9: Monika Aimie on how to live an extraordinary life (not just an ordinary one)

Stepping Into Your Most Empowered Self for Monika’s 12-week group program for women

Check out monikaaimie.com for more about Monika

Follow Monika using Monika.Aimie

Eckhart Tolle
Michael Pollan
Zoran Todorovic
Carl Jung
Brené Brown

Hookup without Heartbreak by Lia Holmgren

Giancarlo

Hi, thank you for coming to the seventh episode of the mangu.tv podcast today. I’m very happy to have Monika. Monika is an ICF accredited transformational and empowerment coach living between Ibiza, Barcelona, London and working with clients around the globe. Her mission is to help clients to connect to the deepest authenticity or who they are, so they can intentionally design deeply fulfilling lives that are right for them. 

She combines psychology and coaching methodology with energetics embodiment practices and archetype work, influenced by her experience in the field of tantra. She currently supports women, and occasionally men through one-on-one coaching and her signature group coaching program, stepping into your most empowered self.

Welcome, Monika. 

Monika

Thank you. Pleasure to be here. 

Giancarlo

Hi, how do you find Ibiza? Are you happy to be here? Do you miss London? 

Monika

I’m very happy to be here. Yes. I do feel grateful most days, I do split my time a little bit between some cities just to get that little bit of a contrast, but it’s a wonderful place to live.

Giancarlo

Yeah. So what is it do you think about Ibiza that attracts all these coaches in the field of coaching/personal development? What is it, how come?

Monika

Yeah, it’s something you mentioned to me before and I was reflecting on it, cause it’s a, it’s a really interesting question actually. I think that’s something that happens when certain people start moving to a place and then it magnetizes more of the same to come here. So there’s certainly a community building here that is now magnetizing more and more of the same, but in terms of why that maybe originally happened, well. I think there has been some kind of counter-culture here and some alternative routes.

So I think that manifests now in this kind of personal development field. And it’s these kinds of people who are already drawn to living here now. And I also think that when you work in this field of coaching, personal development, unlike other professions it’s very much about walking the talk. And so if we’re talking about living our best lives, you’ll find a lot of coaches are doing that themselves. And I think Ibiza has become this Mecca for living your best life. It’s like what was the American dream is almost like now the Ibizan dream, what we’re looking for as humans have changed. And I think Ibiza offers a lot of that in terms of quality of life and the sense of freedom. And there’s always a certain magic quality as well that people talk about. So I think a mixture of those things maybe is what’s led to that. 

Giancarlo

Yes, absolutely. I agree. I think the keyword is freedom. This island has attracted people that are already keen on reinventing themselves and going behind the conditioning. And so it’s already a natural selection for good candidates for evolutionary work. Let’s start from the beginning, so how would you define coaching? What does it mean? Is it one-on-one, I know you do one-on-one mostly, but tell us a little bit about what coaching is?

Monika

Yeah. Good question again.

So coaching is really a craft. It’s a learned skill and a way of holding space for another human really. The idea is to allow that person to explore their inner world and their desires for their life so that they can achieve their full potential. So I think, yes, it’s usually considered to be one-on-one, but I think more and more so we’re seeing group programs and I definitely think it’s possible to happen in a group space as well.

Giancarlo

So how is that different from therapy? 

Monika

Yeah, well actually I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that coaching is actually it’s kind of developed out of psychotherapy, which then progressed into counseling, which then progressed into coaching. So there are definitely roots there, it’s still a talking therapy.

I think there is a fundamental difference. There are a few, but I think with therapy, there’s quite a deep focus on the past. To bring about healing in the present. And while coaching does go into the past, there’s much more of a focus on the future and future momentum and movement and progression. I also think with therapy there’s this sense of, and I don’t want to completely generalize, but that there seems to be a sense of the client being somewhat broken and something needing to be fixed.

There’s kind of this movement from there’s some kind of dysfunction that’s been highlighted and it’s getting to a functioning place. So there’s a couple of things with that as well. And one is with coaching there, we buy into this idea that our clients aren’t broken, that they’re whole, and they’re resourceful and the coach is no higher than the clients. It’s just a process that we work with them through. So that is slightly different. We always like tapping into the potential and the inner wisdom that’s already in the client. And I wanted to say another thing about that. Yeah. From the dysfunction to functioning, I think with coaching rather than getting someone to a place of functioning, maybe that’s where therapy is needed if there is kind of deep dysfunction or problems in really moving through life in a healthy way, coaching comes in, in that moment where you’re functioning, but you want to completely thrive, you want to excel, you don’t want to have an ordinary life. You want to have an extraordinary life. And I think as we’re progressing as a species in consciousness and in what is motivating us and driving us. There’s more and more need for coaching now, people want to really thrive, they don’t want to just survive. They want to self-actualize. They want to experience themselves in their fullest potential. And I think that’s where therapy doesn’t go to that level, but where coaching can then come in and almost take over and take someone to that next level.

Giancarlo

So what are the typical obstacles that you’ve been seeing in your career? That prevents people from expressing their full potential?

Monika

This is where it does really tie into psychology and we do draw upon a lot of the same knowledge and concepts. A lot of that is really the subconscious mind and limiting beliefs and norms and beliefs that we inherited that limit us.

So a lot of the work in coaching is in shining awareness on that, being aware of it. Because the whole thing with the subconscious mind and beliefs is we’re not aware of it. So it’s making the unconscious conscious, seeing that, and then being able to choose differently and open up the possibilities for ourselves. So that’s a really big part of it is just, there’s so much unraveling.

It’s unraveling of conditioning, unraveling of beliefs that we formed in childhood, or even later in life, so that we can take back our power. And really choose where we want to go with our lives rather than being subservient to beliefs that are running in the background that we haven’t even been aware of.

Giancarlo

So what, what is the typical situation where in childhood you have parents that maybe didn’t reinforce you positively or put you down. And so you internalize this idea that you’re not worthy. And that would limit you in terms of taking responsibility, and taking risks and these vulnerabilities that you feel prevents you from throwing yourself into the mix and realizing your dream.

Monika

Exactly. And we create beliefs about everything really. So whether it’s kind of a negative relationship in childhood that really damaged your sense of self, but it might be even things like just what you witnessed said around you about money or about body image that you then inherit. And you take that. We take that as the norm and it then puts limits on what we will and won’t do in our lives. And the real empowering moment is when we can see through neuroplasticity that we can actually change what we believe, we can actually reprogram that. And that has such an impact on our lives and where we can actually go with our lives.

Giancarlo

So, which tool do you use to allow your clients to see to what extent their beliefs are just inherited, cultural, or childhood conditioning, whether then reality?

Monika

What I love working with is looking at different personas or voices within us. So it’s often, it’s just starting to bring awareness to that and separate out these different voices. And we’ve often got a voice running like an inner critic or these beliefs that come up, they show up as certain thoughts that you can’t do that, when we’re deeply triggered and we go back to like wounded parts of ourselves. I help clients to personify these parts of ourselves. Like we call it the rebel mind or like we even like the look at what it might look like, so that we know what that feels and sounds like.

And then where it’s quite different, maybe to therapy is we also work on tuning into a different voice, to a higher wisdom. And this for many aligns with intuition. And for some people, this is stronger. And for some people it’s newer to connect to this, but we do all have it. So we’re giving an alternative to that as well.

So it’s a really powerful tool to start tuning into these different voices. And I work with clients to get really clear in this connection with this higher wisdom, wherever that’s coming from. And I also work with a very powerful tool, which is what I call your most empowered self. And it’s tuning into this higher version of you and gaining a really, really clear picture and strong connection to that part of you. And also intentionally designing what this part of you is and what the future version of you is. So you can start to lean into that, because if we don’t have this alternative then we’re kind of being run by these other voices in these other beliefs, and while we can try and undo them, what’s more powerful is creating a new voice.

Creating an alternative picture and starting to cultivate that and lean into that. So that’s one of the most powerful tools is this persona of your most empowered self, which is both like your higher wisdom and intentionally a picture of your future self that you have decided consciously you want to step into. And it’s super, super powerful to do that. 

Giancarlo

Yes. And the opposite of this persona would be the limiting persona, which Eckhart Tolle would call the pain bodies. Which is this childhood limiting belief that gets personified in your mind. With this critical voice that Eckhart Tollecalls the bad roommate in your head.

I know you don’t have much experience with psychedelics, but I just wanted to add one thing here, because we now know from this functioning magnetic resonance imagery, like 20, 30 years ago, they invented these machines where you can see in real-time what’s happening in the brain when you take psilocybin or DMT, or San Pedro or mescaline, the family of the tryptamines.

Basically, they found out the neuropsychopharmacologists this default mode network. Which is a network that combines three hubs in the brain, the prefrontal cortex, the medial cortex, and the thalamus I think. And the neuroscientist says that this default mode network is the closest thing to the egoic armor. And with these substances, they reduce the blood supply to this network. And so Michael Pollan in his book, (I always say this on my podcast), Michael Pollan, in his book compares the full mode network to the director of the Orchestra of your brain.

So with this substance, the director sort of goes to bed. So for the first time, different parts of the brain can now operate independently. And that’s how you can see to what extent, some of your beliefs were just conditioning from that director. And now that he’s not there, you can physically visually experience who you really are without this conditioning. And that’s very empowering. And I know in Ibiza there are a lot of psychedelic coaches and also there is a practice of microdosing of psilocybin, which is, you take just enough before you feel it. So it’s a sub perception, but I’ve done that and it is true that it’s subdued, the inner the voice in your head. So I recommend all the coaches to maybe get a little help. I mean, it’s not legal in Spain, so we have to be careful. Yes, this is super interesting. Do you have any experience with meditation? Because also meditation would allow to calm your mind and allow you to quiet the chatter in your brain a little bit like psychedelics. So do you integrate meditation into your coaching? 

Monika

Yes, I do, actually. So I start every session with a little meditation just to do exactly what you’ve said to let go of the busyness in the mind, anything that’s already happened in the day, and to really drop into the space.

So definitely (meditation) definitely compliments coaching very well, because as you said, it helps to quiet down all the other voices and chatter and connect into this really authentic place, which we’ve been talking about. 

Giancarlo

It’s incredible how it seems like our brain is designed to sabotage us, but where does that come from, is it the flight or fight from evolution? It seems so counter-intuitive that we’re designed to worry so much.

Monika

Yeah. Yeah. It’s super interesting. It seems that. I mean, I’ve studied this a little bit, but obviously, there’s a wealth of knowledge, I won’t know in terms of neuroscience, but it seems that we’ve got parts of our brain, which are still prehistoric and still wired to past situations, which we’ve evolved past, but it’s like our brains haven’t evolved, but then we have this higher consciousness, we have these other parts of our brain. And I forget the statistic that we only access such a small percentage of our brains. And I think what we’re moving into now is like, even with psychedelics, like you’ve said, or other, there are other kinds of portals into that as well is accessing this higher consciousness within us.

And I think what I kind of guide my clients through at the moment is both parts exist. And we can’t seem to yet, certainly not, haven’t tried the psychedelics, but maybe that helps, but we haven’t seen to yet be able to eradicate this reptilian brain, this kind of prehistoric wired brain, which like you said, it seems to sabotage us because it doesn’t want us to move out of our comfort zone.

But what we can do is be aware of it. And we can consciously choose to lean into more, these kinds of higher consciousness, parts of our brain, of our wisdom and utilize that. So that’s what I really lead clients through is to be aware what’s coming up when, and just that conscious choice of where you want to be operating in.

But yes, it does seem like there are parts of our brain that want to sabotage us. But I also always say like, looking at that with love, like it’s, it’s trying to protect us in some way. And that always helps more that acceptance and love than trying to really put something away and being really afraid of it or shaming it. So I think as part of the human condition were it’s so contradictory and we’ve got these paradoxes. 

Giancarlo

Yes, that’s very well said. It’s not the feeling of maybe feeling anxiety or inadequate. Is more how you just accept it. What seems to be damaging is the reaction to the feeling, than the feeling itself.

Monika

Yeah a hundred percent or that, or the shame, like when shame comes up, it’s such a destructive emotion. And this is what leads into kind of where I bring, where tantra really influenced me because it’s this acceptance and welcoming of everything rather than pushing away or shaming. Like once we can accept all parts of ourselves as humans, all these things that come up it’s so liberating and really empowering also. 

Giancarlo

Yeah. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? So you went to a tantra festival and how did that affect your life view? 

Monika

Yeah. I went through a period of intense, personal development myself. And one thing I started exploring was tantrum. I did go to one kind of five day experience, which had a really deep impact on my life, but I’d also started going to Burning <an and being involved in that culture. So all of this together had a really deep impact on my life. And I think what it, what it did was, there’s this saying, ‘the fish doesn’t know it’s swimming in water, because it’s all that it knows and I think it’s like that with our conditioning. And we’re just living in this conditioned world, thinking that that’s just the way it is. And then you can have these experiences like I did with tantra, exploring a completely different view of yourself and how you can experience yourself or Burning Man like this complete culture where you suddenly see it makes this invisible conditioning, visible, and you can start to question it. 

So it really just kind of opened up my mind to questioning all my beliefs around sexuality or my beliefs around what emotions are good and bad. What’s acceptable, what isn’t acceptable. Where I felt shame about some things and where’s that come from? Why do I shame certain things? Where have I inherited that from? So it just really opened up this huge inquiry and this opening of possibilities of how I can view myself and experience myself and experience the world. But 

Giancarlo

So I’d love to push a little bit onto the specifics on both Burning Man and tantra. In which way, what specifically affected you of these 2 experiences? 

Monika

Well, okay. I think with tantra, what’s so different about tantra to other religions and spiritual movements is that I think, it’s the only one that I know of where sexuality is embraced rather than shamed or made bad or made dangerous. So that in itself, although you may not think that you’ve inherited those views. Once you dig into that on some level you have, you’ve pushed away certain desires. We have this wild nature within us and we’ve been told in so many ways that that’s not right and that’s bad and we need to be a certain way. 

Or even like at Burning Man we’ve inherited this norm that you have to wear clothes, right? And it sounds funny, but it’s like, where did we learn that from? And in Burning Man, that’s just completely turned on its head. You wear clothes or you don’t wear clothes. So I guess, especially around the body and what’s okay, and what isn’t okay and sexuality, because I think that’s where we’ve been shamed and conditioned the most. Both tantra and Burning Man blows that apart, or blew that apart for me. And I think once you can start to question your conditioning around that you can see how you’ve been conditioned in all these other ways as well.

Giancarlo

So that’s specifically come from the Judaeo-Christian morality on this idea that sexuality is something, almost dirty, all this sex-negative culture that we inherited from religion. I think this is super interesting. And also personally from tantra, my main takeaway of a couple of retreats that I did with my wife is that sexuality can also be something you do for being in service is not something you take necessarily, which I think I think was an interesting way to look at this energy. And it’s true, Margot Anand, this French tantra teacher used to say that all this philosophy and religion will tell you not to look below the waist because it’s dangerous. And this is finally a tradition, which is 5,000 years from India ayurveda and 4,000 years from China Lao Tzu that actually incorporates this energy in a philosophy of longevity and wellbeing and they should be taught in school, right? 

Monika

Yeah. A hundred percent. And you say from the waist down, but I think in Western society, we’ve almost been cut off from the neck down. We’ve kind of like champion psychology and the mind. And the other thing that I’ve really learned through tantra was this respect and honoring for the body, how much wisdom is in our body, what a magnificent tool it is for divine union, for learning, for reaching higher realms. So re-embracing the body as well and everything that we can learn from the body. 

Giancarlo

So I discovered you through Zoran who calls himself an evolutionary coach. So do you subscribe to this idea of being an evolutionary coach?

Monika

I’d love to know a bit more of that. What does that definition mean for you?

Giancarlo

So this idea of evolution is not just for me, being able to bypass and transcend your limiting belief into your full potential, but this idea of almost a paradigm shift. This idea of evolution is almost like in a Darwinian sense where you change not only your belief, but you’re really your model, super anti in society from a paradigm of fear into a paradigm of acceptance.

There’s a lot of talk since the sixties Western astrology has been talking about the age of Aquarius, and the Mayan has the end of the Mayan calendar, and an Indian astrology there is a different Kali Yuga, and different indigenous prophecies, like the hopi the corgi they all point at this moment in time as a tipping point in consciousness, where there is some sort of mass awakening. So that’s for me, when I think about evolution, I think about the next stage of human evolution, is a stage of acceptance, of collaboration. It sounds a bit corny, but of love instead of fear? Do you subscribe to these terms? Do you call yourself an evolutionary coach or not really? 

