Is Your Soul Connected? Now is the time to find out! With Claudia-Sam Cataford Sauvé

Welcome to the Shining Brightly show. I'm Howard Brown author speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, international peacemaker, and yes to time stage for cancer patients, survivor and advocate. Each episode will take you from resilience to hope and a whole lot more. Because shining brightly does make the world a better place. Be prepared to be inspired.

Hello, welcome to Shining Brightly Howard Brown your Maestro with the mic. Oh, my goodness, I have a great show. I always have a great show. But this one's cool. I have an amazing person. Claudia Sam. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

I'm so excited. This is gonna be so much fun.

i Oh, my goodness. We met a while back and then we're just catching up in the greenroom before. And oh my goodness. So I don't like reading bios, tell people how you want to be heard. And

Okay, well picture this. I'm a paddleboard lover who's floating on the river, probably eating avocados, and probably just paddling a little bit and then lying down on my paddleboard, just soak up the sun. And getting back home and having a Friends episode in the background, knowing all the lines by heart for sure. And well, I'm living in Eastern Canada. And I'm moving to New Zealand. And right now I met my sisters in Florida. So traveling and seeing the world and being in different places is my jam. So that's the best totally the personal side of me. I love it.

I love it. Oh, my goodness, paddleboarding, so much fun. I don't do it enough, because I live in Michigan, although in the summer, you can do it on the lakes. But in the winter, you cannot and we don't have any snow. It's a sunny day here in Michigan in the middle of February. So I want to know, oh, how do you define a soul connection? Coach? What is that?

Yeah. What is that? Thank you. Well, there are, there are three powerful words in there. So let's start with soul. I believe that there are two parts of us. I mean, there's many parts of us. But the main parts of us would be the small s self, which is like the ego self, the head part of us the logic the quote unquote, what makes sense. And then there's the big S self, which would be the soul self, that part of us who is eternal, immortal, that part of us who is aligned who is on purpose, who is connected to the Divine, who is lit up, who pretty much, you could also say it's the heart, it's the place that attracts, it's the place that trust is the place that is flowing. So the soul part is what I want to be at stand for in all of my clients, even for myself. And in all the decisions I make, I pretty much want to and do make decisions from a heart place instead of from a head place. So that I am constantly in alignment with that soul part of me. So that's the soul. And I know you were saying earlier, in another conversation we had that the soul conversation is pretty new. And it's not your habit to go that deep in our conversation. So thanks so much for having me and being willing to have these Well, I

wanted to find you on because majority of my book is about light. Okay, and the light is deep within us in our souls. And so there is a huge connection to what you do, and how you help people align and allow their souls to free and all the great work that you do. So we have great alignment.

Ah, there you go. Sorry, just that the connection and the coach part of what of what I do. And the connection pieces. Also I feel like the I work with mostly with women, but I've worked with men as well and not not that gender really matters. What I'm want to say is that connection seems to be a deep part. For the women I work with the connection to even people the connection to who they really are the connection to the purpose. So the word connection felt really aligned for me to also have in there. And you know, we don't need to put meaning on every word but to really just go deep and answering your question. And then the coach piece is just that. I'm not a therapist, I'm not here to give you the answers. I'm here to be your cheerleader, and to help you flex your soul connection muscle. I'm here to help you be your own inner guide. So even if I was called a guide, you know you go to a new city and you're there to explore. It's like you know, the way you're the guide people will follow you around, but I don't know the way to your heart I don't know the way to your soul. So I'm a coach in that way that I help, I coach you to tune into that, in your own way, your own inner landscape. If that makes any sense,

it makes it makes a lot of sense. I love big S, little s, coaches, teachers, sharpers, vides mentors, it's really important. And I have a whole chapter on mentorship, which is coaching. And I call mentorship leadership. So we're aligned way more than that, I think I'm just not as practiced as you, I'm still learning. But it's this is good. And again, I want my audience to understand that there are many ways to get back up again and heal and get more positivity and kindness, and things that you desire in your life. And you are a practitioner, and a teacher and a coach of that. And I am too in many ways, we come at it from slightly different vantage points, but all heading in the right direction, which is, yeah, why we're so you know, such a good match here. So, tell me, I guess what I want to hear is, you know, I've read, you know, before, and we've talked about, you know, corporate life and burnout, but tell me, you know, try to get a new definition of, of how do you got knocked down? And then we'll transition and say, how you got back up again, and then we'll talk about it as a as a in general how we can help others.

