The Courage to Re-Create Yourself: A Conversation with Samantha Gomez

Welcome to the joyful journey podcast. If you're looking for more clarity in your life, clarity of purpose or how to activate that purpose, and you are someone who wants to operate from your highest self to be a force for good, you know this world craves, then this is the show for you. I'm Anita Adams, your host and guide to finding clarity and creating a life you love. Let's tap into our inner wisdom, access our highest self and unleash joy. As we do this, we raise our vibration and heighten the collective consciousness. And that my friend, is the joyful journey. Let's dive in. Hey, joyful journey are indeed Adams here your host and today I am excited to introduce you to Samantha Gomez. Samantha is a seasoned career counselor and life coach with a unique blend of corporate leadership experience and personal development expertise with certifications from ever coach and Mindvalley. She brings a strategic and empathetic approach to coaching empowering her clients to reach new heights in their personal and professional lives. Samantha has a proven track record in the public and private sectors has equipped her with the insights and skills to guide clients through transformative life experiences and helps them unlock their full potential. She is driven by her passion for personal growth, and her commitment to helping others achieve their goals. Today, Samantha has joined us to talk about how life's challenges become the catalyst to reaching our dreams. Welcome, Samantha. I'm so excited to have you here with us today.

Thank you so much. I am so happy to be here and Anita.

All right. So I'm I'm going to assume for a moment that you have a personal story about a big life challenge and how it became the catalyst for you to reach your dreams. Can you share us share with us a little bit about your journey?

Sure. So I would say what, probably the biggest, the biggest transition that I've been through is my mother from the age of three, aligned herself with a religion and I won't mention the religion per se, but that was very oppressive. And it as much as there were certain virtues and values that I can appreciate that, you know, that were instilled in me. It also was a religion that actually I felt very submissive and had to sell the it oppressed, my freedom of my behavior, certain things I couldn't do, and even my relationship with others, and in the everyday work world and everyday reality. So at the age of 29, I decided to leave my marriage, which was not a healthy one, and the religion and lose basically all of my community and start from scratch. And so part of that journey really set me up for number one, really examining who I was now after, you know, being immersed in that kind of culture scape, as, as Vishen Lakhiani, from Mindvalley talks about, but also being able to reinvent myself, because I was excommunicated from that religion. And there was a lot of judgment placed upon me. So who was I now going to be? And it really, you know, I gave myself a trip to Cuba, and I walked the beach, and I basically talked to the universe. And I talked to God. And I said, God, I don't believe that you put me out here on this planet, without, you know, to expect me to live life in a way that is inauthentic or for me to be miserably unhappy. I believe that I have a purpose, and I can't live it within that construct within that context. So I'm going to keep what serves me and the values that serve me. But I do believe that I have a higher purpose. And please know that I love you immensely. And I'm immensely grateful. But I need to I need to live my life with freedom. And I know that that's what you've given us all. Otherwise, we would have been born robots to just, you know, automatically obey. So starting from that point, Anita, it was a real shifting point of challenging my beliefs, examining who I was, in the context of now this new world and started to forge ahead in what What I couldn't do before I went to college later on very late in life, then in my mid 30s, I propelled myself into my career and I was able to foster relationships, not built on a religious construct, but actually on quality, quality values and relationships that were intimately intimately bonded together based on you know, unity of humanity versus only what, what they believe in, and so very deep, very deep connection, but it definitely took a lot of introspection on my part. Well, 100%

and encourage Wow, to, you know, step away from everything, your entire What did you call it? And no vision calls it to that that's what did you call to get out your escape? Oh, what's your skate? Yeah, that's the word culture escape, because that's, that's everything that we know. And yet you stepped away from from all of that. Can you? I don't want to dive too deep into this. But I am really curious, because that's a tremendous amount of courage to do that even to, you know, walk away from from your marriage. Was there somebody or something that helped you lean into this ability to move forward? Or was it entirely you, you talked about that intersection was entirely you looking inward and, and, and trusting what your inner guidance was giving you and leaning into that? Or a combination of like, you know, like, I know, my transition was actually it was, it was a couple of years. It's not like one day I woke up, and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to leave my my one job, and I'm going to totally re recreate who I am. It took some time. But so I'm curious if if that was, and I feel like I'm answering my own question. Of course, it doesn't happen overnight.

