Kimberly Spencer (00:00:07) - Welcome to the Crown Yourself podcast, where together we build your empire and transform your subconscious stories about what's possible for your business, body and life. I'm your host, Kimberly Spencer, founder of Crown Yourself. Com and I'm a master mindset coach, bestselling author, TEDx speaker known to my clients as a game changer. Each week you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity, and confidence so that you too, can make the income and impact you deserve. Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. Your sovereignty starts here and your reign is now.
Monique Gaudion (00:00:49) - Monique, welcome to Crown yourself. It's so good to have a fellow gold coaster. Hey, I know there's still a part of my soul that is like in the Gold Coast. I just loved it there so much. Yeah, it's beautiful. You know, I grew up in Melbourne, and I moved up to the south east Queensland for a course, and I remember seeing a palm tree in the side mirror of my car and I went, yeah, you know what? I think this is the place for me.
Monique Gaudion (00:01:21) - Yeah, it's beautiful up here. It's beautiful. And so looking at your your life, like you have overcome some extraordinary challenges and in very non-traditional ways. So I'd love to know what is the story that you were telling yourself and that created dis ease? And how did you find ease in a new narrative? Thank you. my narrative was that I was other and that I was abandoned. And I had some really good reasons why I had those those narratives. And, you know, yourself and probably many of your listeners know about neural pathways and how the experiences we have that our expectations, how we view the world, how we respond to the world, and often it's unconscious. And for me, it was totally unconscious. I couldn't understand what was going on, you know, and the effect that it had played out in my choices and how I lived my life. And the funny thing was, is my response or coping mechanism, which sounds like a good coping mechanism, was resilient. right. But actually it was suppression.
Monique Gaudion (00:02:55) - But I can go into that a little bit later. But yeah, we all cope in different ways and some of them seem to be shiny and good. but actually is detrimental. That's what I found out through my journey. Yeah. I think resilience is is very raised. Oh like and I, I mean, I think that's certainly a quality I am grateful that I have. Create and crafted. Honed. But it did take me when I was actually living in Australia to. Admit that I didn't feel resilient. I felt very weak. I felt like I was crumbling to the floor because I, I was pregnant and I lost my father. And that that moment of acknowledging weakness like that was a hard one for me to. Absolutely. It's for someone who lives in an identity of. And so many people are like, they're so strong. Yeah. And like being in an identity of strength. And I can do it and anything. And so what what shifted for you? Well, you know, before I became aware of all the beautiful things that are possibilities for us in this world.
Monique Gaudion (00:04:09) - I remember my mother married this really terrible person, and, he had a daughter, and she was called the Princess. And I was the person who had to shut up and kind of be put in the corner. So you were Cinderella? I actually was Cinderella. I got blamed for everything. And and so, you know, other things happened prior to this, but I just want to share some little things that I did before I even knew how to change my narrative. I remember I was she was always treated so well and I was treated so poorly, and I was that really pissed me off. You know, I was like, it's just not fair, you know, why is this happening? And. I remember meditating one day when I was 23. And it occurred to me that my expectation to be treated the same actually was harming me instead of helping me. So I decided to stop expecting to be treated well by him. And I also stopped telling the story of how terrible he was, because what happened was I would repeat this story of not just him, but my childhood growing up, and people would say to me, oh, you're so resilient, you're so brave, you're so this and so that.
Monique Gaudion (00:05:36) - so it would make me feel really good, but it didn't actually allow me to go down to why I felt abandonment and alone and other, you know, so I just lived in that resilient, I, coping mechanism and suppression. So I suppressed all the terrible things to cope and I just kept telling myself, I'm resilient. And, you know, I was resilient, and that was a good thing. I remember one of the things, too, I wanted to share was how. The narratives we tell us are often based on other people's stories. Have what happened, what they think happened. some of them is true, some of them is false. Some of our memories are true. Some of our memories are false. I remember when I was 23 again. It was a very important time in my life. I was in madly in love with this guy called Peter. And, we cut a long story short. We ended up not being together, and I, for years and years and years held this abandonment theory around him not committing to myself.
Monique Gaudion (00:06:54) - and again, these experiences just, this cemented my concept, my narrative of abandonment. Last year I found some old journals and I read this journal and actually. He loved me. He wanted to marry me. He didn't abandon me. There were circumstances that we were living in that caused him to leave. And I thought, oh my God. All my life I've been saying to myself, what a rat he was. He abandoned me for my first true love. So. And then, other things happened. And this is where I'll go into where my root cause of my abandonment came in, which was, my mother met a fellow and who became my father, and. If he left. And she told me that he was irresponsible. He was a cheater. He was a professional gambler, you know, he was a bad person. yet, when I was two and a half, he abducted me, and. Yeah. And took me for 15 months until she found me. and prior to that, I'd been living in an institution where I was in neglect and my brother had died.
Monique Gaudion (00:08:16) - Now, I don't I don't know the correlation of those two events, but. So he abducted me, and then mom found me and stole me back. And then we were on the run. Changed names many, many times. 20 or more times before I was 11, ten primary schools. You know, an interesting childhood which lived with other people. When I was six, I virtually lived alone. And when I was ten, like when I was ten, my mother wouldn't get home till 11:00 at night. So from the beginning, when I woke up till 11, if I woke up, I was living alone, in a place that wasn't particularly safe. And even at six, that was similar. But, she'd get home at eight. I had reasons to feel not looked after unsafe. You know, we are lost, loss averse, and our need in life is to feel safe. And my whole childhood was not safe and neglectful. And and then she married this man, which was violent.
