Welcome to the show that empowers you to choose your own adventure in motherhood! Your host, Cat Caldwell Myers, certified coach and CEO of The Adventure Paradox, shares minisodes about her work with animals, children, and podcasting itself. When we aren't dropping minisodes, we deliver life changing interviews with special guests.
Each conversation will bring you ever closer to the adventure that is seeking you, inside your soul, regardless of your current circumstances (the paradox). Many have forgotten that the adventure is NOW - wherever we are, whatever is happening, and whoever we do it with, as much as it is all that we have done and all that we will do. Animals and nature help us do this, as do connecting with teachers and the principles of adventure.
We focus on goals and the realities that often keep us from attaining them, learning to master both in the fullness of "THE Adventure Paradox." Entrepreneurial Mothers, Caretakers and Women who crave elevated relationships and love animals and nature, will especially resonate with our message, community and offerings.
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Sometimes the adventure is not about going somewhere new. Sometimes it is about being willing to see something differently.
This summer has brought me a lot of change, from moving to Wyoming and starting a new chapter with our animals and our new health barn, to simply noticing how much freedom can come from letting go of old identities. Even something as simple as cutting my hair became a reminder that we are allowed to try on something new, release what no longer fits, and make room for new growth.
In this episode, I also share a story from my little corner of Idaho and Wyoming that got me thinking about something much bigger: how quickly we can fall into opposing sides, how easily we can be manipulated by clickbait and our own beliefs, and what happens when we forget there is a whole world beyond the two boxes we're being asked to choose from.
I talk about staying curious, finding humor in ourselves, letting go of rigid labels, and remembering that underneath our beliefs, opinions, roles, and identities, we are all still human. And maybe the adventure is learning how to stay connected to that truth, even when things get uncomfortable.
A few things to take with you:
What identity or belief might you be ready to loosen your grip on?
Where might you be seeing a situation as only one side or the other?
What would change if you paused before reacting to something designed to trigger you?
Can you find a little more curiosity, compassion, or even laughter in a difficult situation?
Try something new this week. A new haircut, a new perspective, a new attitude, or simply a new way of seeing yourself.
Most of all, remember that you do not have to wait for the perfect circumstances to experience the adventure. It is already happening, right here, right now.
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Hello adventurers! Oh my gosh, I have been meaning to connect with you for a while. It's been a crazy summer. Some of you know I'm now a Wyoming resident. I was an Idaho resident. For the record, my new home and my old home, 24 minutes apart. We live right on the border. It's actually one of two places in the state of Wyoming that you can only enter through another state. The other one is called Colony, Wyoming, and I believe you enter through Montana. I now live in Alta, Wyoming, and I'm so excited. And I'm here in our new barn. We're calling it the Health Barn. And I am so excited to start podcasting from here. We have so many visions for this place. Running retreats, oh my gosh, bringing people home into weekly connections here, teaching about horses here. We've already started our horse adventure coaching certification work here. So if you have been on the fence about doing that, you're gonna want to get in. And I feel so blessed. I am so excited about the work that we're doing here. I was eating raspberries this morning and letting the sun into my eyeballs with my sunglasses off, walking around the property, taking in the hollyhocks. Oh, it's such a good life, you guys. It's such a good life. And I can't wait to share more and more of it with you. But that's why I've been a little bit MIA. I have been up to my ears in alligators. Oh, speaking of ears, can you see my ears? I got a haircut. Look at it. I totally got a haircut. I'm so excited about it. Would you like a profile? Why yeah, of course you would like profile. Yep. Hop on the other side. Oh, she straightened my hair. My hair is naturally curly, so it's gonna curl up and be even shorter. But I am loving this cut. I was so ready to feel my neck again and my ears. And then I started letting it grow out a little bit over my ears because you know what? Up here in Alto Wyoming, it's a little bit chillier. We're that much further up the mountain. And I was feeling cold and I'm so excited I'll be wearing lots of scarves and turtlenecks, and that's totally my vibe. So short hair is the new me in my new abode. We could say it's a new mask, but I'm all about taking off the masks. And one way to take off a mask is to try on a new mask because then you can see I have been wearing the long-haired girl mask forever. And if you are a long-haired girl, all the power too. Yeah. If that's your vibe right now, right on. I missed having the freedom not to always have hair ties, not to have that rattiness. There are so many things about long hair that I love, but I feel like it carries all the energy of many, many years every year that it grew, obviously. And I was ready to cut that off. I was ready to have new growth, new hair, new experience. So that's my take on short hair. And it was a short summer for me. We packed so much in. I can't even believe the number of pictures I have from every day, basically, this summer. But moving 11 animals with two horse trailers and our kids and all of our stuff, it's been heroic. It's been heroic. Shout out to mountain movers, to my team there who helped us get in here. Ugh, love them. Maybe I'll see if I can put a code in there or something. But yeah, it's been good. We're here. I'm so stoked. I can't wait to share more with you guys. But I just wanted to pop in and let you know where I've been, what I've been doing in real time. Because a lot of the podcasts you're listening to right now were recorded a long time ago. The one that I dropped last Friday, I recorded, I think in January. I don't even remember. It might have been right before or after that. I don't even remember. But with As Dean about going to Morocco. And I think getting out of your comfort zone. Again, what's the mask of being an American? