You live with a constant undercurrent of never feeling like you do enough, you are enough, or that you have enough.

It's exhausting.

That’s the result of being taught to look outside for your value and your worth, it leaves you empty. No matter how much you take from the outside and try to put inside, it doesn’t fill it.

Today, Stephanie and Maren talk about this very poignant, timely subject from the freeing place of inner mastery. Never feeling like enough, emotional instability and loss of control - all of that is healed from the inside out.

What if you could be SO connected and so clear about why you are here and what that means in your life, that it fills your cup and you are free? That external pat on the back, nice, and not necessary because you are already enough.

The marketers and ad executives don’t want you to know that everything you need is actually INSIDE you. The inner work, the inner validation is what sets you free.

• 6:57 true rest and monkey mind
• 10:39 the value of being uncomfortable
• 13:34 hot dog, salad, or something better
• 18:17 self-reflection isn’t narcissism
• 21:21 who is your exemplar?

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

REFERENCES

16:16 Going to a higher place/triangle - Ep 185 You’re Not Lost, You’re Being Called

22:43 Daniel’s Interview - Ep 67 The 3 Questions that Will Change Your Life

25:11 Jeff’s Interview - Ep 153 Bringing Out the Best

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Purpose. Meaning. Clarity.

Do you ever feel like you’re chasing these in your life and just as you reach them, they, poof, slip through your fingers?

You’re not alone.

In this episode, Stephanie and Maren unpack what it really means to pursue this power trio — not as a destination, but as a living, breathing practice.

Society treats them as boxes to tick, and that’s part of the problem. Today’s episode explores going beyond what you’ve been taught to a deeper kind of listening, into the path of inner mastery.

Being in conscious relationship with yourself, your mission, and the larger world around you is the road less traveled. It’s not easy, and it may be exactly what’s calling you - as it is for so many of the high achieving leaders that work with Maren & Stephanie.

Here’s a question to ponder -
👉 Do you know the difference between purpose and mission?
Spoiler: One tends to come from ego. The other? It whispers from the soul.

In addition this, they also explore:

• Why clarity is not a one-time achievement but an evolving, sacred process
• How to tell if your “purpose” is actually ego-driven
• The real meaning of mission—and how it emerges through both joy and hardship
• Why leaders who seek depth must get comfortable with not knowing
• The trap of cultural quick-fixes—and how to trade those for sustainable inner practice
• How collaboration (not competition) is the soil where your mission grows
• The truth about being “all alone” vs. “all one”—and what that means for your leadership

If you’ve ever hit a wall, lost your way, or questioned everything just when you thought you had it figured out—this episode is for you.

Clarity doesn’t come from efforting harder. It comes from slowing down, tuning in, and being willing to walk the long arc of becoming.

🔔 What’s Next?

Go deeper with the Inner Mastery Series. This is where the ideas Stephanie and Maren talk about come alive—in practice, in community, and in you.

----

🔗 Links & Resources

• Join the Inner Mastery Class → www.TSLP.life/2360-2/
  
  
• Connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube
  
  
• Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
  
  
• Dive deeper at The Soulful Leader Project → www.TSLP.life

Chapter Markers

0:32 Clarity- a tenant of inner mastery

5:19 Transforming your life, mission vs purpose

9:25 There’s a practice to it

13:09 Avoidance and healing

17:07 Achiever brain

19:22 You are a part of something even bigger

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

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When your emotions are all over the place, it’s easy to fall for everything and anything. You’re easy to manipulate.

On some level you know this, so you tuck those damn emotions aside, ignore them or try to control them - which only makes things worse. They come out at the most inopportune times.

Sound familiar?

The truth is, emotions are not a flaw to be overcome, they are one of the amazing gifts of being human. They are literally energy in motion, and as such, not only feed us, but are also a powerful path to healing what ails us.

Working with (instead of stuffing, ignoring or controlling) emotions gives you space to listen and to respond rather than just react. It engenders clarity and empowers healthy decisions. It calms the nervous systems and decreases stress.

This is an essential skill for all of us right now for what it can heal - individually, and collectively.

“If we don't feel, we don't heal.” ~Stephanie J. Allen

There is a negative feedback loop running - thoughts and fears and emotions that fester and create inner AND outer toxicity. The good news is that we are the antidote.

It’s a choice inside each one of us.

In today’s podcast, Stephanie and Maren share stories, inspiration and tangible tools to help you shift your internal relationship with emotions so you become your own cure, as well as a kind of “healthy virus” in the world, infecting the people around you in the best, most beautiful way.

When you work inside, it changes, both the internal AND the external. You impact the world around you just by being who you are.

Are you ready to explore emotions differently and find your inner treasure so that you can live it and share it with those you love and with the world?

Listen in and let’s make some shift happen.

• 0:32 Everything conspiring
• 1:28 Clean break
• 5:09 Happening ‘for me, or to me’ choice
• 8:27 If you don’t feel you don’t heal
• 11:36 I got things to do!
• 14:06 Clearing the toxicity
• 19:22 Making it conscious so you can repeat it
• 21:54 It’s not you
• 24:07 Ancient wisdom
• 25:59 We are the antidote
• 28:21 Pain or buried treasure

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

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It’s nuts out there. And when it’s calm and focused inside - it changes everything.

As a culture, we are

• easily distracted
• obsessive over (fill in the blank) - politics, relationships, finances, etc.
• experiencing one health, environmental, societal crisis after another
• swinging from wound up to completely disengaged
• feeling angry one minute to hopeless the next

So how do you stay sane? Focused? How do you even know what to focus on?

The internal impacts of what is going on in our outer world is staggering. There are so many things coming at us that our fight or flight response is being constantly triggered.

That’s a recipe for, at best- burnout, at worst - disaster.

So how do we manage? What’s the answer?

This is something that Stephanie and Maren each have been studying for three decades.

The answer is NOT one more thing to do in the outer world. It’s learning to master the internal, so that we can heal ourselves AND be the antidote for the craziness in the world around us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, and healing is possible.

Today’s podcast starts a several part series on Inner Mastery to address this very issue.

Tune in to find out what Inner Mastery is (insight and awareness on the ‘inner’ so we don't get suffocated and buried), why it matters (getting clarity through the constant noise so there is on-going flow and well-being), and how to get started (listening in for the next few weeks 🥰).

“The more inner mastery I have, the more flow and joy and ease I have in my life” ~ Maren

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:32 Inner Mastery, what is it, why it matters and why now
• 4:17 Getting off the first floor
• 7:38 Creating the future you want
• 9:53 Mastery in a world of information overload
• 12:41 What is important for ME?
• 17:17 Protection and being the antidote

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

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What if you could feel more like yourself, have the energy and motivation you imagine AND create meaningful change in the world. It’s not a pipe dream.

If you have ever felt

• like you’re missing something
• Like there’s an answer just beyond your grasp
• smaller than you know yourself to be
• as if you just weren’t living up to your full potential
• not as happy as you should be

Today’s podcast has answers -and tools- for you!

This week, Maren and Stephanie pull apart the very means to freeing our essence, our energy and our potential - the shadow parts of ourselves. The parts we tuck away are the parts that hold both our gifts and our energy.

“If we cannot look inside to the ‘dark’ places, we will run from them and our life will become very small and restricted.” - Stephanie

The shadow is anything that we neglect or deny in ourselves. We learned early to squash down and turn away from aspects that were shamed, feared or even misunderstood. We created acceptable personas as masks - and we use them in every aspect of our lives.

The problem is that 1. We get so used to the persona we forget that it's actually not us 2. Our essence, our energy and our life force are all tucked in the shadow and 3. Not being ourselves takes a toll, a toll that gets heavier and more painful with each passing year.

The good news is, it’s all changeable. And this podcast is the perfect place to start.

Be sure to listen to the end where you’ll find

• great questions to help you uncover (and embrace) more of your essence
• inspiration from the 13th century poet Rumi
• a process for identifying your shadow parts so you can reclaim your gifts and energy

Chapters

• 2:04 your glass ceiling
• 5:39 adaptations for the unacceptable within
• 7:05 disassociation and how to recognize the shadow
• 10:51 compassion, ah there you are
• 12:36 making space and embracing the parts
• 16:05 agreements and shadow agreements
• 20:48 who would I be if I weren’t…
• 22:00 this is for more than ourselves
• 23:56 a process of self discovery and self healing- build your root system
• 27:03 Rumi’s The Guest House

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

23:19 Mel Robbins’ "Let Them" - Two Opposing Views

The Guest House

Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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What if the thing you're clinging to is the very thing holding you back?