Monique Gaudion (00:09:22) - And, you know, it wasn't great. So I had this deep feeling of abandonment that I would. I was a resilient person. I traveled the world, had a great time, was a performer, performed all around the world, started my own company, award winning. So it's not like I was someone who was powerless or a victim. I actually got on with life. I got married, had a beautiful son, but the I would always come back to this feeling of. Darkness. you would call it depression. I didn't know that was depression because I said, I don't ever get depressed. I'm a positive person. See? Positive and surprising. Yeah. And then various things happened. Like a I got cancer, I got divorced, all my family died. Except for my son. Thank God I got burnt out, left my business, traveled. And I'll talk about that in a minute. But I this reoccurring like fog of despair would just come upon me out of the blue. I wasn't even thinking negatively.
Monique Gaudion (00:10:35) - It would just come. And for days and days I'd feel this utter despair, utter feeling alone. It was horrid. And I would cry and cry and I couldn't work out what the hell was going on. Because I was a nice person. I was living a successful, outwardly successful life. I remember when my marriage broke up, we had really fallen out of love with each other. So it wasn't that. But the marriage container made me feel safe. So when that fell apart, there I was, back in my despair, alone. Abandoned. So I took that separation and divorce quite badly. it seems like there's some, some really strong running themes there. All all of the, the challenge is and then one is as underlying what I call a Trojan horse of safety and the desire to create safety or recreate familiarity. So even if it doesn't, it's not technically safe. There are certain instances that recreate familiarity. And the second Trojan horse is commiseration or commissary validation, where there are certain things that happen in our lives where we were, it may seem good, like, oh, I received validation for being a strong, independent, resilient person.
Monique Gaudion (00:12:17) - Oh, you're so strong. and it attaches us to this identity because we're.
Kimberly Spencer (00:12:23) - Getting outward.
Monique Gaudion (00:12:24) - Acceptance. It's the same of what happens when, In just the opposite contrast of when you know you deflect on a compliment. If someone says, oh, you look really lovely today. And he said, I need to still need.
Kimberly Spencer (00:12:37) - To lose a few.
Monique Gaudion (00:12:37) - Pounds. And they say, no, you don't. And when they do that, you receive the validation for the deeper seated fear that is, you know, weight loss is not associated with what it is that you actually that you don't really feel that good in your body anyways. So, you know, I'm curious, did this.
Kimberly Spencer (00:12:59) - My desire for.
Monique Gaudion (00:13:00) - Safety.
Kimberly Spencer (00:13:01) - I find it.
Monique Gaudion (00:13:02) - Fascinating that you chose the.
Kimberly Spencer (00:13:04) - Path of entrepreneurship.
Monique Gaudion (00:13:06) - Because a lot of people consume. They believe that to be unsafe. I personally think being an entrepreneur is like the safest career you can be in, because when you learn how to sell, you can do anything.
Monique Gaudion (00:13:17) - So well, the funny thing is, story was a huge part of my business. I use story to network, to pitch, to retain my clients. Yet I was disconnected to my own story. And you know, I stayed in that marriage because I would say to myself, he doesn't beat me. He's not an alcoholic. He's not this, he's not that. So it's, you know, the the the scales. And and this was a coping mechanism, you know, I would settle for less than what I deserved because honestly probably deep down I, because of my trauma and being. You know, traded the way I was. I obviously didn't have a great value for myself, but I deserved a loving, cherishing relationship. the great thing was, though, when I had my son or our son, he never really got involved in the parenting, but. All the chameleon patterns that I had grown up with. I didn't, repeat those. And my son is a very whole. Whole happy person.
Monique Gaudion (00:14:34) - He does breathwork. He's a yoga teacher. I mean, he really had. I'm very proud of him. And of course, that's his responsibility of how he's responded to life. But I do think I created even though the marriage wasn't great, there was a safety and acceptance for him and his life. So I was very happy that I didn't repeat my mother's choices. Look at, generational curse breaker. Yeah. I mean, that actually is a huge thing to record the the patterns of your life. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I noticed I did it in the first year of my of being a mom. I, like my husband and I are, like, regularly. Like nine out of ten, if not ten out of ten. Like we are phenomenal. But for the first year that I was a mother, suddenly I had all these stories come out about like how I made more money, how I was taking care of my son the most. And like my husband, if anyone knows him, he is the most loving, generous, supportive.
Monique Gaudion (00:15:43) - Like all you have to.
Kimberly Spencer (00:15:44) - Do is ask him and he will. He will do it. He'll.
Monique Gaudion (00:15:47) - He'll do what needs to be done for those he loves. And I just didn't. I was running this story from childhood of like, oh, there he is. He's just doing his thing. And I.
Kimberly Spencer (00:15:58) - Was like, that.
Monique Gaudion (00:15:59) - Was not my voice. That was not my voice. That was what I perceived. I picked up from childhood because I mentioned that to my mother, and she's like, I've never said that. I never thought about it. What? My reception. Yeah. What I thought was, was going on. It was a story that I was creating for myself. And then I was reading, creating that in our marriage.
Kimberly Spencer (00:16:17) - And and when I shifted that story, suddenly.
Monique Gaudion (00:16:20) - I felt so supported. And God happened like he was so helpful. And I was like, wow. If the stories.
Kimberly Spencer (00:16:27) - That we tell.
Monique Gaudion (00:16:28) - Ourselves are so deeply powerful, and especially when they come from childhood trauma.
Monique Gaudion (00:16:33) - Yeah. So with regards to my mother and my father, you know, him abducting me and never seeing him again. And so I had an abiding story and which was really encouraged by my mother that he was a cad, didn't care for me, blah, blah, blah. I did something called the Hoffman process. I don't know if you've heard of. No, I haven't. Yeah, it's really, it's a psycho sort of therapy, but it's a group. it's group work, a group process. And you do? Focus on familial patterns and how those patterns affect your life and things like that. because I saw I got cancer and I won't go back into that just right now, but I knew that I, I needed to face this. Deep trauma. That I had that was causing me to. The well had caused partly my cancer. The cancer, not my cancer. and different choices I had made in my life and the negative choices. So I did the whole plan process. And one of the things you do is you bring a photo of your parents or your carers.
Monique Gaudion (00:17:50) - So I bought a picture of my mum and I bought a picture of my real dad. my father and I had seen this photo many times before. I guess I was primed for change being during this process. I saw my dad looking at me with total love in his eyes, and I had this metaphysical. The feeling of absolute love from him and I felt. A contrary to everything. I'd been told that he actually loved me. And something changed in my heart. Because that old abandonment narrative, which is very strong with regards to my parents. Was cracked open. And that that Hoffman process, which changed a lot of things because, you know, the whole thing of suppression and resilience. I you know, I remember getting counseling and they would say to me, oh, you're so resilient. You're fine, you know, well done. You with everything you've been through. And I'd go away thinking, because I'm a good talker, I'm very rational and logical, and I've read a lot, so I could say all the right things.
Monique Gaudion (00:19:13) - And I thought I was, I was being honest. But I remember one counselor said to me or therapist said to me, yeah, but what do you feel? And I said, I'm telling you what I feel. I feel alone and abandoned and sad and depressed because. Yes, but how does it feel? And I said, I don't know what you're talking. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm telling you. And she said, you have a problem accessing your feelings. And I remember thinking, oh I don't understand. I cry and feel shit all the time. I don't know how you can say I'm not accessing my feelings. I didn't say that. she was a great therapist actually. but during the Hoffman process, I won't go into the whole thing, but you it they encourage you to face your emotions. And there was this one exercise that they asked us to do, and I was paralyzed. I couldn't do it. It was facing my anger, which being because I became a born again Christian when I was 15.
Monique Gaudion (00:20:15) - And that was really fantastic for me at the time because I found community safety away from this traumatic home. But one of the things that I picked up was, I'm a good girl, I'm always nice, I never complain, I never get angry. Blah blah blah. So they were wanting me to face my anger and I said to my facilitator, I, I said, I can't. Doing this. Like I was actually shaking. And she goes, well, that's your choice, love. Which I love. Actually, it's your choice. And now it was. I was faced with at a crossroads in my life at that point. So I did it. The activity that we were asked to do. And it changed my life. Because facing your damage, facing your trauma, facing your deep seated pain is really quite difficult. And the fact that I chose to do that. changed me forever because, well, it just changed the grip that I had on my life and opened me up to, you know, seeing life differently.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:33) - We can. That's great actors in our own lives. And also we can also be such.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:39) - Actors.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:40) - In our own life, just saying words that we've been.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:43) - Programmed.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:43) - To say, oh, this is the script. This is what we keep saying.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:47) - And and yet.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:49) - It's not actually.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:50) - Sinking.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:51) - In. I know when I was in, when in acting class, which.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:56) - Was like such a.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:57) - Healing space.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:58) - For me because it.
Monique Gaudion (00:21:58) - Was Meisner.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:59) - Acting and really like the whole.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:01) - Premise is living truthfully under imaginary.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:03) - Circumstances.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:05) - And I remember.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:05) - My teacher.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:07) - Calling me out.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:08) - Because I was I.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:09) - Was crying, I was angry, I had all of the emotions. I was great at showing it.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:14) - And he said, you're not really feeling it.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:15) - And I was like, fuck you. It's not really like it.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:20) - Then we got to a point where there was a scene that I did.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:24) - That actually was.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:27) - Very similar to experiences in my childhood.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:29) - And an abuse that happened.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:32) - And. I knew what it was to actually feel.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:35) - It, and I faced it through the.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:37) - Safety of a play rather than.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:40) - In and the safety of a character, but at the same time still having to face those emotions.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:48) - And really be.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:49) - With them.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:51) - Was so.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:52) - Challenging because there's.
Monique Gaudion (00:22:53) - And.
Kimberly Spencer (00:22:54) - I'd love for you to delineate how do we know the difference between when we're repeating a script and a narrative that we've been telling ourselves for a long time that may come with some emotions versus. Really, truly.
Monique Gaudion (00:23:13) - Facing.
Kimberly Spencer (00:23:14) - The emotions that were suppressing.
Monique Gaudion (00:23:18) - Well, I think. You know, there was something I learnt when I studied mime in London. The teacher would say to me, or all of us would say, don't think, just do. And I think moving out of the thinking brain, the overworking, the and moving into a heart space. So that's where the heart mind coherence. You know, brings out energy in our lives and the way we the words we say, the narrative that we have are.
Monique Gaudion (00:23:48) - I do want to finish go back to the father story, but, one of the things I learned through when I went on sabbatical and I did a whole lot of courses, I studied under Doctor Joe Dispenser and various things. And one of the things I learned, actually, even prior to that was, moving from thinking or becoming aware of my thoughts, becoming aware of the feeling that was. And then changing the thoughts and then moving into the feeling of the new thoughts, even obviously before any change. Just so visualization, changing the the language that we say and so on, and then we move into and that changes our beliefs. And then from Pilates with that action, nothing changes. So you can do all those things. Become aware, do visualizations, do you know, become a change of feelings around something, and even have new beliefs but without actually taking any action? I think not as much happens. So. It can be little actions, like when I chose not to repeat the same story about my stepfather and his.
Monique Gaudion (00:25:17) - You know, mistreatment of me or things like that or things like that. It's it can be a little thing. It doesn't have to. You don't feel like you've got to change everything. In fact, it's the little daily things, which when I get to the cancer story, was pivotal in that transformation for me. what were the daily.
Kimberly Spencer (00:25:39) - Changes you made around your cancer?
Monique Gaudion (00:25:41) - Oh, can I just finish the family story? Because there's a really beautiful bow to this. Oh, yes. At least after the Hoffman process. Because my. My dad was half Spanish. I wanted to see how Spanish I was. So I did an Ancestry.com and it came back with 2% Spanish. And I thought, what the what's going on here? And I just thought, was he not my dad? I don't really understand anyway. But in the ancestry, I'd open myself up to other people to contact me. People who had a, you know, a high genetic match. And this woman contacted me. I was a bit cynical, I have to admit.
Monique Gaudion (00:26:25) - And she said, oh, I think we might be related. Oh, yeah. Okay. And so I said, well, this is my dad's name, you know, blah blah. Anyway, cut a long story short. I found out that I have seven half siblings, 18 uncles and aunts and that. Now listen to this. My dad, the person who abducted me and I never saw her again. My dad, George, talked about me all the time. To his family, to his kids. That's why she went on Ancestry.com to find me. And he hired a private detective to find me. Was unsuccessful. and then later on, he died. So he was dead by the time I found this out. But that revelation I had of from that picture that he really loved me. He really did love me. He wanted. I mean, I was in that terrible institution I think he took he abducted me because I was not being cared for properly. and then my mom stole me back and changed names, and he never found me.
Monique Gaudion (00:27:39) - What an incredible blessing that was to me. I wasn't abandoned by him. He loved me. I'm loved, loving and lovable. You know, that changed so much. Just doing that and just doing that, looking at that photo and then getting the Ancestry.com results. And. And now I have all this new family. So, you know, it's incredible. We're not super close, but they live all around the country. I haven't met them all yet, but I've met some of them. I mean, isn't that beautiful?
Kimberly Spencer (00:28:16) - That's amazing to be able.
Monique Gaudion (00:28:17) - To.
Kimberly Spencer (00:28:18) - Have that reconnection and. That goes.
Monique Gaudion (00:28:23) - Beyond.
Kimberly Spencer (00:28:25) - What you thought was possible.
Monique Gaudion (00:28:28) - And this is why our narratives, we have to be very careful with our narratives, because not only 60% of our memories, they say, are correct. The stories that people tell us, it's their agenda, it's their narrative that drives what they tell us. So my mother had her own agenda. She she wanted to hold on to me and she didn't want him around.
Monique Gaudion (00:28:52) - So she told me bad things about him. Yeah. And the narrative that I created around feeling safe and worthy, I was safe, I was worthy. I mean, I went through difficult circumstances which played out my health. But, how do you think they played out in your life? Yeah. So two things that played out in my health with epigenetics. Do you know about epigenetic? Epigenetic doctor Bruce Lipton? Yeah, doctor Bruce Lipton and a whole bunch of other scientists and things and doctors. Epigenetics means above genes. So our genes, a lot of the story around the genome and so on is that our genes affect our life fully, utterly, completely. But actually our genes are affected by they have these little, receptors on the genes and what comes in. Well, our environment, our thoughts, what we eat, our emotions, all of that comes down and has an effect on these little receptors and can affect the genes negatively or can protect the genes. So two things. One, I didn't find out till later that I had a dysfunctional gene and that was estrogen.
Monique Gaudion (00:30:16) - I didn't get rid of estrogen. My body held on to estrogen. So I remember this doctor telling me because I was a bit anti medical system, the doctor telling me if you don't take this pill you'll die. And I remember thinking, oh my God if you like like go saying that to me because I was in this was my. This time. I got cancer back in 2013. but I didn't take the tablet because it was so debilitating. I could barely walk. I couldn't walk upstairs. It had a very. The side effects were terrible. And I got cancer again at Metastasized Stage four terminal cancer in 2019. And I think a large part of that was because my body was so chock a block of estrogen, because the cancer I got was estrogen positive. So, my little body was just stuffed full of estrogen, and, you know, it just fed that disease. so eventually I took the estrogen blocker, and yay! That's fantastic. So I had to work around the whole thing of because I was very pro, holistic and not really wanting medication.
Monique Gaudion (00:31:35) - But in life, we have to be very flexible and not too rigid, especially when it comes to our health, mental health, physical health. So I knew specifically by that genetic tests that my body wasn't functioning properly, so I needed to take that blocker. So that was a big part. But I think the biggest part was. I always felt unsafe. I felt abandoned. I was always in, you know, in a fear state, in a sympathetic states. And my I wasn't in Paris. Parasympathetic nervous system, which is calm, safe, okay, can self-regulate and all of that. I was reactionary and I suppressed my emotions. So the body and the mind, it's connected. What goes on up here? Go. You know, there is a connection and it does manifest. This isn't just a spiritual thing. It's a, you know, it's a medical thing. It plays out in your body. So epigenetics, my body was falling apart because there was something deeply unhappy and reactionary in my body.
Monique Gaudion (00:32:54) - So it wasn't until I addressed all of these things that, you know, I've been cancer free for well over two years from a terminal diagnosis. Yeah. So I changed so many things, so many things that change. Well, okay, I'll tell you so. Prior to getting the diagnosis, I hadn't been feeling particularly well for a few months. And I remember I used to walk around my apartment. I was depressed because I had stopped my business, which was a huge part of my identity. I was unemployed and I had no money. So from running into a big business that I had lots of money to my son living overseas, I just felt alone. I was broke and I didn't feel great. I'd walk around my apartment at night tidying up just in case I died in the night. I wasn't suicidal, I just, I think I was completely empty and hopeless. I just. I don't know, I just was. Empty, I suppose. And so when I got this diagnosis, I thought, well, okay, that's interesting.
Monique Gaudion (00:34:11) - And there was a I had been reading about quantum physics and epigenetics and all of these sorts of things prior to getting this diagnosis. And I remember hearing about something called Schrödinger's cat. You heard of that?
Kimberly Spencer (00:34:26) - Sure. Yeah. Schrodinger's.
