Episode 154 transcript: From Burnout to Unperfected: Brooke Jean on Living Your Truth and Reclaiming Your Energy

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[00:00:00] Brooke: What I noticed in these 10 years of climbing the corporate ladder and being a single mom was that I was running on adrenaline.

I was a perfectionist. I was an overachiever. I was driven, but it was all a trauma response, and 10 years in, I had done everything that society told me, a good girl, a good woman, a good mother, a good target leader should do. I had the house, I had the car, I had the 401k. I even had the 5, 2 9, but I was secretly miserable.

I was like doubling down on my efforting and proving and perfecting, and this was making me sick.

[00:00:44] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma, and join me weekly as I interview guests who have made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

Welcome back to Live the With of Your Life podcast. I'm so excited for today's conversation. I had my dear friend Brooke Jean. She's a licensed therapist, coach, speaker, and force of yes, with the mission to normalize normal. She believes that life isn't perfect, but it can be unperfected in using the skill of energy work, counseling, coaching, and facilitation. She guides her audience to let go of who they think they are. To create the life that they've been waiting for. Loved being able to sit down with her and just talk a lot about the amazing work that she is doing, working with women, helping them navigate perfectionism and people pleasing, and just really normalizing what it means to live an unperfected life. We talked a lot about setting boundaries, living intentionally, and so many other things, including running a business. I loved having her on the show, and I think you'll enjoy it too. Take a listen.

Brooke Jean, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you here.

[00:02:18] Brooke: I am so excited for this conversation. I'm looking forward to it. I know it's going to move me. It's going to move us. Every time you and I get together, it gets to be that juicy. 

[00:02:31] Aneta: Yeah, you are one of those people. I remember, just meeting you a year ago in our life mastermind at the retreat. I saw you on the calls, and then you met in person, and you just command a room. You just have this light and this energy, and you're like the spark plug of just pure passion. And so every time I see you or talk to you, I'm like, I don't know what's going to come out of her mouth, but it's going to be awesome.

[00:02:58] Brooke: I love that. That's so funny that you say that. I had, back when I used to run Target stores, one of my executives who worked for me, he sent me this meme that was like, I like to be as surprised as everybody else at what comes out of my mouth. So true. I feel like I speak in energy first, and my mind and my communication are always behind it, and I'm working on getting that in front of it. But it's a journey. It's absolutely a journey. And what I love about your energy, Aneta, is how grounding it is, so we're a combo. We are a combo here.

[00:03:36] Aneta: We are. Do you have firewater? What is it like? because I'm earth and I have fire. What is yours?

[00:03:43] Brooke: Yeah, I am fire and water. That is so obvious, painfully obvious. I have a Scorpio sun and rising.

[00:03:54] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:03:55] Brooke: So we're intense. We are passionate. We are on a mission. We love to bring the energy. And you know what? We have a lot of fun, and we have a lot of big feelings, and that's just the Brook Jean Unperfected.

[00:04:08] Aneta: It's so true. And I think what I'm discovering, especially the older I get, the more mature I am, the more life experiences I have, is that. It's so interesting to be around people who are not exactly like us. And you and I have spent time together in close quarters at the retreat, then in Ireland, five days, which I think were so impactful.

One of the most beautiful places. And I love that because I think that when we come together with people who are different and we always learn something, and I always feel like that's what happens when I'm with you.

[00:04:42] Brooke: One hundred percent. And I 100% believe that we are coming together and it's divinely orchestrated. So every day I wake up, I'm like. I get to see who God is going to bring into my life. And it's always such a beautiful surprise. And that's exactly how I feel about you and so many of our sisters in the Life Mastermind.

It's so random that how can it not be kismet? How do we come together? And then the beautiful offering that we provide each other in our lives, in our missions. It's perfect.

[00:05:20] Aneta: Yeah. And speaking of mission, I love the passion that you have behind helping women, and I want to go back a little bit to your journey, but if you could just tell us what your mission is? Because I asked you this before we even hit record. I was like, What is your intention? Because you so powerfully stand up for women and especially your imperfect brand, but the way you say it and the way you convey it is just so impactful. So I would love for you to do that and not for me to try to repeat what I heard you say.

