my capacity for change and leadership.
• Why building resilience is essential for sustaining meaningful work.
• What’s ahead for Pleasure & Profits in Season 2.

If you’re ready to have a deeper conversation about how to maximize impact, profit and pleasure in your business and life, you can schedule a time to connect with me right here >>> 

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Hello and welcome to Pleasure and Profits. I'm your host, Rachel Anzalone. And this episode is gonna be a little bit different. And here's why. So this is gonna be my last solo episode for the first season of this podcast.

And I'm gonna tell you more about what's gonna happen next, what next season looks like, what next year looks like, but first I want to share with you a little bit about what's been happening over here in my world, I guess really for the last year, but most importantly over the last few months.

So first, let's talk about why I started this podcast to begin with. I launched this podcast, Pleasure and Profits, just about a year ago. And the reason that I wanted to launch the podcast, well, there were many, so let me start at the beginning.

I had spent so many years working behind the scenes supporting other people. And so there were so many insights, perspectives, opinions, that for years and years and years, I would share behind the scenes, whispering in the ear of the person who was the front of the company, who was the voice, the person who everybody was coming to see. And, I would have these conversations behind the scenes, in green rooms, in kitchens, you name it, where I would share my thoughts about business, about life, about how we show up in authenticity about what people are really searching for, what's really meaningful, what's significant, but always behind the scenes. And occasionally I would hear my words then being spoken on stage by someone else, but never was I the person getting on stage and sharing those insights myself directly.

And, there's many reasons for that. Many reasons why I made myself that behind the scenes person, some of it, stemming back to childhood and growing up in an environment where, you know, to sort of like to be quiet and not ask for too much attention was praised and anything besides that was really looked down upon. And, you know, many, many years of, having that ingrained in me that it was not acceptable, it was not okay. My nervous system was not okay with being the person who was out front and the one who was capturing the attention and being really visible. And so I've always sort of stayed behind the scenes.

And when I look back at the last 15 years that I have been in business. I think it was 2009 officially, but I started the process back in 2008. That's when I first sort of put together my first business plan. I went to a bank to get funding. That's when I had really made the decision that I was ready to go out on my own and start a business. And if you're paying attention to the astrology at all, there is a Pluto cycle that started in 2008, that is ending next week. And so for this entire 15 plus years that I have been in business, I have been in this Pluto cycle that has been about learning boundaries and learning to voice your needs and learning to be in true partnership, not these sort of, off balance power dynamics that happen so much.

And so what that translates to in terms of my life has been first addressing codependency in romantic relationships, and then all the layers that come from there. What does codependency look like in a friendship? What does codependency look like in a work environment? What does codependency look like in my own business and my relationships with my clients and all of that.

And so I've been really in this pretty intense discovery process over these last 16 years. Depending on where this cycle hits for you and what areas of your chart or what sort of work you had to do in those areas on your own, you may or may not have been experiencing this too. I can say it's been pretty intense, 16 years of of growth and of learning and of, coming into a version of myself that I think is more authentic, more aligned, more empowered.

And so that cycle is ending next week. And I've been feeling this coming for a while, this transition that was coming, and have gotten a little deeper into really understanding what it means and what's next for me and all of that.

And I've also shared with you back in Episode 19, that I have been very clearly in this process of what my friend Jackie Dumaine would call the “midlife becoming,” which is perimenopause, but also sort of this unraveling, this “unbecoming” to then “become,” right? This sort of unraveling of what doesn't work, what doesn't fit.

We use the analogy of the caterpillar being in the pupa or the chrysalis and literally just disintegrating and then reforming into the new version, into the butterfly. And so I shared in Episode 19 a little bit about what that process has been like for me these last couple of years. So all that's been going on, right? Just a little bit, a little bit to deal with and process.

And I know so many of us are and have been dealing with these same things, right? It's not a linear path for anybody. so while all of this has been happening, I've been building a business and there have been many cycles over these last 15 years of putting something into the world and then needing to sort of shift into something that felt safer financially, something that felt safer from that, nervous system, energetic visibility standpoint. So there's been, for me a lot of push and pull, of moving forward and then stepping back and moving forward and stepping back over these last 15 years. And the result of that has been that primarily I have been behind the scenes.