Monique Gaudion (00:34:27) - Yeah. Yeah. So basically, it's sort of a metaphor for quantum physics. so it talks about the observer effect. So you've got a box and there's a cat inside the box and there's a bowl of poison. The observer, the person outside the box makes a decision prior to opening the lid, whether the cat's alive or the cat's did. So in quantum physics, the observer. Perfect. It's an energetic thing. And how you observe things has an outcome. In the energetic quantum world. So that night I said to myself, you know what? My cat's alive. My cat's alive. I just kept repeating, my cat's alive, my cat's alive, my cat's alive. I knew that I had a choice to live or to succumb. And it wasn't a matter of resilience.
Monique Gaudion (00:35:23) - It was a matter of. I just want to live. I don't know how it's going to play out, but I want to live. And I've always had a spiritual life. It's changed its iteration on a number of occasions, but it's very much an energetic sort of spiritual life now, as opposed to a more traditional religious sort of experience. But I remember saying. To God, I said, God. Can you give me some signs? I need some finds that I'm going to get through this. Thank you. You know, and that night, I saw a vision of a big green circle. This was in my bedroom, and I woke up in the morning. And green is a sign of health and calm and new growth and things like that. So I went, okay, so we can be cynical about these things. Just a dream. It's just projection. It's just whatever. But I chose to believe that was a sign. So that further grounded me in a belief system that I held very dear, that I was.
Monique Gaudion (00:36:33) - And then the next night, I, I had another, I heard a voice and it said, healed. And I woke up in the morning and I went healed. I'm healed. That's it. I'm healed. And so I hold on to those things. As truth. With. I didn't doubt it. I held on to it. And believed it. And I think that's one of the things we need to do when we're in difficult situations is find something that you can hold on to. I remember I had panic attacks when I was working at a hospice in London, and I used to repeat this verse, have I not commanded you to be strong, courageous? Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed, for I, the Lord, am with you. And I used to repeat this when I was in the middle of a panic attack. I was 21, dealing with dying people. It was way beyond my a comfort zone, you know, and I got I was able to get out of those panic attacks within a reasonably short time.
Monique Gaudion (00:37:36) - So I think, however it is for each person, find something that you can ground yourself in. I went on to do lots of grounding work, not just believing in those two things. I, I every day I went from being quite an adrenaline person, you know, I was in the creative industries, I was an actor. I was running huge, big productions. Life was pretty exciting and I liked it. And I went to a calm state. Every day I would meditate, visualize, do different treatments, and so do self-hypnosis every day and be telling my thing myself. Things like, I am healthy, I am loved, I love myself, or just, you know, that I knew that the what the mind says the body feels. So I would speak to my body every day in this alpha state, love my body. I would go through all the organs, the bones, my brain. And I would talk to it, talk to my cells, send it love. I didn't fight cancer.
Monique Gaudion (00:38:54) - I wasn't angry at cancer. I knew that cancer is just a cell that's deformed. It doesn't want to kill me. It just wants to grow because it thinks that's what it's got to do. Like all the good cells, I would talk to my immune system, tell it how much I love my insulin system. I talk to my T cells, my B cells, my natural killer cells, told them I love them. And it was just. Honestly, it was so good to be in a place of love, self love, and, you know, the Hoffman process and all that work I had done. But even this was all prior to all of that, prior to finding out about my dad, I had no money for treatments. I mean, I was doing, the visualizations. That was it. That's all I was doing because I had no money, I was broke. I prayed for money, and I got money eventually. And I started doing treatments like hyperthermia and IVs and things like that.
Monique Gaudion (00:39:59) - But for eight months. Oh, sorry. Five months, six months. I had no support at all. Just being on the mat every morning and loving my body. It's amazing actually. It's miraculous actually, what that does for us. So instead of fighting, I was just relaxed. Relaxed and calm. And you know, when you get something that has a is life threatening. It's a paradox. On the one hand, you believe I am well, I am healed. I'm going to live, I am living, I will live on. And the other hand, you have to go. I understand that I could die. I'm okay to die. You know, holding those two opposing things, it's. It's not easy, but I, I found by doing by being, you know, Joe Dispenza is great. He talks about being having an awareness, having a thought of what you want and believing it, feeling it. And that's one of the things I did when I was on the floor.
Monique Gaudion (00:41:12) - I felt, well, I would do that quantum entanglement. I would see myself two years ahead looking healthy, great hair, good body, completely healthy, and I would entangle myself to that person. and yeah, I was one with that healthy person and I've felt it. I felt the joy that I was well and cancer free, you know, so feeling is very important. I.
Kimberly Spencer (00:41:48) - Think there's an interesting thread that you've had a few times that I mean, Doctor Bruce Lipton calls it the biology of belief, and you've mentioned cynicism and what, if any, is the benefit of being cynical? I've, I've yet to find a benefit. So I'm curious that if having had cynicism or been a cynic at some point. How the transformation has ensued from allowing that from any cynicism or any doubt to just let it let the cynicism go.
Monique Gaudion (00:42:28) - Yeah. So that's a really, really great question. I'm quite a I on the side of intellectual things. I like to learn, I like science and I shy away from woo woo people who.
Monique Gaudion (00:42:47) - or things that are just sort of too, emotionally based, I guess. so I like balance. I like to balance. So I get a bit cynical for it. Belief systems or belief systems that are so like with you know, the sacred. right. Saying I'm going to manifest a new house or I'm going to manifest this, I'm going to manifest that. And I believe in visualization and manifesting that. If you just stay in your in your lounge room and don't do any work, you know, if you're looking for a partner, don't go out and tell me, hey, when nothing's going to happen, you know? So that's the kind of thing I'm cynical at. I'm cynical at things that, I don't I don't say that's.
Kimberly Spencer (00:43:39) - I mean, I completely understand with with the Secret. I remember receiving it from a friend of mine who was like, this change her life, and I watched it, and I, Like close to becoming the queen of quantum leaps like Quantum Leap Australia. Quantum leap manifests in our house in three months, like Quantum Leap.
Kimberly Spencer (00:44:00) - Oh, I decided to get pregnant and suddenly I thought it was going to be really hard. And suddenly there was a baby. The ability to quantum leap comes from those actions and the man. Unless you can manifest really quickly. But I do think the secret did leave out the most key part of manifestation, which in taking going from the spiritual into the mental, into the emotional content, you gotta get into action. So if you're not looking up houses on Zillow or elsewhere, if you're not, you know, on a dating app or going out there if you're not looking at your bank balance and like, oh, because somebody who has manifest lots of money probably has an awareness of where their bank balances, if you're not taking these active steps, then and it depends on the person, but what is the what are those action steps that actually create transformation. And yes, visualization can create that. And like what you did with your your the experience of the cancer, the action was getting on to the mat every day.
Kimberly Spencer (00:45:06) - The action was speaking to it. The action was speaking loving to it. The action was like. So it wasn't just feeling, the action was speaking action. If you don't think of any action, it's like it's a verb. So yeah, you have to look at what is the verb that you are putting to the manifestation of what it is really.
Monique Gaudion (00:45:28) - You know, I think I remember when I been to Joe Dispenza, two day thing in London, and then within a week, I was faced with a situation where my UPS box had gone to this warehouse because the guy picking it up, I'd forgotten to put the label on the top. So it held this box, held all my little treasures from my two years overseas, and I rang them up. I said, what can you do? And they said, well, I'm sorry, your box is with thousands of other unmarked boxes, you know, I'm sorry. There's nothing that's going to happen here. And I just done Joe Dispenza and I thought, okay, well, here's a good opportunity for me to put something into practice.
Monique Gaudion (00:46:13) - So I did all the processes, but I also let go. I think this is a very important thing. so I let go to my emotional attachment to what was in that box. I believed in the outcome, but I also let go of how that would come about. I saw a woman, I don't know why a woman going into that warehouse and looking for my box, because I, I had a blank piece of paper on the top. Anyway, two days later I got an email with my box and my message is with my things flowing out of it, and they said, is this your box? And I said, yes. And the, the huge takeaway for me, which I used later on in everything in my life and particularly the cancer was the important point is action, but also, holding space and ease and not grasping onto the outcome. And letting it sit and trusting. So I had to trust my body. I just had to trust trust trust. Trust in the visions.
Monique Gaudion (00:47:26) - Trust in what I was believing. But I think when, when we do things with, an urgency and a grasping and a fighting, I think that undoes can undo everything.
Kimberly Spencer (00:47:44) - Oh, I'm not hungry. I completely agree, because, I mean, the Buddha says the root of all suffering is detachment, and it is attachment, not detachment. And. I remember when I was, one year out of having my baby. Not even when you're, like three. A few months, I was in a coaching program, and we were all standing up and getting really emotional and declaring our, like, our wins. And I was like, I'm gonna have $1 million business in this year, in the next 12 months. And I was wrapping myself up, but I was suppressing and avoiding so many deep seated emotions that came with becoming a new mother that came with, my son, just having a couple challenges when, when he was first born to like that came with all of my stuff. Came up in this role of mom.
Kimberly Spencer (00:48:41) - I was not personally developed enough to receive that. And I held onto this attachment. And because I held onto the attachment, I then made it that I'm a bad business owner, I suck, I don't achieve my goals. And I had all of these beliefs and reasons, and that built up in my mind because I was so deeply attached to this emotional, you know, I'm going to do this sort of thing. What I am loving from your story is the beautiful experience that comes from that detachment. Because we did have that when we manifested our house three months, we were all ready to go and we just needed to sign, like a little extension. and I was like, they're going to sign. And then their broker came back with this, like. Ridiculous ultimatum. And I was like, no, we're not putting that much money on the line non-refundable. And I said, I am completely willing to walk away from this house. I will not sign that agreement with the Sword of Damocles on a deadline.
Kimberly Spencer (00:49:51) - Like not going to do that. And we I held that boundary and I said we had tickets to go to Texas. We were all sent to we had pod ships like everything was done. Yeah. And I said, but we're not going to sign. I said, and my mom, she was like, well, what do we do? Like when we get to like. And I said, what we'll do is we'll hit the ground. We'll stay in the Airbnb that we already have anyways, and then we'll go search for another house and give them an all cash offer.
Monique Gaudion (00:50:18) - Oh yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (00:50:19) - But it was. And then within an hour we got the the contract back and it was completely signed and exactly the way we had agreed on without it being without these other ultimatum pieces. But it was because I was like, I will not like, here is my boundary universe. That's not allowing myself to be pushed. Yeah. And I think it's that's such the peace that comes with the paradox of accepting that we do live in a paradox, like what you said, Monique, about I am healed, I am well, I am loved and it's okay.
Monique Gaudion (00:50:51) - Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (00:50:53) - It's okay if that's not what it is, it's okay if that doesn't take off. Well, because I've seen way too many really successful, high achieving people who miss their goal by a little bit and thus it crushes them. Yeah, because they're so attached to the goal. So how like, how do we practice this? How do we practice this art of detachment? What does it feel like in our bodies? What does it feel like in your body. And then maybe that can give us some context of how detachment actually feels.
Monique Gaudion (00:51:23) - Well, I've got a really lovely little story to tell you about this. So, in 2016, I put an out of office message in my, business. And I sold my home and bought a ticket overseas. Had no idea what I was going to do. It was a label. My year of.
Kimberly Spencer (00:51:46) - Curiosity.
Monique Gaudion (00:51:47) - It was a sabbatical. The only thing I knew I wanted to do was I wanted to walk the Camino. I'd read a book about it.
Monique Gaudion (00:51:54) - I thought, yeah, I think that would be great for me. I knew nothing about mindfulness. I didn't know anything about any of this stuff that we're talking about today. And I remember, I was a bit nervous because I wasn't that fit. I was a hiker. but anyway, I remember, deciding not to think about the past because I was very stuck, I wasn't impressed. Marriage broke up, family had died, blah, blah, blah. I decided to not think about the past at all. No rumination. Not one thought about the past. And you know, the unknown is a very tricky for all of us. It's a big trigger. We feel very uncomfortable with unknowns, and I think that's one of the reasons we can at times make, not great choices or get stuck because of the the unknown looms. So I decided I had a huge unknown, so I didn't know what I was going to do. So I decided not to think about the future at all. I remember every day walking and hearing my feet crunching on the, you know, the rocks and the the ground beneath me walking in beautiful forests.
Monique Gaudion (00:53:07) - And, and I tended to walk alone. And I didn't think about anything. I just enjoyed the space. Now, that's not something that everyone can do, but I think we can find space wherever we are, so I. I went into a place which I went to when I had cancer of calm and not overthinking, because that's my natural tendency, right, to want to know what's going on, to want to make the best choices. I mean, I was a business owner, so you're always making decisions and being an entrepreneur. And I was creating things from nothing. So I had to put all of that aside and just be in awareness of my steps, my environment, and just be in that place. And we don't all have the opportunity to go walk the Camino. I'm actually taking a mindfulness Camino group next year.
Kimberly Spencer (00:54:05) - Yeah.
Monique Gaudion (00:54:05) - Very exciting. but we don't all have the opportunity or desire to do something like that, but I think we can do it every day in our lives is just to cut off.
Monique Gaudion (00:54:16) - And, you know, basically that's what meditation is. It's just taking a break from our brain. And just becoming quiet. And from that grounded state, because I think we live we it's so easy to. Be in a negative state with everything that's going on in the world, you know, all the wars and the like, the Covid and all that drama, horrible illness, people dying or whatever. There's just a, you know, there's all the conspiracy theories that are there roaming around. People are quite afraid of the government. They're afraid of so many things, very much on the defensive, and they don't feel safe. It's very hard to make life enhancing really good choices when you're in a state of fear and feel unsafe. You know, it's the whole fight, fight, freeze, fawn, bow fight. You become really aggressive and you're trying to change things. phrase is you just get stuck and you can't do a thing. Phone is where you just people please and just put all your energy into looking other after other people and neglect your own health, quite rightly.
Monique Gaudion (00:55:35) - Praise corn. Is that it? I think that's it, isn't it? so I think becoming aware of whatever where if we are in any of those states, becoming aware. I think self awareness is such a huge thing to be. It's actually life changing because so often we work in the unconscious, our unconscious state, which is very normal, right? They are our unconscious state. All the patterns that we've been living all our life, we don't even aware how much they drive us.
Kimberly Spencer (00:56:08) - And it's studied about 90 to 95%. Isn't what we do is subconscious the false way those have on deep neural pathways.
Monique Gaudion (00:56:18) - And absolutely.
Kimberly Spencer (00:56:19) - I just had a Chelsea singer on my podcast and she talks about her recovery from postpartum, and she said it was nine years of retraining neural pathways. Yeah, I like recreating new groups. And while I do, I believe that there is also a paradox in that that things like self-hypnosis, timeline therapy can take things away like this. And there's also these habits of the daily habits to remove yourself from the what you're so used to coming into the space and changing that, and that those things also take time so that things can happen in an instant.
Kimberly Spencer (00:56:58) - Quantum quantum entanglement and things can happen over time in Newtonian time. Yeah.
Monique Gaudion (00:57:04) - The thing is, though, we can have a really powerful, insightful experience. But until we actually play that out in everyday life, all the old stuff can come back. And I think the one of the keys to that is being aware of things like our self-talk, oh, I'm stupid. Like, so I have this thing. I have got a bit of a knee issue. I it was an old injury, sporting injury. And I I've been saying because I walk on soft sand every morning on the beach or when it's.
Kimberly Spencer (00:57:37) - Not so jealous of that soft sand. I remember that soft and it was amazing.
Monique Gaudion (00:57:42) - And I say to people, oh, I hate this soft sand. You know, I've got a dicky knee or I've got a bad knee and I've been doing visualizations because I'm doing this walk on the Camino again next year and just live generally, actually, I want, I want to, have a better knee.
Monique Gaudion (00:57:58) - And I went, oh my God, I've got to stop saying I have a dicky knee. I have a bad knee. Like, that's a stupid thing to say, you know, like that is working against me, you know, believing, healing my knee and all of, all of that manifesting stuff. So it's it's the little like, Oh, so many often, you know, women say I'm old. I'm too old to do that. Oh, I'm old, therefore I don't go out at night. I'm old, I don't walk, I'm old, I don't this, I don't that blah blah blah. I'm broke. Oh I can't go out for dinner. I'm broke, like at the moment because I've been on this disability pension. I don't have lots of money, but I'm moving into things, projects, you know, where I, I will get paid for all the beautiful, the things I have to offer. but for a while there, because I was getting a bit, precious about what cash I had left or what money I had left, I'd go, oh, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
Monique Gaudion (00:59:01) - I can't afford it. And it's like I never used to say that when I ran a huge, you know, a big, successful business. I never said I can't afford it. I did whatever the hell I wanted, you know, and I, you know, I am still that person. So I'm, you know, it's the little sentences. It's the self-talk. You know, like Marissa Pier talks about, you know, we're not enough. We are. We don't even realize. We're saying we're not enough, but we do it constantly. So I think changing the self-talk. Changing, becoming aware of our narratives and doing the work on our narratives. You know, it takes work to change your narratives. It just doesn't happen like that. I mean, you can have big challenges like I have, but I've still had to work on my narratives, you know, in not going back to those old narratives. So sometimes with my son living over in Sweden, I feel really sad that I'm so far away from him.