[00:05:55] Brooke: Yeah, so my story is really what informs my mission. So I had my oldest kiddo, my son, in college. That was a surprise, a Rooney, the most beautiful surprise that could have ever happened. But I started pretty fast and furious in the corporate setting because I was a young single mom. And what I noticed in these 10 years of climbing the corporate ladder and being a single mom was that I was running on adrenaline.

I was a perfectionist. I was an overachiever. I was driven, but it was all a trauma response, and 10 years in, I had done everything that society told me, a good girl, a good woman, a good mother, a good target leader should do. I had the house, I had the car, I had the 401k. I even had the 5, 2 9, but I was secretly miserable.

I was like drinking a bottle of wine, eating a charcuterie for one, and buying things that I wouldn't even remember buying until the packages showed up, and then sleeping like junk, waking up the next morning in a shame spiral and then doubling down on my efforting and proving and perfecting, and this was making me sick.

I had the best of intentions. I wanted to be a great mom. I wanted to be a great leader. I loved my people, but it wasn't my path. And so I had my first midlife awakening in 2012, which turns out that's like a big spiritual year that a lot of lightworkers had a big thing that happened to them.

But basically, there was a big community trauma that happened in Aurora, Colorado. Trigger warning for this, my friends, was the Aurora Mass shooting that was right across the street from my store, and I got a phone call at three in the morning from my logistics executive who said, Brooke, I was running the store, I was the GM.

He was like, Brooke, you need to get down here. There's been a shooting in the theater across the street. Most of our team was in the theater that night, and more than half are unaccounted for, and Aneta, we ended up losing a team member in that many were shot. It affected us so deeply, as you can imagine.

But interestingly [00:08:20] enough, it was like that community trauma, once we got through, not got through, because I don't know that you're ever done getting through something like that. We rebuilt, we mourned, and we rebuilt as a store, as a team, as a community for nine months. And then I went and got married, and I sat on a beach in Maui for 10 years, and it was the first time.

I understand now that I regulated my nervous system, and all sorts of trauma started coming into my mind about things that happened when I was a kid. And so trauma unlocks trauma similar to grief, unlocks grief, even if they're unrelated. And what's so wild is that collective community thing that was so hard woke me up.

And I realized I'm not on my divine path. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. I'm using quotes here, guys, but I'm deeply unfulfilled. I'm deeply dissatisfied. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not honoring this precious. Life. And so it was that I left my big corporate job. That was the only identity I'd ever had besides mom.

And I took six months off, I call it shedding the corporate skin, but trying to, like, unearth underneath my roles and responsibilities and these ideals of perfection. Who is under there? Who is Brooke, and why is she here? And the journey that I've taken since then in stepping into the truth of who I am and then creating a life, leadership, and business from that place is what my brand is.

And it is what I guide other women just like me, who are doing the most and trying their hardest, spinning their wheels and wondering why there's a hole inside of me. It doesn't matter how many bonuses I get, how many vacations I get; I'm empty inside. And so that's really what the mission is about is waking women up to the truth of who they are, so that they can create extraordinary lives that they feel alive in.

[00:10:26] Aneta: It's so beautiful and so important, and so much of what you shared just resonates with me. And one of the things that I hear all the time from my clients, and I read it now, and I'm more attuned to it, is that people have that moment where they say, Is this it? I don't know if you had that moment or if you have used those words.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said that was their story. Men and women. And it's interesting because I think that's our soul in that glimpse, going, wait a second, no, something's off here. Something's not right. And the other thing that you said, I want to figure out, like, where we learn this is these unwritten rules of go to school, get married, get the job, and you have to be the best at all of these things, right?

And I know on your website you even said you couldn't just be a cheerleader, you had to be the head cheerleader. You couldn't just be this thing; you had to be the top. And it's like, where does that start? Is early in our education, and then it's continued to be acknowledged and praised and then supported, and then we become addicted to that. Have you thought about, like, where does this start?

[00:11:41] Brooke: Oh yeah, girl. I've spent my life dedicated to figuring that out, and it's transgenerational and it's safety, it started with just trying to establish a fitting in to be safe. Whether you were immigrating, whether you were a woman, whatever you were, that wasn't, quote unquote, the norm or the safe group you were trying to become.

And I think even like before that, even in the cage man and cage woman, it was like. It was all primal. It was all survival. It was eat or be eaten. It was a fit in. If you didn't fit in, you were vulnerable. And I think over time, we have evolved. We can show it in science that our brains have evolved simply to keep us safe and while utilizing the least amount of energy.

And so we are constantly looking for how I can be safe? How can I fit in? How can I be the best? And then yes, today in our society that is praised and reinforced by our parents, our teachers, our coaches, our spiritual leaders, and not even with any ill will. It's like our parents just wanted us to be safe.

They were pushing that because they want us to be okay in the world. So it's not even about being upset with the evolution and what got us here, but it is about acknowledging, okay, we've maybe gone to some extremes with some of these safety mechanisms that we've developed as humankind, given the circumstances.

Safety matters. Absolutely. But so does presence. So does joy. So does connection. But for me it was like. I'm the oldest of three, so the oldest child does fall a lot of times into that type A, but I also had two siblings who really at one point in their lives, had to fight to live. My youngest sister was born with a brain tumor and spent her first two years of her life in the hospital, and so I made a conscious decision at eight years old that I was not going to be a further burden to my family.

That I was going to be a straight-A student and the class pet, I was everything I did, and I wanted to be the best. And then I also noticed that Dad would want to hang with me, and Dad would give me attention, and Dad would praise me through my athletics. And again, it's not about a blaming situation; it's just like we have this extraordinary intelligence that is like picking up on all those cues, like when I'm a good girl, I get this attention, I get this love, I get these awards, I get these accolades. There's less stress in my home.

If I'm the best, I'm safe. And so there is always going to be a sliver of this that is perfectly acceptable because we are human, and it is our survival response. And I've made so much peace with my protective part that is the perfectionist, that she's the one that keeps us driven, and I don't want to ever lose that.

And that's often a misconception that I get. People think I'm saying go from type A high achiever to chilling, and I'm like, that's not real for me. It's just intentional drive. It's intentional passion. It's instead of looking outside of ourselves for what we should do and who we should be, it's going inside and letting our body tell us what feels good and true and right.

And then pouring intention into it. It's like Layered, right? But it starts with, we just want to be safe, and we just want our kids to be safe, and we just want our teens to be the best, you know what I'm saying? But I over-exercised that survival mechanism to the point of its making women sick now.

Now, with all the autoimmune, 80 to 90% of the autoimmune stuff is in women. Why? Because we're doing the most and we're suppressing our feelings. Because we don't want to be complaining and. So, it's really important to be having right now because. Doing all of these things that we're quote-unquote supposed to do to fit in is quite literally making us sick on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, and what the world needs now more than ever is women embodied. In their truth of who they are and in their power and purpose and potential. But we have to shed all those shoulds. We have to release all the conditioning. We have to let go of other people's judgements, and we have to develop our courage to go out and do things that are actually in alignment with the truth of who we are and what we're here to do.

[00:16:25] Aneta: Yeah. Amen. And I think it's like returning to a place of asking ourselves what it is that we want. And so instead of saying. Okay. I've tried these rules, but they don't work for me. What do I want? And that was my journey too; it took time to work with a coach to say, This isn't working. I've done the things, I've followed all the rules, and I've achieved the things that I thought I wanted.

And there was nothing beyond the horizon. I was like, What am I going to do for the next 15 years? I can't do this. And we're seeing women leave at twice the rate of men right now. Organizations continue to see this kind of drop off, and usually the mid-age where we have so much to contribute.

We have so much experience, we have so much knowledge, we have so much emotional intelligence, and yet women are choosing to say. Yeah, it's easier for me to leave often without a business plan or another job lined up. It's easier for me to leave than it is to try to change the institution, the environment, the culture I'm in.

And that has to change. The answer cannot be that everybody decides that they have to leave to stay safe, to survive, to preserve their mental health. That can't be the answer. It has to, at some point, we have to start going back to the organizations and say, No, the culture needs to change. The expectations need to change. Everybody needs a seat at the table.

[00:17:58] Brooke: Yes, and the way that we work is changing, which is why we need women in leadership positions making those decisions. And it's happening, but at such a slow rate, you're right. People are mass leaving, and I'm going to go create my own thing, which is extraordinary, but we need the businesses that make the world run.

And we need women in leadership roles creating these gorgeous cultures. But to give everybody a little hope, I want to talk about a conversation I had with a woman who's a CEO yesterday. She runs one of the biggest interior design firms in the United States, and she's got a gorgeous brand, a gorgeous company, and she's bringing me in to be an AI-infused energy architect, a frequency architect.

My entire role is to come in and teach people about energy and frequency, and alignment. And creativity and how to create using your frequency, and how to regulate your nervous system and slow down your brainwave, so you can access divine guidance. These are not conversations that they're having at Walmart yet, but we need to be because how freaking cool, like this is what lights me up, Aneta.

Like what is possible? When women are running businesses where our team is so lit up by what they're doing, they're regulated in their systems, they're in creative flow mode. They're like doing breath work throughout the day, going outside. They're working with the technology and co-creating things that were beyond what we thought was possible and having fun doing it.

But I need women to remember that we are the ones who are going to make this change happen collectively. And if we're playing small and we're doing the good girl thing and we're all masked up and armored up, we don't have the energy to go out and change the world, and understandably so, right?

[00:19:59] Aneta: Yeah, for sure. First of all, it's amazing. I'm so excited for you. I was like, This is so fantastic. And it's so encouraging to see that organizations, especially women-led organizations, are saying, Hey, I'm going to make this investment in myself, in my team to do things differently with the end goal that I have in mind, knowing that the other things I've tried maybe aren't going to get me there.

So that's fantastic. And I'm encouraged by that, too, because it shows that there are people who are open to doing things a little bit differently. But you said something that I wanted to go back to as well, what are the things, the rules that? Do you still find them as lifelong lessons? What are the things that you know when you're out of alignment, when you haven't maybe spent enough time with your divine practices? What are the things, the tendencies that you notice creep back up for you?

[00:20:50] Brooke: The biggest one is resentment. Irritability. When I'm annoyed and I tend to get annoyed easily, guys, I'm not going to lie, we are hashtag unprofessional. I'm the happiest and most annoyed human being you've ever met. I'm a complex being. I'm also midlife, so I don't know what's going on with my hormones.

I don't know what's going on with my moods, but I'll tell you, when I start to get this agony in my gut over resentment, that's a red. Like, whoa, we're way off. If you want a sign that hits a little bit sooner, it's when I'm like, okay, I won't say when I wake up and dread my day because.

My natural tendency when I first wake up is not positive. I have to use my tools to get me into my true state, my real state, my connection, but I'll say that after I do my morning ritual, if I'm not feeling alive and excited about some of the things that are on my plate today. I'm not in alignment and always going to be something that I'm like, that's probably not my favorite thing to do.

But if I'm not excited about my day or at least something in my day, there's something wrong. And also, if I'm resentful, I always tell women, if you want to unpack your conditions that you need to, follow your shoulds. Where are you beating yourself? I should make the organic gluten-free, die free dairy-free cookies for the class party.

But you're not like, I get to, I should volunteer at that thing. I should go to that networking event. I should have sex two times a week if you're supposed to; underneath that, is there some resentment? Do the things where you go, I get to. This was a real turning point for me. Aneta, after having my daughter, 14 years after having my son, I had noticed there was so much more pressure on moms.

It was like, now we're not just having the kids and raising the kids, but we're working, and we're not just working, but a lot of us are the breadwinners, and we're not just the breadwinners. We're still supposed to cook healthy meals and have healthy family discussions around supper every night.

And we're not just doing that, but we're in the classroom and volunteering. And we're not just doing that, but we're on the PTO and we're not just doing that, but we're supposed to have a size six body and not even one chin hair out of fricking place. And I like, this is stupid. Like what? And so what I did was I zoomed out and I was like, this isn't doable, guys.

There is not enough of me to do all those things. And also, I don't give a crap about some of these things. I'm sorry, but I don't, and I permitted myself, to maybe set some of those things down that everybody was sharing on the internet was so super important to be a good mom. And I said, what is in alignment when my soul, my spirit, and my core values, it's quality time, it's nature, it's music and movement, it's laughter.

I allowed those things to be the guiding forces in my parenthood and my life, and that's literally where the Unperfected brand was born. It was after my second baby that trying to keep up was making me sick. And I was like, no, I'm all those things that are giving me resentment. Having to cook this healthy meal five nights a week.

I'm not doing that anymore. Why am I doing that? Are my kids fed? Yes. And also, instead of worrying about what the meal is, I want to go play with them at the park. So that's a perfect example of guys, look at what you're doing, what gives you energy versus what steals your energy, and you don't have to do a full-blown overhaul, honey, let's just pick one little thing at a time.

But it's like, why am I doing that? I'm telling myself that good moms should, okay, but what would make me feel like I get to make that swap? It's not the perfectly healthy meal; it's the trip to the park. And guess who wins? Everybody in my family, because I'm like, I get to take my kids to the park and then I'm [00:25:00] with them and they see mommy alive and happy, and I'm playful and I'm joyful, and we're getting energy and exercise and sunlight.

That's one little swap that I could make that would change how I show up. And my energy and my frequency. So follow your shoulds and swap them out with get tos. I permitted you to do that. Guys, I don't care how much information is out there, how much knowledge, no research shows that one of the best indicators of how well a kiddo will do in their life is their mother's happiness. In other words, is Mom okay? So we've been conditioned that self-care is selfish, and yet our self-nourishment is a predictable factor of how okay our children are going to be.

[00:25:51] Aneta: Yeah, of course, they pick up on the energy. They're going to pick up on everything that we do and say, and feel. And the kids are so sensitive, they're so aware of it. I remember the shoulds that were so strong when I worked. Full-time in corporate. And I was going to school full-time in an executive MBA program at the same time.

And my kids were both in middle school, and I would wake up, and I didn't have someone to clean the house yet for some crazy reason. And I would wake up at four in the morning on Saturday so I could clean before anyone woke up. So I could still spend Saturdays with the kids, and then I would go to all the soccer practices and everything, and sit there and bring books with me and just do all this crazy stuff.

And it's like you're never fully present anywhere. And I think I was kidding myself that I was able to do everything, but I didn't do any of it well, and I most definitely didn't feel great, and I missed a lot because you're not even able to create memories when you're not fully present.

You just go through these actions, and you're using part of your energy in different places, and that was hard. And then this other funny story is once I was coming home and I had a get cookies for the girls for school or something for the next day, one of them, and I don't know why or how I was talking to my neighbor across the street.

She said you can't buy them, like you have to bake something. And I'm like, oh, I don't have time. I'm like, I have work to do. I'm going to have to help them with homework. There's stuff happening. She baked cookies for me because she didn't want my kid to show up. And I just thought that that was weird.

That was like weird on so many levels. And so I accepted the cookies because I thought it was a very nice gesture, but it was almost like a judgment of the fact that I wasn't baking these cookies now, she didn't work. Doesn't work, right? So it's like life was a little different for both of us.

But it was one of those examples where I think her best intentions were there. I don't want your kid to be the one whose mom went to Giant Eagle and bought the cookies. And I was like, What are we doing here? Literally, what are we doing here? And so sometimes it's not our own self-imposed, but others. Moms are imposing these things onto one another.

[00:28:12] Brooke: Totally. And so that's such a beautiful point, Aneta, we can start by not shaming and judging each other.

[00:28:20] Aneta: Right.

[00:28:21] Brooke: Cookies are cookies. And it's so funny that you bring up the cookies because back when I was in corporate, I was at the top of my game in my career. I kept getting promoted, but then I was trying to keep up with the stay-at-home moms.