Amazing. Thanks, Howard. Yeah, we were just discussing and what came through for me about the being knocked down and getting back up. I was mentioning to you right that? Well, yeah, I did burn out. And I used to be in corporate and I used to work, you know, make my life all about work. And that's a story that a lot of you listening might have heard before. And not that it's not powerful and unique in each individual's way. Rather, I feel like being knocked down is a term that I no longer want to see as a really big failure. You know, it sounds like to me right now being knocked down would be like, Oh, my gosh, some this external thing. Arrived in my life pushed me off course, this external thing had power over me. And as much as my clients come to me when they're fallen off trend, they feel off track. They're not not down. They're off track. They're just like, oh, wait a minute, I thought I took the exit. But I didn't take the exit that I want that that kind of conversation. And I'm not saying anything negative about being knocked down rather than I right now want to choose. And that I'm choosing to just revisit if I do say that internally or out loud, and I got knocked down? Or is it just oh, this is different than my small self expected, just kind of this awareness of, I don't need to be knocked down. I can I have had in the past. And I used to see it that way. And now it's like this new level of abundance and openness that I actually get to embrace the, the darkness, I get to embrace the things that are out of my control. And I think that's the piece that it's it's shifting to, instead of feeling like, Okay, I'm gonna get knocked down. It's this failure. It's the bad thing that has, you know, rising up from the ashes. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm choosing now to go, Okay, this is happening then. Okay, what's the opportunity here? What is what is there for me to let go of what is there for me to step into, and what is there for me to be in without any judgment and without need to move out of it?

I love it. Because I think what you're saying is that knocked out is a pretty severe term, you can be off course, you can be out of alignment, I like to say that, you know, the worst thing that happened at four years old is that, you know, I scraped my knee and they sprayed Bakhtin on it, and that was getting knocked down. That was horrible. I will say though, there are certain degrees or levels of that when you get a stage three, then a stage four metastatic cancer diagnosis, the world stopped for me, I got stopped in my tracks twice in my life once at age 23. And then once again at age 50. So there is severity levels. It takes different definition and things like that. But what I say is we all face hurdles in life. And are you going to go through the hurdle over the hurdle around the hurdle, take two steps back and take a different path. I mean, that this is what we're asking ourselves here is that and again, I use it more commonly, I think, than you do as far as knocked down. I mean, that old Chumbawamba sound we got knocked down, you get up again, that's the key when you get knocked down or you get off course or you are misaligned. How are you gonna get back up again?

Yes, this bad attitude, the way of being an insult connection coaching, one of the things that I love is that we get to look at the ways of being, not the things you do, not the identities you have and the many hats you're wearing. Rather, the ways you're being in the world, when you show up if there was a fly on the wall that could see the way you're operating the way you're thinking, the way you're making decisions, the space you're creating, in your life between thoughts between responses between actions, what would we see. And I can totally get how being knocked down feels, I mean, it almost sounds, it can sound a little while I was about to use a judgmental word on myself to say that knockdown can't happen. And that's not what I'm saying. When I when my grandmother died, or when one of my great friends died of breast cancer in 2021. And this is actually, maybe the way that knock down happened for me in a way was that I was laying flat on the ground on my yoga mat, maybe 12 hours after I heard the news from my friend, I was laying flat on the ground, I couldn't move, I could not move. It's like if the trauma of having this news actually physically knocked me down to the point of my body could no longer move like it hurt every part of my spine. And that in them, like in the moment of it was I thinking, oh my gosh, I'm, here's here's the thought process, I could have thought, oh my gosh, I'm being knocked down. Life is over, I can't believe you know, just digging my own hole. And I did it for a few minutes, maybe a few hours. And then I noticed I kind of go I went, Wait a minute, do I want to keep digging my own hole here, like having the intuition to step back. And to look at the way I was handling the situations and the spirals in the loops that my mind was taking me through, that's a choice. Yes, that can be labeled as hard. And it can also be labeled as easy or it can also be labeled as trying, you know, doing your best. b I was actually talking to this with a client today, you can decide if something is hard or if something is easy. And I know that outside of a situation that knocks you down you might think it's easy to say when you're not in it. And yet the soul self does not feel pain. And the soul self sees the big picture and the light and the soul self as in that moment. For me, it had me remember that my body was receiving the emotion, my body was being the channel for the emotion. And I could make a decision to sink in it, and to sink deeper in it and to let that be my victim place. Or I could choose to strengthen me. And to make it harder, I could decide that it was hard in these moments. And I could also decide to be in the hardship like yeah, this is going hard, and I'm gonna let it be hard. Great. I don't have to judge that. No, no, no, you have to rise up and it has to be easy again. It's kind of like this dance between the decision of yes, you can be in the hardship and choose to be in the hardship and you can also choose to move slowly towards ease. That's that's kind of like how I choose to see it. And hey, I'm human too. And if I get knocked down, I will be like, oh, gosh, there I am.

I hear you. I think that you showed appreciation, empathy. You. You did some introspection? Listen, I've spent plenty of time in darkness. Okay, but I don't allow myself to stay there. But I don't sprint out of there. Either. There's an appreciation. How did I get here? And and am I taking baby steps out? Or can I take a little, you know, larger giant steps out. And it's a process. I would tell you that healing usually doesn't happen in milliseconds, or sometimes an hour a day or week. It can take some time. And that's kind of what we all go through. And so life and our journeys and our decisions. I always like to say that I always referred to a team sport writing my book was a team sport. Fighting cancer is a team sport. So many different pieces of that puzzle that that helped me get through it. And life is a team sport. And that's where you know, they come to folks like you and I to to help share them, mentor them, guide them, move them for worth, as we've moved our own selves forward to, hmm,

thank you. And you know, what is coming to me is when we, the word control is coming to me as if, when we think something is not going fast enough, or if we think something is not going the way we want it to go or the way it should, it's, it can be because trying to have control over every situation in life, control over how things should go according to the small self. Oftentimes, it's according to the small s self, the human self, the ego, that part of us that has fears and wants to prove and wants to win, you know, that that part of us that's a little competition with the world and with what's to show, what's there to show of me in life. And so that part of us wants to control and thinks that planning and doing things step by step will bring us to a certain place with, you know, up the I got the trophy place, kind of and then if the knocking down energy comes, it's an it's an opportunity, and yet it's like the ego going, shoot, I can't control anymore. I lost my grip.

Quality Sam, I was reading your work. And we live in this world of digital Blips. Everything's a soundbite second 144 characters. You know, we had a campus shooting in Michigan State, which is horrendous. My niece was there. She's home now. She's She's processing my sister's processing whether we've got a war in the Ukraine, we've got bad stuff that happens. How do you get to a now moment in such a noisy, noisy world? Yeah, I just I, I noticed that that's one part of your work. I'm so curious. And I think people need to hear you define that for us.