No, you know, and you got it was definitely a work in progress. And I have to say, I'm so grateful for the people that were in, in my life. And that had been part of my journey at the time, because I have to say, it was some of the beautiful people that I worked with, I remember that I had a former colleague, his name is Gary and him. And I had such a beautiful, beautiful relationship. And he really helped me to appreciate the fact that because he was a member of the LGBT community, and this was something that you know, being gay, or lesbian or bisexual was something that was condemned in the religion. And we became very close friends, something that I wasn't supposed to have done, but I couldn't, you know, what, my heart couldn't shut people out, I just couldn't do it.

Something you weren't supposed to do is that because it was because of your so called religion that you were part of? Okay.

We were only supposed to get so close to coworkers, or anyone that was not a believer. And so. But I mean, you work with people eight hours of the day? How are you not going to, you know, want to share yourself with with that person or with people, it just wasn't in my nature, to be honest. And so, in talking to Gary, you know, we had very heartfelt conversations. And I actually asked him about when he knew that he was that he was gay. And, you know, he explained it to me in such a beautiful manner. And I just recognized, you know, what I cannot be part of a religion, where, like, in my belief, God, the universe is all loving. And I couldn't be part of a religion that based on, you know, the way someone feels and is born, is born to choose, and they feel inclined to this is part of their nature, their human nature, that they would suddenly be destroyed, or they would be condemned based on that. And why would you even allow a child to be born in that circumstance, if you're, if you're going to punish them for their way of being? And I couldn't agree with that. And so there were a lot of different things that chipped away, I would say, at the at the construct that I had been surrounded by since the age of three, because you're always, and I have to say it's repetition, right? So you're always learning these things. So I really started to question it. And it was, you know, a lot of it was people would, you know, I'd get into conversations. And of course, we were encouraged to talk to people about our beliefs. And so in those discussions, people would ask me certain questions, and I'd be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And why, why do we believe that and that and some You know, it being just a matter of faith wasn't good enough anymore, you know. And so it got to the point where and the religious doctrine was always was changing. And so without getting into huge detail on on the dogma, even as things in intimate marital home, and what you do with your partner, you know, was there were certain things that were forbidden. And so, and these would change. And so I just, I found it so intrusive, that I, there was one point where something was shifted, and I just said, You know what, this has no place like, why are you? Why is this why is this religious entity sort of coming into my, my, my home, and my, my intimate my intimate bedroom. And so that's there was a lot of different things that I really couldn't, couldn't fathom. And so thankfully, I had beautiful, like I said, I had a beautiful team of colleagues, that once even when I left, like when I was excommunicated, I had never celebrated Christmas. The last time I celebrated Christmas was when I was a toddler, like, too, I was too, because when my mother converted, we couldn't celebrate Christmas. And so my colleagues actually celebrated my first Christmas. And even my colleagues that were Jewish, celebrated the Christmas Christmas with me, because they were so excited. And so it was the love that I experienced through this beautiful new world that I was in that I had been taught was satanic. And it was not. And so I was just so excited, like, I really felt like I had just been born. And I had this to discover. And thankfully, my intuition was always right, that there was an endless amount of beautiful people on this planet. And that, you know, people around generally want to do good, they want to be light, they want to show love and humanity. And quite honestly, the years since I've left now, I'm I'm almost 50 It's only proven me right. And I've never been happier that I made that shift. It wasn't easy. Granted, no. But I would say it was the best decision of my life, beautiful.