So, like I had one day off a week, and it was Wednesday, and I spent the day in my son's classroom. My one day off a week. And so it was like I wouldn't even let myself be the working mom. I had to be the this and that. I remember feeling quite judged by the actual stay-at-home moms.

And I was so much younger than they too, because I had my son young. And I just remember thinking to myself, like, you don't know what I'm managing. 10 years younger than you, so don't judge me. And so because of that, I am like the least judgmental mom because I felt judged back then, but it's like, moms, we're doing our best.

Let's just support each other. Let's just applaud each other. Way to go that you even remembered that the damn cookies are coming in, and yes, it's okay that they're bought. And also if you love baking. I love that for you, and I'm not going to judge you. One thing that I realized is that I love being in my kids' classroom.

I love being in their classroom more than I like working in corporate America. So it's not all cut from your kids to give to you this. It's like you get to pick and choose.

[00:29:49] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:29:50] Brooke: I love this about work, and I love this about relationships, and I love this about parenting and I love this about cooking or I don't the point is what's the combination that's yours and then let's celebrate our sisters when they are so audacious that they are living the embodiment of their formula.

Good for them. I applaud them. I think it's beautiful. I think our kids should see all the differences. And so yeah, that's a great way, like a, follow your own heart and what lights you up, and then B, celebrate your sister when she's doing the same. No more judgment, no more shaming.

[00:30:28] Aneta: Yeah. It's so true, and I think that I experienced that as well, the stay at home versus the working, and I'm with you. I'm like, I just don't have any time for judgment. I am keeping my stuff together. There's no room for any of that. And I think that's one of the things that I was seeking out when I joined the Life Mastermind, and why it was so important for me in business to say, I want to find other women who are entrepreneurs, who are growing their business, who are trying to do life and business in a completely different way.

And it was such a godsend to find a group and a community of women. And I don't know about your experience, I'm curious, but I've never felt a sisterhood like this where everybody can talk about the big dreams and to talk about their big visions for their business and their life, and to talk about their mission in a way without forcing or feeling we have to make ourselves small or dimmer light or not be able to celebrate our success like, I waited 50 some years to get to a place to experience that. I never had that before. Did you ever have this before?

[00:31:39] Brooke: No. And it's funny because as you were talking, I was thinking about when I look at what has been the thing that has helped me grow or bring more abundance into my life, or more success, or more clients, whatever, right? It is a connection.

It's who I'm surrounding myself with. Since joining life, so many extraordinary women and opportunities have come. You, this conversation, our retreats, it's really important, and I knew that because in corporate, you have your team, and you do create such a close bond with your team. But I never had women in my life that were working moms that were my support system, emotionally, physically, spiritually, work, relationship, all of it. I never had that. I felt like I was doing it on my own, and I often felt misunderstood by my peers because they didn't have kids yet. They were in a different stage of life.

And so yeah, it's really important to have a circle of like-minded humans around you that get it.

[00:32:54] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Brooke: And you can bring your authentic self to, and they're going to hold you in your potential, no matter what messy thing is happening in your life. And that's what you guys are for me, it's like you know my potential and you hold that.

So if I'm having a moment that's setting me back, you're going to support me while you're holding my highest, and every woman deserves that. So [00:33:20] yeah, get yourself into circles and rooms that inspire you.

[00:33:27] Aneta: Yeah, we are so built for connection. And the other thing too I think one of the most exhausting parts I remember just being in corporate, was, and I was in banking, is just putting on this armor, putting on our mask, putting on the protection, putting on whatever performance we felt we had to do was performative versus presence because there was always this element of I don't feel safe.

I'm not sure if I can say this. And that has just been an undoing in an unlearning for me, is just, yeah, I don't have to worry about that. That feels a little bit lighter. And, I can use my voice in a way. And one of the ways I know you and I were talking about this is, for me is just starting to talk more about faith in a very public way, which I hadn't.

And so you and I got a chance to have a conversation this week on your podcast about the book. So I'm curious about maybe your faith journey or your journey towards something outside of yourself, whatever it is that you believe in, if you could just share a little bit more about that.