Monika

I don’t call myself an evolutionary coach, but I really resonate with the idea you’re explaining for sure. I do think we’re moving into a different paradigm, into a different time, away from more kind of masculine coded structures to more feminine, coded structures, collaboration, cyclical, community. Yeah. Love over fear. I definitely think that movement is happening. I guess my work, as I see it, working with individuals and with each individual shift, there is then a collective shift. So while I haven’t used that term, I can see how the work I do and the work we’re doing on individual levels. Altogether those drops form the ocean of this big shift that I certainly feel was happening. I definitely think you can feel that here in Ibiza where you get a collective of people in this kind of higher energy or working towards this new paradigm. 

Giancarlo

Yes. Can you elaborate a little bit? You mentioned the masculine versus the feminine. Can you elaborate a little bit on this distinction? To what extent do you incorporate that into your work? 

Monika

Yeah, it’s a framework I really love using again, it’s something I came across in tantra, but I think it’s a framework that can be applied to almost everything. And when I say masculine and feminine, it’s more kind of in the sense of yin and yang, that we can look at the world and different characteristics, different structures to be more masculine or feminine, masculine being more structured, maybe more individualistic, more about forward movement while the feminine being more cyclical, more about collaboration, more emotion led more intuition led.

So it’s not actually to do with men and women. It’s a set of traits or values, I guess. And we’ve just been living in a time where the kind of masculine values of achievement, and focus on the individual, and linear structure has been really championed. And that starting to shift now is starting to re-embrace the feminine and by that, I mean otherways, different ways, collaboration tuning into emotion and love. And it’s that paradigm shift from one. Not power over, but power together. Do the couple coaching. I’ve actually, no, I’ve never worked with couples and I don’t specifically tend to work on relationships, but it’s a super, super interesting area.

It’s definitely one I’ve been super interested in myself, but at the moment I just do one-to-one coaching, but also group coaching with a number of women set up to like 10 women in one group. 

Giancarlo

And do relationship dynamics come out in terms of limiting belief. Is there material you have to deal with, to allow for your clients to thrive?

Monika

In what sense do you mean?

Giancarlo 

I’m trying to have a sense, if you deal with couple material, do you have some of your clients that feel limited by their spouse or their or their marriage?

Monika

In all honesty. It’s not what comes to me the most, because most of the time with those issues, someone would seek a relationship coach specifically, but certainly I think for all of us, it’s like one of the main things that comes up like, our happiness is so much linked to our relationships. So normally when I work with people, it’s always a reflection of what’s going on internally. Like, what does that mean for you? Like if someone’s, if you’re not happy in a relationship or somebody’s triggering you, what is that bringing up for you?

It’s always coming back to the self and where we can learn from that. What awareness is that bringing through? So more so than working on the relationship itself, it’s looking internally and reflecting on, if something’s not working, something’s upsetting you. What does that mean for you? Is it a question of boundaries? Is it a question of, you’re not actually truly aligned to your partner, that you’re seeking something different? Is it a question of valuing yourself more? Those kinds of themes that come up really.

Giancarlo

Because, in America, there is a big movement. Now it’s very popular now called CNM, which is consensual non-monogamy. What do you think, (even now we’re going a little bit out of the strictly coaching). What, what’s your personal opinion on non-monogamy?

Monika

Yeah, it’s such an interesting area. I think what we’re moving into, which links to what we’ve been talking about. Like the shift to a new paradigm is no longer accepting norms that are enforced upon us, but finding our own truth. And I think that applies to relational structures also. So I think that we’ve kind of been fed this idea of monogamy being the only way. And now people are really starting to explore, well people have always explored other ways, but there is a kind of new age movement to explore other ways. And I think it’s really about it, comes back to all the work I do, which is tuning, getting to know your truest self, and finding what works for you.

And I think with consensual non-monogamy. If that structure is what is true for both people, then that’s wonderful. It’s just that there’s more people at play to make sure that it works and is true for everybody involved. But I think it is that we’re just moving out of a time of being told one way is good and another way is bad and just exploring all options and exploring what is right for us.

Giancarlo

We had a couple of professors on the podcast and they both talked about a deep polarization between monogamy and nonmonogamy. Specifically, they say that in the gender fluid movement, people don’t really identify so clearly about being male or female. What they’ve seen and which they welcome, the thing is very healthy. Specifically, especially Jorge Ferrer says that between monogamy and nonmonogamy, there is a third way, which is novogamy, which is this idea that sometimes you’re monogamous in a certain moment of your life, and sometimes you are not. And by depolarizing it, you sort of like take all these charge off, because for all the reasons we discussed the discussion is so charged the monogamous people, they call the non-monogamous sex addicts and unable to focus on one, and juvenile and then, when he’s like the non-monogamous, boring and scared about embracing the jealousy and it’s very charged. I think that this idea of being novogamous would allow a more calm and detached analysis of the phenomenon.

One word that caught my attention from your biography is the word archetypal. Can you elaborate a little bit on how you use archetypal material? 

Monika

Yeah. So this is something I also came across in my work in tantra, but this is exploring different archetypal energies that are within us. So this links back to the work of Carl Jung and he identified certain archetypes that exist within the collective psyche.

But how I really use this like day to day is that we have access to vey different contradictory parts of ourselves. And I work a lot, especially with women on this. But it’s only some of them that have been normalized and accepted. So for example, one archetype is the mother, we’re really familiar with this archetype, but like we see that’s how women are positioned in movies to be, or the maiden archetypes, like the young, innocent woman.

But there’s also an energy within us of a wild woman, or there’s the energy of like a deeply sensual woman, and in media and in movies, for example, the lover archetype has often been a little bit demonized, she’s ofen little bit dangerous, and the wild woman, we never really see this has been so repressed in our cultures.

So the reason I work with archetypes is to bring awareness to these different energies that we all have access to. So that we can see where we are completely out of touch with some of them. So that it really, for me, is about re-embracing every part of yourself. This is why I use this phrase so much, like expanding welcoming in more, this is the theme that I work with. So allowing ourselves to experience ourselves in all of our free, wild, various ways, rather than this tiny slither of experience that we’ve been allowed to experience.

Giancarlo

Because some of them have been repressed?

Monika

Exactly or made shameful, like to be really wild and as a woman, especially to not be, pretty and nice and say the right things and look nice, we’ve been taught that’s not acceptable to be really fully wild or even grotesque or angry, even just to show anger. It’s something that we’ve been shown in many different, subtle ways that isn’t ok. And so it’s reconnecting to that and allowing ourselves, who gets to decide who we can be! We are actually wild and free at our core.

So it’s such powerful work. It’s really, really liberating work when there’s this aha moment, when you realize I’ve been completely disconnected to that part of myself. But when you refeel it in some way, that you have some experience, where you’re like, oh wow that’s this really wild part of me, or that’s this really sexual central part of me. So re-embracing all of these parts so that we can be fully integrated. 

Giancarlo

Because what really blocks them is shame. 

Monika

Exactly. 

Giancarlo

And so what is the antidote to shame?

Monika

Love! Yeah, acceptance. I think self-love for me is, it’s not loving the parts of ourselves that are pretty and perfect. It’s looking at ourselves really in all of our colors in all of the light and realizing that that is beautiful. Like with our shadow, with our certain desires that might be strange with all our emotions that we feel anger sometimes, that we even have the ability to hurt another human. Like this is part of our human experience. Self love for me is in seeing all of that and accepting the full myriad of experiences of being a human, rather than just taking parts of it and making other parts not okay. 

Giancarlo

Yeah. There is this clinical psychologist called Brené Brown who says that the antidote to shame is embracing your vulnerability.

Monika

Right. 

Giancarlo

It’s only by feeling comfortable with your vulnerability, that you will then throw yourself in the mix and take risks and grow. Very interesting. So we’ve been together for 40 minutes. I know you can say any name, but if you had to pick one of your clients, what’s the most positive, best outcome you can share with us in terms of someone that came to you with lots of limiting beliefs and pessimistic about life, and then you create your magic and you send them away as a superwoman. 