I'm hearing a couple things that I just really want to present for anybody that is wanting to make a big change in their life. And one is that you had your own fundamental, strong belief, you're strong, a strong spiritual, even though you you were repelled by the religion that you were surrounded by at the time, you had your own strong fundamental spiritual belief that, to me, I hear gave a lot of courage. And the other the other part of that for that you shared was the people that were in your your life outside of the religious community, you were connecting with other people that helped you step into the life that you want, you want it to create. So I think those are two really important things, having that strong belief, that core belief in in a higher power, if you will, and yourself because I believe those two are really interconnected. And being surrounding yourself with people that can guide and come with you on on the journey. Would you say I summed that up accurately?

Absolutely. And if I could add one thing, I mean, I have to say, I've spoken to a number of therapists and counselors throughout that. And so I have to say you do sometimes need professional help. Because, you know, there is a lot of emotional turmoil in making such shifts. And so definitely, you know, what, be kind to yourself, be patient with the process, because there were times where when things would go wrong. I have to, I have to really think this special friend that I had that I worked with, and he was a lawyer and something Something had very devastating had happened. And you tend to blame yourself, oh, it's because I left the religion that this happened. And it's God punishing me. And so it was, you know, it's amazing how these ingrained teachings still years later can come back to sort of haunt you. And so it took me a long time to recognize that you know, what we are held and we are loved and the universe supports us. And that almost that also means that life is duality. We have the shadow sides of life, as well as we will have the brilliant moments of just utter joy and peace.

Yeah, they do go hand in hand often, don't they? And thank you for presencing that need for professional support. I think that's underplayed sometimes, you know, and that we all need it. There's at some point in our journey, you know, I've turned to professional counselors and help in my past There's certainly no no shame in doing that. And in fact, it takes courage also, to reach out for help when you need it. Very good. So when you were, let's just take you back to your your lowest blow. Now, if you could go back to from the woman you are today to that person who was in her lowest low trying to get out of the world that she was in, what what advice? Would you would you tell her now?

Oh, first of all, I think I'd give her just the most loving hug and say, it's gonna be okay. That as much as the clouds seem really ominous, and it seems like the world is crashing down that it's at that point where you know what the light, like the light comes through after the storm. Once you know, once it's over, it's just that's where you shine brightest. And so I tried to remind myself, I would remind, I would admonish her to have faith that just because today is dark, doesn't mean tomorrow will be too nice.

Yeah, I love that I love the this idea of, of our future self giving us a hug, you know, and, and then embracing it's, I often think about the inner child, you know, I'm that inner child that needs the needs.

Absolutely, I think, I think if we spent more time, you know, speaking to that inner child, and what does that inner child want to tell us, you know, to play more, to laugh more to not take life so seriously, to remember what gifts we had when we weren't so afraid to show them to the world because those same gifts are what empower us as adults. And so there's definitely a lot to share. Yeah,

I love that you said play more I feel I feel that we need all of us need, especially in this stage in our life, where we're so busy, you know, like doing whatever it is that we feel like we need to do, we also need to play more and more creativity comes from us when we give our ourselves space to play.

Store. And I have to say the best organizations that I've worked for have been where their teams play together, and where they encourage these, you know, whether they have workshops or whole retreat days, but where it's not just learning, but they actually get to laugh and engage in what it's like to just be light. And it opens up creativity and it unites people in teams. So it's, yeah, we need to pay

more. Yeah. 100%. Alright, let's, let's shift a little bit and talk about going forward with the big dream. You know, like we're getting out of our out of the the troubled areas, and now we're moving towards trying to make a dream a reality. But to have a dream, we have to we have to have that sense of purpose. How do we, how do you work with your clients and helping them find that sense of life's purpose? Do you have a method perhaps, for tapping into life's purpose.