Monique Gaudion (01:00:01) - But that's a choice to feel like life is not good, because my only family lives on the other side of the world. I talked to him all the time on video. You know, I'd probably talk to my son more than many mothers talk to their children. It's all about, you know, reframing cognitive behavioral therapy. I find EFT. I've had a panic attack recently, which I rarely have, but it was on finances and I did an EFT session on anxiety and it completely went away. So there's actually lots of tools out there. and that's the kind of I think I've never done that. Hypnosis, visualization, meditation, all of these things are beautiful tools that we can incorporate into our life to to ground us and keep us to support ourselves mentally and physically and our relationships. I don't know, did that ask you a question?
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:03) - Yes, I.
Monique Gaudion (01:01:04) - Did that a long time ago.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:07) - Monique, I have loved our conversation and I would love to pivot gears and shift a little bit of rapid fire.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:13) - Are you down?
Monique Gaudion (01:01:15) - Yes I am.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:16) - Who was your favorite female character in a book or a movie and why?
Monique Gaudion (01:01:21) - Okay, so when I first read eat, pray, love. I thought she was a mental basket case. I thought you're you are just pathetic woman, right? Because I'm in a resilience mindset. Then I went through the divorce and I went, oh my God, I understand. And you know, and her philosophy on life, I really she's not my hero. But that book, in just the philosophy and I only approach this life is such.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:50) - A phenomenal book.
Monique Gaudion (01:01:51) - Yeah, yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:52) - What woman would you want to trade places with just for a day, like alive, or when she was living at any point in history? See how she thought experience the world as she did?
Monique Gaudion (01:02:04) - I'll tell you what. Who I do like is Emma Thompson. fantastic. Yeah. So, yeah, I could I could be in her world because she is an activist. She's very talented and she's so free and loves herself.
Monique Gaudion (01:02:18) - So she's a great person. I could be her for a day.
Kimberly Spencer (01:02:21) - What is your morning routine to set you up for a successful and healthy day?
Monique Gaudion (01:02:26) - So my morning routine is. I first have a cup of coffee because I love my organic coffee. Then I go for a walk on the beach with my dog because my dog needs to go out and it's beautiful. Really sets me up in awe. And then I do a morning treatment with the visualization. So I have a few practices. I won't go into what they are, but you know, that takes about an hour. So I go into every day, I go into that deep state that has been so beneficial to me in my life. And then and so usually I'm over, I'm all set to go by like 9:00 to get on with all the different projects and different things that I want to do.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:11) - Amazing. What is your evening routine to set you up for a successful morning?
Monique Gaudion (01:03:16) - I often take a little bit of CBD.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:19) - I can totally say that it's okay.
Monique Gaudion (01:03:21) - Okay. Because, not I. I sleep beautifully even without that. But I find just a couple of drops of the oil just. It's just. I just find it really lovely and soothing and great for my body and my mind. but I don't do that every night, so, you know, it's just whenever I feel like that. But I love going to bed. I lie in bed and go, oh, I love you. Because I love sleep, I love it, and I have really fantastic dreams. So, yeah, I don't particularly do anything. I don't have any mantras or anything like that.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:56) - What do you define to be your kingdom or your queendom?
Monique Gaudion (01:04:01) - Or travel is where I thrive. I love it. I have to be careful with all people who love to travel nomads. And I mean, I've been to over 67 countries. I've done every pretty much every sort of travel you can imagine. I have not climbed a mountain is it's very easy when you love travel to think that everything good is out there.
Monique Gaudion (01:04:25) - So that's something I need to be careful of with, with my adoration of travel. But that is my huge passion in life that gives me joy. So much joy, the nature, the meeting, interesting people, the culture. I don't even need to do anything. Just sitting at a cafe watching people, listening to accents. I just love it. I don't know if that's the queendom, but I'm a travel queen. What?
Kimberly Spencer (01:04:56) - How do you. And lastly, how do you crown yourself?
Monique Gaudion (01:05:00) - I think every day I love myself no matter how I'm feeling. I acknowledge my feelings if I'm feeling triggered in some way, and I just always bring it back to love. I'm loved, lovable and loving. That's it. That's the groundswell of my life. That's my crown. Is love self-love? Do you love me all, Monique?
Kimberly Spencer (01:05:25) - How do we work with you? How do we join you on the Camino for Pilgrim Walk?
Monique Gaudion (01:05:33) - I have a few places left. it's, the 18th to the 29th of May.
Monique Gaudion (01:05:39) - It's only 140km. It's a mindfulness pilgrim walk. So, just. I guess you're going to have my email address.
Kimberly Spencer (01:05:49) - I'll be on the description below. So, yeah, the website and.
Monique Gaudion (01:05:52) - Everything on my website, it's not current. so my LinkedIn really tells everybody about all the different projects that I offer, but everything is pretty much around narrative and how we can live an adventurous, exciting life and feel pretty good about ourselves. Yeah, and.
Kimberly Spencer (01:06:12) - We'll transform our bodies.
Monique Gaudion (01:06:14) - Transform our bodies, transform everything. Yeah. I mean, I have lived a very blessed life, even though I've had some. You know, some challenges. Man, I've done. I've had a good life. Always happy about that. So I'm happy to be able to share that with some people. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Thanks.
Kimberly Spencer (01:06:34) - It is such a pleasure to have you on. I was so honored to be on the Buffalo Podcast and to to be able to share my story and yours. And so I'm so grateful that you got to come on here and thank for just your honesty and your openness and your genuineness.
Kimberly Spencer (01:06:52) - Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. And as always, my fellow sovereigns, own your throne. Mind your business, because your reign is now. Thank you so much for.
Kimberly Spencer (01:07:03) - Tuning in today. If what you heard resonated with you, be sure to subscribe and start creating a bigger impact now by sharing this with a friend. Just by doing that one simple act of kindness, you are creating a royal ripple to support more people in their sovereignty. And if you're not already following on social media, connect with me everywhere at Crown Yourself Now for more inspiration. I am so excited to connect with you in the next episode, and in the meantime, go out there and create a body, business, and life that rules because today you crown yourself.