Monika

I can think of a couple of examples. One was actually very much based around sexuality, even though I’m not a sexuality coach, but I did have a client come to me who had an awful lot of shame around that area and therefore some problems with her partner. So interesting you’ve reminded me of this because when you asked me that question earlier, it didn’t come to mind, but she really then reembraced this part of herself and now completely flourishes in it. So she actually really delving into experiencing herself sexually with her husband and having deeper intimacy. And she said to me that I helped her to uncover a part of herself that she hadn’t known before. So that for me is such a beautiful thing. That really is like one of my main aims. If I can help people to do that, then I’m feeling very happy. 

And in another, just to give another different example outside of that, I also have many clients actually that come to me living a status quo life, but they had this feeling like it’s just not quite right for them. They’re not fulfilled. And there’s often some kind of like, not quite shame, but there’s a yearning for something different, but then something that comes in that says, I shouldn’t be desiring that like, just stick to it, nobody else wants that and why be different? So at the end of working with one client in particular, she’s completely embraced what her vision is, what her unique vision for her life is, and is now creating a life that works for her, which is around living in two or three different locations, having a home business, living a really global and free lifestyle. While before she felt like she really had to live in this small town she was from, that’s what everybody else did. They’re all happy with that. Why aren’t I happy with that? She did actually feel a lot of shame that she wasn’t fulfilled with that and now I see her forging this life for herself that really is the life that’s going to deeply fulfill her. So it’s really, really beautiful to see when that happens. 

Giancarlo

Yeah. The first story you shared about the sexual empowerment. Reminds me I was recently in New York and a friend of mine wrote a book on how good hookups can be for you. It’s called Hookup without Heartbreak and there was a debate at the end then someone was suggesting that in our culture, especially in America, it is very puritan and we don’t believe that pleasure is therapeutic, but actually it is, right. Okay, great. So is there anything else that we didn’t cover that you want to share with our listeners? 

Monika

The only thing is, I think we were just talking before about what can happen in a group environment that might be different to one-to-one with personal development and coaching. So I guess on that, I would just share that again, it almost links to this, this shift in paradigm. There’s really powerful things that can happen one-to-one but as I’ve been working with women in groups, there’s something really, really amazing that happens in us witnessing each other, not just one-on-one but people witnessing each other in their experience, in their limiting beliefs, in their vulnerability, being seen and witnessed and supported when they’re showing their most authentic selves. And it’s something that I’m currently midway through a group program that I work with called stepping into your most empowered self.

And I really see how powerful it is, for that to happen in more of a group community container than one to one. So, yeah, this is really, really beautiful work as well, that that I wanted to touch upon.

Giancarlo

Because people mirror each other and you will recognize patterns and behavior in someone else and allow you to just accelerate the acknowledgment and the uncovering of the blind spots.

Monika

There is that but I think there’s also something in the whole discussion around shame. And I think when we see others. The women I’m working with at the moment are so beautifully sharing their beliefs, that they’re not worthy, that they’re not skinny enough, that they’re not intelligent enough and the shame they feel around that.

And there’s something so liberating and sharing that and being seen and heard. And then also for the other women to see that. And not share that shame in that they see the beauty in this other person. And so they can see how, when they shame themselves, it’s just themselves doing that as well.

If that makes sense, they can see other women that they really look up to feeling the same things, and it shows how kind of ridiculous it is in a way. So it’s super empowering to see that in other people and it really helps to reframe these feelings we have and put them in their place a little bit.

Giancarlo

Beautiful. Beautiful. Yes. Very well said. Thank you very much for your work. It is very important. The joke is that we’ve been coming to Ibiza for many years and the joke was there were always two types of people. Those that worked very well in the past, and then stop working completely, and those who have never worked.

But now I feel there is a third category of people that are serious professionals that are making a living in Ibiza bringing skills and competence like you. And so we’re very grateful for you to be here. And how can people find you? If they want to do some coaching with you or just follow you on social media.

Monika

Yeah. Thank you. The best thing at the moment is to follow me on Instagram and it’s, Monika.Aimie is my Instagram handle. And I also run this group program that I’ve mentioned a couple of times a year, so that’s stepping into your most empowered self and there’s a website for that, which is https://www.yourmostempoweredself.com

Giancarlo

Fantastico. Thank you very much for your time and looking forward to seeing you in a few months and see how everything is evolving for you.

Monika

Thank you so much, it’s been a pleasure.