So there's a couple, there's a couple of tools that I use, one of the more effective ones that I've used is life mapping. And it's based on Vance Peavy and his sort of design of how oftentimes as, as humans, we struggle so much with, we know where we're at, and we get stuck there. And we can envision what where we want to go. But there's that middle part and how to get there. And, you know, all the steps involved that we sort of struggle with. So what I've found is, oftentimes, people do want to have dreams, but they forgotten them along the way, because they get stuck in the present, right. And sometimes the present isn't where they want to be. And our society doesn't exactly encourage us to dream. And so part of it is talking to them about okay, what's your dream? What was your dream when you were younger? You know, if I could wave a magic wand, and there were no restrictions whatsoever, where would that take you? And so then we start to build them up? And we started to talk about, okay, what resources do you have, that can take you from where you are now down to where you want to be? And if they lacked the resources, then what resources do you need? And step by step we start to sort of build those stepping stones to getting to their dream. And so it's a path right but the thing is that we need the tools just like you know, building a house. It's one brick at a time, right? We set the foundation and so the important thing is to know it doesn't happen overnight. And sometimes we need a god we need a map And so the life mapping, it does just that and gives them a map. But it also talks about, okay, what doubts Do you have? Or what are those sort of dark thoughts that come up? I can't do it or the family would not agree or, okay, what are the positive aspects? What are your positive thoughts about it? Well, you know, I have I have this person in my corner that they really encouraged me. Think about the feeling of how it would feel once you get there and getting them to foster these positive thoughts in you know, once they start moving, that's what gives them the momentum. Right? It's the small steps and

the confidence to keep moving forward. Yeah, yeah. That's

right, the coat. That's why coaching helps so much. Because, you know, alone, it's really hard. But you know, any big shift that I've made has been with either coaches, or therapists that have helped me to get to sort of see it, you know, and we'll leave it because sometimes, unfortunately, nobody's going to understand our dream as much as we see it in our own mind and heart. And so with a coach there a neutral or neutral person that they want to see us get there. And so it's it's a beautiful thing.

Now, what if, what if you don't have a dream yet? You know, like you said, when you came out of this, or we're coming out of the culture scape that you were living in, you had this conversation with God, and you said, Who was I now going to be? This is a question you're asking, Who am I? Now going to be? So to me, that sounds like you are trying to figure out what is next, you know. And I know with the work I've done with, with my clients, often they come not, they've got a vague idea, but maybe not necessarily a big life purpose yet that they've they've found or a dream, and they just feel lost in the transition. And it sounds to me that maybe that you had some time in that transition place trying to figure out who am I going to be now? And I do like that. There's an awareness there that I get to choose who I want to be, which is pretty exciting. But can you can you walk us through a little bit about your journey of discovering what was next for you?

Absolutely. I think I, I broke it down to basics as to okay, what interests me what gives me passion? What if I always want to do that I wasn't allowed to do. So I went to yoga, and I started taking yoga classes. It's like, oh, wow, okay, this is woowoo. And it's fun. And, and I slowly started to Okay, what do I enjoy? What gives life and then I started to do those things, you know, and it's just sort of whatever fills you with passion and Time flies by and it just, you know, once you finish whatever activity that is, I would say, that's a good hint. That it's something you need to investigate, you know, I find with in my life, it's those little steps that we take, whether it's taking the dancing lessons, oh, my goodness, that fills me with joy, maybe I'm not going to be a major competitor in a dance competition, but it gives me the strength to know, wow, if I challenged myself, I can be quite a good dancer. And so I found that I got to know more aspects of myself and I got to see what oh, I'm actually really creative. And then okay, what do I like? Why do I Why don't I like as a kid, I loved writing, but why don't I write, and then I started my blog, you know, and I'd start to post things. And you know, my friends or people in my network colleagues, oh, my god, please continue to post. Like, we love what you write. And so it's what do you hear your family say, or your friends say, or, you know, you look so happy after you come back from that class or, you know, play late investigate. So it doesn't have to be we seem to have these expectations as human beings that we place upon ourselves and everything has to be so serious, I have to know about my purpose. Well, what about your purpose just being finding out what fills you with glee? And makes you want to wake up in the morning? And then you know what, slowly it comes to that it leads to that?