[00:34:32] Brooke: Yeah, it's been such an interesting journey for sure. I was baptized Catholic. My parents were never religious, but my grandmother was, and that was a way to spend quality time with her. I know now that I always felt held and protected, and connected by the spirit realm, but then, when my sister was born, my parents became angry with God.

Why would you do this to our baby? And that's what I think, something that a lot of people go through.

[00:35:06] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:35:07] Brooke: So then that made me kind of like, wait, what? And then I believed as a kid, as a teenager, that my sister, because here's my sister who made it, and she won't have a lot of the privileges that the average human has.

They burnt her optic nerve when they tried to remove the brain tumor. So she's legally blind and she's got a lot of special needs, and yet she's the happiest, most loving human you've ever met. Everybody knows Carly Jean, and she leaves a ripple on every human that she comes into contact with.

And so I believed. This has to be an angel on earth who's here to remind us of what matters. If this being can be so happy and so grateful and so precious, what are we complaining about over here? And so I believe so much in Aneta that I got her in the form of an angel as a tattoo at 18. But then I went to college, and then I learned all this information, and so then I was like zooming out again of religion, and I was like, wait a minute, like. How can one religion be so sure that theirs is the right one? Then I got curious, and I was like, there's something to it. I feel connected in the spirit realm.

Something is going on that's bigger than me. I've always known that. But defining what it is has been the journey. And then at that point, it's interesting because in college, when I started questioning, I started feeling the spirit more and more, more.

So I was like, in this, what is happening here? I'm questioning, and yet there's no doubt in my mind that there is a spirit around me all the time. What do I do with this? So I stopped trying to define it, Aneta, and started building my relationship with it. And I got into a really bad car accident when I was 19, and I believe wholeheartedly that angels were with me, and that's why I survived, because on paper it made no sense that I didn't die in that accident.

And that's also when I was like, gosh, darn it, I guess I'm here for a reason, and I've suffered with mental health, and honestly, not wanting to be here anymore throughout my life. Yet, God, spirit, whatever it is, I'm still learning and I'm still building that relationship.

Whatever it is, it's undeniable, and it's protected me in every way that I can imagine. It continues to guide and so now, I always say my most important business meeting of my life is my morning meeting with a divine every day. And I have this gorgeous morning ritual where I open up and I ground and I meditate and I do breath work and I dance and I connect, and I channel and I download and I'm grateful for.

And I just know, like I know that there is something so beyond what the human mind could ever even understand, interpret, and articulate. That is always guiding us and supporting us, and it's why I entered the Life Mastermind and why you and I are having this conversation and locking arms and lifting the consciousness of the planet.

And I'm so grateful for it. And it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest presences in my life right now. You and I were discussing on my podcast, I'm also waking up to this understanding that it gets to be the healing component. We're talking about that chapter in your book about perfection and how God sees us, and I'm like, wow, have I underutilized the remembrance of that?

[00:38:52] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:38:54] Brooke: And wow. It's making me emotional thinking about it right now. How can I help my clients and just everybody that's in my life remember just how they are in God's eyes? And so there's nothing more that we have to do. There's nothing more that we need to be. It's already good enough, and what would happen if we created from a place of enoughness, which I've always preached to anyone who will listen. That statement, that philosophy is so much richer when I understand why I was even guided to believe that it's like, we need to create from a place of enoughness because it is enough, and it's so unconditionally loved. And who might you become when you believe that?

[00:39:41] Aneta: Yeah.

[00:39:41] Brooke: What might be available for you when you embody that? To me, if I had to sum it up, my relationship with the divine is my direct access to infinite creation and abundance, and potentiality that I not only get to play with every day. But I get to invite people into my field to play as well. And we are always held and we are always protected.

And it gets to be like every day I wake up and I'm like, who's coming into my world today? Because I know it's on purpose. And how fun is that?

[00:40:14] Aneta: That's beautiful and so amazing, and one of the other chapters in the book is where there's a lawyer who asks Jesus, he says What's the greatest commandment of them all? And referencing the 10 Commandments and which one is most important, and which one will give me eternal life?