Thank you. When you ask that question, what helps me the most, and I'm and I'm going to speak in, I hear that I close my eyes, and I connect my feet to the earth. And I can feel the crown of my head connected to the universe. I imagine that there's like, the stars in the sky, and the power of the universe that when you really imagine the solar system, and all of the light up there, the dark space, the emptiness, and the movement, so fast of the universe, and all of the planets and all of the stars like our, our galaxy is actually moving. And when I come back in my body, I'm stuck in this body, this body only sees through the eyes of the body, the body only sees the problems only sees the the darkness only sees the chaos and the bad and the all of the unhappiness and well, the wires. And when I connect my feet to the earth, and I connect the crown of my head back up to the universe, I remember that I can be in unison with that higher force that I cannot conceive. I don't know how it works. I don't know the how. And I've heard this line before. Nobody effing knows. Nobody knows. And yet, when I close my eyes, and I tune in, I feel my feet bubbling with energy and connection to the earth to this big force that is inexplicable and so powerful. And then the crown of my head just feels so lit up. Well, that takes me out of the problem. It connects me to love. And when I am connected to love, all I can do is shine the love outward. Instead of let the darkness shine towards me. I receive the light, I shine the light out. And that's a little bit like creating an energy bubble of protection around me so that everyone else's negative energy or fears actually doesn't pierce through my bubble that's not being egotistical that's not closing in on what's really happening. It's using the power of love instead of spiraling down and can you believe this is happening? Did you see the news that thing happened? That thing happens spiraling down and down and down in negativity with our words, in sadness with our thoughts in madness and judgment also with our thoughts. It's not to say that what is happening is good. Rather. By connecting to love, I remember that I can be at choice with my words to remember love first. That has me connect to what it's really all about. That's also why I don't listen to the news, not I, here's what's going on and I reconnect to love. Yeah.

So I appreciate that. the Now moment and the connection. And so my book is really I call it a life guide to living a resilient life with hope. And I, what is resilience, you know, mean to you? What does it meant for you? And what does it mean to you now?

Thank you, consistently choosing to see through the eyes of love. That is the resiliency, like that connection with my feet on the earth, and the Crown open, that is me reconnecting with my soul self. And there's many ways to do this. That's just the way that right now anyway, it's feeling true and honest, and resiliency to letting that be my guide. Instead of answering from a factual way of what I've heard in the news and what other people are saying, like, I could also debate the different points in a way of hardship I could, and I'm choosing to not I'm choosing to reconnect to love that is resiliency for me, and some people, you know, even Oprah was having a conversation with Marianne Williamson. And Oprah was saying, how do you forgive someone who's hurt you? How do you forgive, and Marianne said, you send them love, she said, but it's so hard to send love to someone who's hurt you. And she said, Oh, it's harder to hate someone, and to be mean at them than it is to send love. And that struck a chord in me. It's the human habit that I see anyway, out in the world, it's easier to send hate and blame than it is to send love. So whenever we talk about personal transformation, or even soul connection, people think it's hard.

You just made me think because when we come out of the womb, we don't hate. Our actions are hateful, our words aren't hateful, we have to learn those. And then we have to then use those. So it it's just as easy to send love, I actually in my book, say that we're going to turn hope into a currency because you can share a hug, you can share a cup of coffee, but without hope the world is dark. And we need more light in this world. And you start by shining your own light, then you can share others to share their light. And together like we're doing now we become a force multiplier for good and positive change with ourselves with others and in our communities, neighborhoods in the world. And that's what, that's what really it's all about. That's what it's about.

It's so powerful Howard, like, I'm just getting shivers to the the truth in that. And even I'm a student of A Course in Miracles. And I also use some teachings of A Course in Miracles with my students in my coaching growth group called align, which if you're listening, and you're curious about about joining us, just send me an email and the just go to my website, Claudia, Sam soul coaching.com and click on contact and you can reach out to me, but of course in miracles says that when you shine your light, and that, so it's it says something about forgiveness, that forgiveness is one of your function as the light of the world. And as you fulfill your function, you're helping others be the light in the world that they are as well. It's just powerful. And that's a choice.

So I want you to be able to use me as your example. Alright, so a bone marrow transplant 34 years ago from my twin sister saves my life. Frozen sperm. 11 years later gives me a beautiful daughter, right, who's now graduated University and is a reporter for TV station just this last few weeks. And a surgery with hot chemo saves my life a second time. If that isn't hitting the lottery in miracles. It is.

Exactly

I've had three in my life. I've had three.