100% Yeah, I often talk about the joy spotting to invest time finding, just noticing simply noticing what brings you joy in life. And that will those are the breadcrumbs, the spiritual breadcrumbs that lead you to the best version of who you are. Right? Absolutely.

I mean, I, I do want to say what really helped me to when I went to George Brown College in Toronto, I love that college. I took my career counseling program, and we did a whole slew have assessments. And that helped me immensely. So it was everything from Myers Briggs. Finding out, okay, what our interests, what are our passions? And, and sometimes taking those assessments really helps us to see, okay, wow, I didn't really realize that all these skills that I have put together, actually, you know, signify that I'm, I'm quite the leader or I'm quite the humanitarian. And so we often don't think of ourselves in these sort of big titles. But part of it is when we take these assessments, we see aspects of ourselves that we hadn't seen before. And so being curious about taking such assessments and knowing that they don't label us, we don't have to be pigeonholed, but it gives us a better have a better idea of what work for example, we might be more apt to doing and we might enjoy more, rather than something that perhaps we might be good at. But it doesn't really fill us with passion. Yeah,

absolutely. It's really about knowing thyself, isn't it, it comes down to really investing time with understanding who you are. And then through that understanding you can, you can move forward, you can take a step towards a beautiful dream as you start to shape that dream, right.

And I think it's important to share with our audience that it's, we're totally allowed to reinvent ourselves. Yeah, because we're this person yesterday, five years ago, we're allowed based on what we've learned based on, you know, the way we want to improve or the way we want to expand, we're allowed to evolve. And I think that's part of what sometimes the culture scape doesn't allow us to do enough. We're allowed to change our mind. And there's no magic in that there's freedom in that book, and there's a new habit that Oh, my goodness, that's a that's a game changer.

Yeah, yeah, thank you for presencing that I think a lot of people and myself included in the past with get stuck with, Okay, I've made this decision I've chosen that I am going to be like, in my last my previous life, I was the executive director of a national organization. And that was my identity. And even though my passion for the work that I was doing had died, I felt like I need I committed at 17 years, 18 years. It's a long time. So I felt like I this is where I need to be continuing this is this is who I am. And letting that go was was a big mental shift. But I think we get stuck in this idea that we have to stick with with the original dream, but it's natural for our dreams to to evolve as we evolve. So thank you

for president Santa. And I think it's a beautiful thing to reach our dreams. I gave a presentation for the attorney general in, in the province of Ontario back home. And the one thing that someone asked me, which I thought was so amazing is what happens if you fulfill your dream and you realize that it wasn't your dream? And I thought, what a good question. And I thought, like, you know, what, how would you ever know if you hadn't tried 100% And the fact that you know that you've succeeded to reach this dream? Number one, man, Qantas clap for yourself. And number two, now, you know, that's not it. And the world is your oyster. To play more to investigate more. So I think part of it is we don't have to be so hard on ourselves that we have to okay, this has to satisfy us and this is it. Well, I hate to break it to you folks after like by almost 50 years on this planet. When we think this is it, there's another mountain to climb. And you know, as the human spirit we want to continue to experience that's why we're here. Yeah,

and that's that keeps life exciting. I had one of the best pieces of advice that has ever been given to me was when I was pursuing my dream to be an actor and my acting coach had said you know it is your job to 100% go after your dream because only by doing that will you find where you're meant to be and it might be somewhere completely different and I thought felt so powerful so and I've I've followed that advice ever since you know just giving myself to the dream and when new opportunities come you know even though you struggle sometimes to let go of the of those the past those identities as I was mentioning, you stop and you go okay, where's my heart actually taking me listen to that. Listen to that and and you will be all right. You will create The life you really want, and it will be better than you ever imagined.