And Jesus says, Love the Lord your God with all your soul and your heart, and your mind, and your strength. And then love your neighbor as yourself. If you do this, then you'll have eternal life. And I think the hard part there is that we don't love ourselves. We don't see ourselves as the perfect creations that we are.

We don't believe that we are enough, and therefore then we place that judgment and the same view on our neighbors, on the other humans. And if we just started with what we're enough. We're perfect the way we are. We are created in the image of our divine, and every other single person is made in the same image as well.

Can you imagine the world that we would be living in?

[00:41:21] Brooke: It would be 100%, a different frequency, and I feel like that's the call 

right now. 

[00:41:30] Aneta: Yeah, I feel it.

[00:41:31] Brooke: The call is to remember that we are the frequency of love. We are perfect as we [00:41:40] are. We are all one, we are all the same. And when we can stop expending our energy to other ourselves from each other. Instead to come together.

What we can create is a world that we want to live in. We are that powerful when we remember. That's right. But I just want to remind people that, whatever you believe in, whatever your relationship to the divine is, it's a remembrance of love. And if it's not, we've, we're off track a little bit. We're off track. It all comes back to that. It comes back to love. And so if you're feeling like othering yourself from someone else, that's not spiritual, guys.

[00:42:31] Aneta: Right.

[00:42:32] Brooke: That's not it. If you are shaming yourself, if you're hating yourself, that's not spiritual, guys. That's not what was meant for us. And so while I love doing this delicate dance, or maybe it's not delicate isn't, it's more like an abrupt, awkward dance, but like remembering that we are precious and perfect and love while also stepping into becoming the woman that I want to be proud of every single day. 

So it's like from a place of enoughness, from a place of self-compassion, from a place of radical acceptance.

I get to show up to be the person that makes me proud at the end of the day, that I know God intended me to be, that my kids look up to, that helps others, and all of that. And so it is this dance between like acceptance and enoughness while coming and revealing the truth of who we are all at the same time.

It gets to be that, and it gets to be a learning and a remembrance and an intention all at the same time.

[00:43:47] Aneta: I love that so much, Brooke. Where can folks find you? What is the best place that they can find you if they want to work with you and learn more about all the great things that you're doing?

[00:43:56] Brooke: Yes, I would love to connect on Instagram @brookejeanunperfected. I would love to know that you listen to this podcast and what you landed, and if you want to share your journey with me, I just love having these conversations with anybody. But als,o the website is liveunperfected.com. And yeah, there you can find all the things.

I also have the podcast, The Unperfected Pod. So make sure you guys come and listen to my conversation with Aneta because we had goosebumps the whole time. We had goosebumps. That was like a transmission. I'm just going to say it. That was a transmission. 

[00:44:29] Aneta: It was pretty amazing and intense and beautiful. Brooke, the final question I ask everyone is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?

[00:44:44] Brooke: Living the width is like living the truth of who I am, what I desire, what gets to be here in this one wild and precious life. And it's like living the width instead of going out and doing more, it's coming home and going deeper within to unearth the truth at the next level. So I almost see it's like this cycle in and then out, like this is the width, right?

Whereas I spent the first half of my life going out. And thinking that was going to be the purpose, it's going in to then come out. So it's all about coming home to the truth and embodying that little by little every single day and feeling so grateful that we get to live in that way. 

[00:45:35] Aneta: I love it. Brooke, thank you so much for coming on today. Always enjoy our conversations, and everyone takes a listen to the podcast, the UnPerfected Podcast. Check out all of her posts and everything she has on Instagram. I love your stories, never a dull moment.

[00:45:54] Brooke: Yeah, we keep it real over there, guys. It's everything from like actual leadership coaching to the chin hair that I'm plucking out of my chin because we got to keep it real. And laughter is medicine. Laughter is one of my favorite medicines. So thank you so much for this conversation, for the beautiful work that you're bringing to the world. I'm so grateful that you're in my life.

[00:46:15] Aneta: I'm grateful for you. I love you, my friend.

[00:46:18] Brooke: Bye, everybody.

[00:46:19] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.

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