You know, Howard, a miracle is an expression of love. So a miracle is an expression of love, you are a miracle, I am a miracle. So we are expressions of love. Yeah. Why would we be cut out not to receive more love. And that comes in many forms. Right? It can come as the bone marrow transplant, it can come as the the frozen sperm like whatever it comes into. And the choice comes to accepting it as well. You know, there could be judgment. No, that's not a miracle. It's a bone marrow transplant. No, it is a miracle. And we could decide to see it that way or not like we are powerful decision makers. And yeah, to shine our light and to receive those miracles as a choice to

I want to I want to key on that last thing that you said to receive those miracles one My biggest flirt, people say, Oh my God, you've been through just hell, you know, in cancer and all that. It's been awful. What did you learn? And I have to tell you, my biggest learning and this is probably why the reason why you work with women, and I work with men is that men typically, they don't know how to ask and receive help. And I have to tell you that I have worked on that these last six years, and I am understanding that it gives brings others joy, to actually give help. And I am now getting much better at it to receive help, and be grateful for that help. Instead of saying, Oh, I'm macho, and I can do this all myself, and maybe men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, but accepting help, does allow others to express and share their love and hope and to be able to be grateful to take that in. So I it's such an important point, I didn't want to let that go by, because I took that in, when you were delivering that to receive that. So thank you.

And, and, you know, it's not just men, a lot of my clients still are, at least at the beginning, when we start working together, choosing them putting themselves first is a huge deal. And the more they get into their personal growth and getting to know themselves, they realize that they are this light, they are this expression of love, and so is the person on the other end. So in the sense that that would be support that would be supporting them or that you know, learning to, to receive is also letting go of control. And that happens in any human who is stuck in the small self. And it's nobody's fault That's just being human and the moment we're born we are connected to the soul self and we kind of are taught to move away and get closer to the small s self which is how most humans will live their lives until they recognize the misalignment and the discomfort and not fulfilling their purpose that's aligned with their soul and so letting go of control helps a lot right with with receiving with allowing with trusting

what's what's something you want to share in our final moments here that you want to share with with my audience Hmm

Do you this is a question this is soul connection coaching question for you. For us listening do you hold yourself believe worthy of choosing you? Do you hold yourself fully worthy of choosing you? And by you I mean your soul self your whole self beyond the head beyond what makes sense beyond the pros and cons lists what your heart wants? Do you hold yourself fully worthy to get what you want? And listen to your heart because you have it in you

wow it's so powerful. That's amazing. Wow so this is a huge tease because I know that everyone's gonna want to contact you what's the best way I heard you had might have a giveaway share that with with us.

Thank you Howard. So I'm also the host of the be happy now show and I would love for you to just go check out wherever you listen to the shining brightly podcast you might find the be happy now show and there are a bunch of episodes if you go to the be happy now show.com You can also join the be happy now crew and that just allows you to receive a personalized episode so where rather you get to let me know let me in on what's happening for you what's going on in your life what would most support you and then depending on what's that for you then I'll share with you the episode that might resonate best with you so you can really start with receiving what you're looking for without having to talk to anyone just really low key receiving an episode that works for you so go to the be happy now show.com and otherwise you're welcome to friend me on facebook Claudia Sam Cat Ufford survey and yeah that's that's a pretty cool pretty you know pretty right away support you can get from me for free. And your website my website yes thank you it's Claudia Sam in no hyphen, Claudia Sam soul coaching.com

This is awesome. I'm gonna we're gonna shine brightly together. This is our moment. So we're gonna, we're gonna take in that lane, and we're gonna reflect it out to everyone in the world. So for those that want to get a hold of me i Word Brown on all the social media channels but shining brightly.com And wow, really great today. Thank you for sharing your energy, your advice, your knowledge and your love with my audience and it was just beautiful. And I want to thank Thank you. Thank you for being on the show.

Thank you so much, Howard. I had such a great time and I'm so excited to keep shining brightly and see you shine brightly.