And so as I have been over these last couple of years, laying the foundation for this iteration of my business, which really is focused around pleasure and profits, around the satisfaction strategy, which are these philosophies and these experiences and this gathering of wisdom has been happening for years and years and years, if not decades. Even going back to literally, I could look back at the speech I gave at my high school graduation and it was about this. So this isn't new. It's all always going back to that stuff.

What does it mean to live authentically? What does it mean to be empowered and to be the truest version of yourself and the most impactful version of yourself and to really lean into that, right?

And so when I decided to launch this podcast, it was with a couple of intentions. One was that it would be a container for me to articulate and share the thoughts, ideas, opinions, experiences that I have had that have all been behind the scenes that I have kept to myself or have just whispered to a few people here and there. That it would be an opportunity for me to cultivate those conversations, to really articulate and craft what it is that I want to be sharing with the world in a larger way and in a more meaningful way. And then also just to experiment, to experiment with solo episodes, with formats, with guest interviews. And it's been great. It's been fun. And for the last couple of months, I've had a very clear plan on how I was going to finish up this year of podcasting, including I have five guest interviews that are in the can, recorded, ready to go.

This plan involved following the rhythm that I have been following all year, which is two solo episodes and a guest interview. And there's a very specific reason that I chose that rhythm and that I was really committed to sticking to it. The reason is because, as I shared, one of the reasons for starting the podcast was to really use it as a tool to craft and articulate what it is that I want to say and put out in the world. And guest episodes, guest interviews are so much easier. It is so much easier for me to just find an interesting person, hit record, and just have a conversation. that if I didn't set a parameter for myself, I would just do a gazillion interviews, which would defeat the purpose, right? At least half the purpose of what I was doing, which was to stop being the person behind the scenes and to be the person who is out there being visible and sharing meaningful work. And so that was my plan. And I have these five guest interviews ready to go.

And then I found myself in the last couple of months procrastinating. And I talked about procrastination in Episode 17. And my theory on procrastination is that when we're procrastinating or avoiding something that we think we should be doing, that one of two things is happening.

It's either our nervous system protecting us from something that it perceives as threatening, even if we objectively know that it's not threatening. There is some part of us that doesn't feel safe in taking that action. Or it's our intuition telling us to just hold on, usually because something is either out of alignment, or the timing just isn't quite right, or some combination of those two things.

But I think that procrastination often is our intuition talking to us. And even if our procrastination is the result of our nervous system telling us we're not safe, then the work we need to do is to figure out how to feel safe not to force ourselves to do the thing that for some reason, our body, our nervous system is fucking terrified of, right?

And so when we're procrastinating, I think it's a really important message to listen to and to ask the questions of what's happening here. And I knew it wasn't my nervous system. I knew it wasn't because I was afraid to do the podcast episodes. And so it felt really clear that there was something in the timing or something that just wasn't quite right. That despite my brain saying, “But you have this plan and you have these episodes and you need to get X number recorded and get them out before the end of the year”, the cells of my body were just putting on the brakes. And last week, I found out why that was.

So last week was the 2024 presidential election here in the US. And like so many people, I was having a lot of feelings in the days that followed. And on Thursday, so two days after the election, I sat down and I tried to organize my thoughts into some semi-coherent message that I could share. It felt really important to me that I capture these thoughts and the feelings I was having in those moments and that I share them. Simultaneously, like there was just so much happening that I spent most of the day just sort of sifting and sorting through what I was feeling and what I wanted to say. And so I wrote a letter, which is shared with my email list and I shared it on social media. And it feel like the letter really summed up the main issues, the main feelings that I was sitting with in those moments.

And so I'm going to read that to you first, and then I'm going to share what has risen up for me in this process and what that looks like for me, for my business, for this podcast going forward.

So here's what I wrote:

I’ve spent the last several hours trying to organize my thoughts into something meaningful and coherent to share with you. The task feels nearly impossible today. And yet, saying nothing feels like a betrayal and a failure. While I’m certain that more context, deeper exploration, and insight will come with time, what follows is what feels most pressing to share right now.

Please know: While I’m speaking here specifically about what’s happening in the U.S., I’m also aware that we are not alone in these experiences, that we are all inextricably connected around the globe, and we have much to learn from each other.