Back Wait, you know what's interesting is, as you were saying, as you were saying that I was thinking, you know, so many people in the audience probably thinking, Yeah, but how do we know if it's our dream? How do we know? And so I remember, right before I was going to take the Mindvalley program, and I was deciding, oh, do I take the Mind Valley coaching or not? And I sort of went within. And I, when I thought about taking the coaching program, in my solar plexus in my belly, I got this immense joy. Nice. And I got this feeling like, Okay, this is going to be a game changer. I don't know how it's going, like how it's going to come about. And so I think part of it is spend the time to really get quiet and go within and how do you feel when you close your eyes? And you envision it? Do you get that feeling where it's like, Oh, my goodness, you feel joy? When you feel that inner joy, then it's something to investigate. It's something to move towards.

I 100% agree. In fact, I talk about that very thing a lot as well. I want to challenge you and hear your your response to this question. What if what a fear also bubbles up? Because often, often that big dream, that big vision is freaking scary.

Oh, my God. Yes. So I can very much relate to this in my move to Columbia. Because my life raised born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and I had a great career I've done well for myself. And my had been my dream to move to a tropical country and to Colombia. I love I love. I love it here. i My family, my majority of my family's here. But I was terrified. Like, I mean, I'm terrified. And of course, the you know, culture scape are you doing? You've got an amazing career, or it's just like, it keeps you keep doing better and better. You've you know, you're you've got your own this, you're doing this, you're doing that you've got your community here. What do you do? And I have to say it really it. So I will, I will share one thing. And I've shared this before and some of the talks that I've given what scared me more was thinking to my deathbed, and thinking about how I would feel if I never actually tried. And I actually never did it. Because I was too scared. And I thought I would be furious at myself. If I didn't at least try. And Mel. Mel Robbins is awesome in that she talks about just try. You know what makes you a hero? You try. I loved it, because it's true. And so thank God, I like I have a couple of very close friends. And they're like, Sam, so what? Even if it even if it fails, even if even if you go there and things don't work out? You did it? Do you know how many people would love to do what you're doing? And don't have the courage or the circumstances to do so. And so I have to say, having fear is a positive thing. We don't see it that way. And I would question that part of that fear is excitement. And I would also say what is the greater fear that you never reach it? And then when you're 85 however years old, you look back and you think, darn my whole life went went by and I always wanted to do that. I think that that is the that would be the ultimate fear that we should have.

That's really great advice, Samantha I like that. And it's simple. It's simple to ask yourself, what would my 85 year old my future the future me say about about this and sit with that and see what resonates what comes up from within? Great, great tip. Thank you for sharing that. This is this is delightful. I love this conversation. I feel like we could go on and on and on down this this. It's beautiful. So it's a great conversation. If somebody wanted to connect with you learn more about the programs and the coaching you offered. What's the best way that they could do that?

Absolutely. So they can reach me by email coach at Samantha gomaz.ca or my website Samantha gomez.ca. You can fill out a form there and reach me. I'm also on Instagram. My company is Somantha Gomez coaching and facilitation. So definitely I would love to hear from those in the audience that are so inclined to start on an exciting journey of transition for themselves. Wonderful.

We will of course include all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Samantha I so enjoyed having you here on the on the show today and getting to know you more and the work you do and just connecting with another beautiful soul from another part of the world. Samantha is tuning in from Colombia right now, which is so so cool. And I love that we can do that. But we can come together like this. So thank you again for joining us, and joyful journey or thank you for tuning in. If you liked this show this episode, please leave a rate the show leave a comment those reviews go a long way to helping us reach for more people with the messages that we're trying to share. And our goal as you know is to raise the collective consciousness. So you're helping us do that by leaving a comment and, and a review. So thank you, we'll, we'll connect with you next time. Bye for now. Thank you for joining me on the joyful journey podcast. If anything resonated for you from today's show, or if you are looking for more clarity in your life, clarity of purpose or how to activate that purpose, then head over to joyful journey.ca and become a member of our community. We'll start by sending you a free download of our three guiding principles to inner wisdom, which will give you a great foundation for finding the clarity you're seeking. And you'll become part of a growing community of people who are raising the collective consciousness. So head over to joyful journey.ca And I look forward to connecting with you directly