In this week’s episode, Stephanie and Maren dive deep into the attachments we hold—money, identity, expectations—and the hidden cost of not letting go. Maren shares her powerful personal story of losing $250,000 and the radical transformation that followed when she chose to see it not as a failure, but as a gift.

Together, they explore:

• The emotional weight of attachment
• The courage it takes to surrender
• How to recognize what’s no longer serving you
• And what freedom really feels like on the other side of letting go
  
  

This episode is a heart-forward companion to Ep 180: The Secret to More Energy—so make sure to add it to your playlist.

If you’re holding on tight to something (or someone), this conversation might just be the invitation you didn’t know you needed.

• 0:40 $250,000 lesson
• 5:43 Attachments, we hang on, and on and on
• 8:55 The process of letting go
• 14:07 Self judgement, if I were a better person
• 17:16 The fist wants to fight, there are alternatives
• 21:28 The costs and solutions
• 23:16 Stephanie’s cat
• 26:06 Where is it serving you and how to surrender
• 30:21 Not meant to do it alone

“It takes a tremendous amount of courage to let go of the attachments of who you think you are and what you think or assume is going to happen” ~ Stephanie J. Allen

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Have you ever hung on to something you know is not good for you?

A habit, a belief, maybe even a relationship or a job that you know sucks, but you can't seem to let it go?

The thing you say, ‘if only’ this were different, my life would be great, then you don’t change it?

~ If only my husband were kinder, stronger, shorter, taller, etc.

~ If only my job paid me more money

~If only I could lose 20 pounds

The truth is that you stay stuck because it’s comfortable. It’s what you know. Complaining is easier than changing, than the unknown. It’s the devil you know.

Often the only path to real change is tragedy. Something horrible happens that makes us change, that wakes us up. The pain becomes bad enough that we HAVE to do something different.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Pain and suffering is only one path. There is at least one another - you can wake up through joy and inspiration.

That’s what Stephanie and Maren dive into this week.

Stephanie shares the classic Baal Shem Tov story of the Scrawny Cow which leads right into a great discussion of creating true and lasting change in our lives - WITHOUT the drama and trauma.

We tend to ask, why do I have to change? Why can't THEY change? After today’s podcast you’ll be running towards the privilege of changing and all the gifts it brings your way.

• 00:31 What’s in Your Way?
• 04:11 Story of the Scrawny Cow
• 09:15 It Doesn’t Have to Be Traumatic
• 14:15 The Up-Graded Version of You
• 19:06 Healing Your Scrawny Cow
• 22:37 Be a Part of theMovement

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

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Energy is an interesting dynamic.

It goes where we send it.

When you are angry and fight against something, that something actually gets fed. You add your energy to it. Shifting focus towards what you want instead, stops feeding the beast you don’t want and diverts the energy into building your ideal - what you DO want.

"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." ~ Mother Teresa

In today’s podcast, Maren & Stephanie explore this dynamic, discussing when it’s best to tap into the ‘away’ energy, and when it’s useful to create ‘towards’ momentum. They share great stories (like the Heirloom company Maren and her Mom started to counter the impact of companies like Monsanto) and interesting examples (like the difference your body experiences fighting against something or moving towards something) - all in their fun engaging style.

If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I had more energy”, you’ll be very glad you tuned in.

• 04:40 Fighting Monsanto
• 09:37 Going to war or finding what’s working
• 15:18 Everything is energy, where are you investing yours?
• 20:07 Boosting energy and resiliency
• 25:15 You are what you consume

“You are who you hang out with. You're also what you read, what you listen to, what you invest your time and energy into. You actually become that.” - Maren Oslac

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

REFERENCES

20:57 Ep 90 Groundhog Day Podcast

25:19 Behold Beauty - Sufi Poem

one day in the bathhouse,

a sweet smelling clay was handed to me

by a loved one,

and I asked, are you musk or amber?

As I am intoxicated by your enchanting presence.

And it replied to me,

I used to be just mud,

a mere nothing,

but for a while, I kept the fellowship of roses

and the perfection of my

companions

had a divine effect on me.

Otherwise, I am nothing but dust.

Please share your insights and questions in one of our Soulful Leaders groups:

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Get all the latest episodes, news and updates directly to your inbox. Subscribe here. TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com

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