Here’s what I know to be true in this moment:

—

The bodies of women, people who are not “white,” and members of the LGBTQ+ community are less safe and secure today than they were two days ago, and that breaks my heart. That people choose to act in their own self-interest at the expense of the physical well-being of others–especially others who have historically been marginalized and discriminated against–is a behavior that I will never understand or condone, and it saddens me deeply.

—

The illusion of safety from “outside” forces and the belief that we need to work within the confines of the existing paradigm has kept us stuck in what can only be described as an abusive relationship with our government–one where they commit atrocious acts against both the planet and the people who inhabit it, in our name–for far too long.

Like any abusive relationship, be it with drugs, money, a parent, or a partner, the likelihood of meaningful change happening before one hits rock bottom is, unfortunately, zero. Apparently, we have not yet hit our collective rock bottom.

—

For all the talk of “the Divine Feminine rising,” most of what’s being shared by “feminine leaders” these days includes the spoken or unspoken ideal that She needs to rise perfect and pretty.

Yes, the Divine Feminine encompasses all these things: intuition, empathy, nurturing, creativity, interconnectedness, sensuality, emotional intelligence, compassion, joy, and pleasure. But the idea that this should all happen gently and sweetly and in a beautifully decorated and acceptable (read: inoffensive) package, well…guess what…that’s the fucking partriarchy. And colonialism. And white supremacy. 

Femininity is also dirty, bloody, foul, ferocious, and willing to do whatever it takes. Imagine a mamma bear only protecting her cub to the extent that it doesn’t mess up her hair and she looks good in the photos? Until we embrace this messy, chaotic, ravenous version of Her, of ourselves, we are only/always giving marginally less than we’re capable of. A mere fraction of what it takes to create real change.

And I am not exempt. I am guilty of this too. It’s something I’ve been unpacking in layers. For years. And there is still work to be done.

The rise of the Divine Feminine will not be pleasant or palatable. It will be sweaty and bloody and loud and messy and beautiful. Like giving birth. But instead of birthing a human baby, we’re birthing a whole new way of being in the world. 

—

If you (or anyone) require that your personal experience be in a carefully controlled state of equilibrium; if your capacity to engage in what’s happening in around you is limited; if protecting yourself from the collective pain and suffering is necessary in order for you to continue to function in your day to day life, I want you to know that that is okay. You should, without question, focus on that. Take care of yourself and the people you love. Gather your resources. Build your capacity. So that when you’re ready, you can show up in your full power and do the necessary work to help birth this new reality.

But if anyone proclaiming to be a leader is telling you that NOT paying attention to what’s happening around you IS THE WORK, that your responsibility in this life is to only take care of yourself and to focus on creating your own magical dream experience, then know that they are missing half the story.

We create our own magical dream experience so that we can share it with others, so that we can have impact on those around us, so that we can create a new reality for the collective. Not so we can squirrel it away like Scrooge McDuck. 

We build our resilience and capacity so that we can withstand the storm, not so that we can hide from it.

And if these individuals are acting as if nothing is amiss and going about life as usual, consider that perhaps that is all the capacity they have in this moment. And that that’s okay. Everyone must do their own capacity building, in their own time. But it certainly isn’t the end of the story.

There is work to be done.
And we are all in this together.

With love and optimism for our future, 

Rachel

—

And so here's what I want to tell you about what this means to me, for me, and in the context of this work, of my work, of which this podcast is a part.

I look back on the last few years and I could see that I was building my reserves and building my capacity. When so many people were experiencing so much pain in 2020 and 2021 and 2022, I did not have the capacity to show up, to be present, to carry load.

I just, I didn't have the capacity because my reserves were depleted. And I felt during that time period torn between this sensation of guilt, of I should be doing more, I should be more engaged, I should be more involved. And a really deep knowing that I just didn't have the capacity for it.

And so when I say that if you don't feel like you have the capacity, that's okay. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And my invitation to you would be to invest in building the capacity and not to just turn a blind eye and hide away, which is so tempting.

And to some extent, I think in this last week or so, so many of us have been feeling numb and disconnected and it's natural and normal to sort of hide out a little bit, right? And then there comes the point where we act or we get ready to act.

And so I know that for myself, I've been building my reserves, building my capacity these last few years, and I feel fired up and ready for whatever this next season of our lives on this planet looks like.

Part of the reason for me feeling so depleted was in the entirety of the time that I have been in this cycle over these last 15 plus years, I have been fully immersed in the worlds of personal development, holistic wellness, spirituality, conscious capitalism, and doing my own work of learning boundaries and learning how to be in relationship in a way that is healthy to be in partnerships, mostly through failed efforts and dysfunctional environments that I learned these lessons in. And for the last few years, in this process of my “unbecoming”, the beginnings of the “midlife becoming,” right, the initial unbecoming, I have had some pretty intense disillusionment with all of those industries, all of those spaces.

And, I believe that all of those spaces started in good places. And I believe that the majority of the people who are working in those worlds started with good intentions and the majority of them still have good intentions. And the environments themselves have gotten so corrupted and so dysfunctional that if you're in them, you may not even see what's happening around you.

And the beauty of sort of being the behind the scenes person is that I have witnessed from all angles some really beautiful, beautiful gifts, intentions, contributions from people in these worlds. And I have also witnessed some really dysfunctional, out of integrity, problematic, sometimes revolting behaviors in some of these communities. And that's on the extreme, much more common, what I have seen is this version of dabbling. A friend I was chatting with the other day used the term “spiritual branding,” like putting on a veneer of wellness and personal development and spirituality and consciousness to cover up something that is not healthy, that is not good.

I see these areas being manipulated by people succeeding wildly sometimes in them that are so grossly out of integrity. And you would never know that unless you’ve seen it over and over and over, right? And so, the thing I'll just repeat is that I don't think most of that's intentional. I think it has been the evolution of these environments that they have become contaminated in a way. And over these last few years, I felt super disillusioned with a lot of it.

And I've been sort of doing this dance of like, well, this is the world I work in. sort of like trying to figure out what the levers are to pull in order for it to feel like I'm actually doing something meaningful. And this past week, I had this really full out of body that led me to question everything. Like, what are we doing? What is the meaning of any of this? Like, I've spent 15 years of my life surrounded by hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who… their passion is to make the world better, to raise consciousness, to share in spirituality, to improve wellness, to help people become better versions of themselves. And here we are. And so I really was questioning, what is the point of any of this? What is the meaning of any of this?

And there are two really key things that I realized in that contemplation, and then in conversations with friends in the aftermath of that. One is that the version of all of these things that I have been fully immersed in for 15 years at this point, I have known for about three years was severely broken and didn't feel empowered to extract myself from it. And so I have done what I think so many of us have been doing, which is like, I'll just make a little adjustment. I'll, try to differentiate myself. But you're still in the freaking mess. Like you're still in the mess and you're sort of like trying to dust the mud and the dirt off yourself.

But you're sitting in the fucking mud puddle, And so I had that realization of like, no, I'm still in it and I've been in it. And I need to get really clear on what's OK with me and what's not OK. And sitting next to someone who is grossly out of integrity and thinking I'm OK because I'm not out of integrity is a lie that I've told myself over the years.

And continuing to play the game and to try to just like play it better or to try to compete with, somebody who has mastered the Instagram algorithm and they're a genius at that and they're getting a lot of traction to making a lot of money on their pseudo spirituality because they learned how to game the algorithm, when in the meantime, there are brilliantly talented people with decades and decades of experience who just, they don't know how to play the game. And so by continuing to try to play the game that we're all just feeding into it, right? Like we're keeping the game alive by trying to keep up. So that's one thing that I, one realization I had coming out of that.

And the second one is that we may never see the fruits of our labors. And I have to credit my friend Caroline Padgett, who's a beautiful spiritual teacher. She is one of these people who has decades and decades of experience and wisdom to share. And we had a very long conversation last week.

And she reminded me of something. We're doing all this work, right? Trying to make the world better, trying to make people's lives better. I've been consciously engaged in this activity for 15 years. And then to have these moments where it's like, what are the fruits of my labor? Like, what does it all mean? What's the significance of anything, any of it?

She shared with me this perspective that we're here to do the work, not to produce the result. We may not see the result. We may not see the fruits of our labor, but we're here to do the work and it might be for the next generation or the next or the next. And I remembered, I forget this all the time. And then every once in a while, it just pops back in my head. I remembered while I was talking to her that gosh, 12 years ago because I think I had been in business for about three years. I had a past life reading and the man I had this reading with I was sharing with, I was feeling really frustrated. He did the past life reading and we started talking about what was going on in my life right now and I told him I was really frustrated. I've been in my business for three years and it's just not where I thought I would be, you know, I feel overwhelmed and I'm not making the money I thought I would be making sort of all these things, right? And I was very emotional. And he said, he goes, “Rachel, you've been a healer for 464 lifetimes. And you're mad because your business isn't making enough money in the first three years?”

I'm just laughing inside right now. It's so absurd, but we get attached to these timelines where we expect to see a result, a manifestation. We expect to do the work and to see it shift and change in a minute, in an hour, in a day, in a year. And the truth is that we really have to just align with who we are and do the work we're meant to do and trust that the effects will happen, the results will come when they're meant to come. And so we may not see the results of our efforts. And that is hard to accept. And it also is real and true. And so whatever's happening around us does not preclude the need for us to just show up and keep doing the work.

And so over the last year, I've been building the foundational elements, the foundation of this iteration of my business, of this season where I step forward. And as I said, for at least a couple of years, I've felt this disillusionment with what's going on around me. And over these last few months, I've been really aware that I was ready to move on from all of that, that it no longer fit. And yet I was hanging onto it in so many ways because it's the work that I've done. It's what I know, it's what's comfortable, it's what's easy. It's what I have been paid for over the years. And so I've found hanging back onto some old ways of working, of old habits of being, of old conversations around, how we do business and how we market and all of these things that have just, they're just out of habit and not really aligned. And so I've noticed myself as I'm talking and sharing some of these things that I don't feel excited about it. It feels old and tired and heavy instead of exciting and energizing and activating, which is how I want to feel when I'm in my business, when I'm working. Otherwise, we could all just go get a paycheck from somebody else, right? If we're here and we're doing this work for ourselves, it's because we want to feel alive and engaged and excited about what we're doing and how we're contributing.

And so I realized that it just felt like I was wearing this sort of old version of myself and sort of trying to drag her along into this new world into this new, this new iteration, this new evolution into this becoming. And so I was sharing this with a friend that I'm just having the realization of like, shit, like I've realized that I've been doing I've been sort of dragging these, old ways of working and old habits of being along with me and I really just need to let them go and show up in a different way and do this very differently.

And she asked me, does that mean rebranding? Does that mean repositioning? And the answer is no. It is not about a rebrand or a relaunch or a facelift or anything like that. This is about a deepening. It's about a leaning in.

It's about me being in integrity and authenticity as I evolve and not holding onto some version of myself or my business from the past, even if that version was knowledgeable, successful, profitable, and even if the past was just a week ago or a month ago.

Because I feel such a determination that there is no room for bullshit, that there is no time for bullshit, that if it's superficial or vapid or lacking in substance, if it's a shiny veneer with nothing behind it, if it's just for show, if it's dishonest, if it's out of integrity, if it's manipulative, if it's willfully ignorant, then it has to go. Because there is no more room for dabbling. There is no more room for looking busy, but not producing results. There is no more room for investing in products and programs and courses and training to keep us distracted from actually showing up and doing the work that we're here to do. There is just no room.

We have work to do and it is time to get to work.

So, to wrap up this season of the podcast, I have five interviews with some really brilliant and soulful and wonderful women doing fantastic work in the world that I'm gonna share with you over the next coming weeks. And while that's happening, I am getting to work on what this next year, this next season looks like, what it feels like, what we're talking about, what the experiences are, what the wisdom is to share, who the people are that we need to bring into the light to be able to share their wisdom and their expertise

And to really just cut to the chase of ,what are we here for? What's the impact that we're here to create? How are we gonna do it? How are we gonna do it in a way that's meaningful, significant, that is at a scale that feels aligned for us? How are we gonna do it in a way that feels exciting and invigorating and enlivening, that is sustainable and that we can keep going for a long, long time because it's not going to be fast and it's not going to be easy.

And how are we going to start to shift the money out of the hands of the people who are doing damage and into the hands of the people who can do good in the world?

That's the work that I'm here to do. And so leaning into this next season, we're going to go a lot deeper. And I invite you to join me because we are all in this together. And it is my passion and my purpose to help you do your work in the world in the most powerful and impactful way that you can.

So I wrap up this season with so much love and appreciation and gratitude for the experience of this last year. And I really look forward to what's coming next for all of us. Take care, and I cannot wait to see you in season two.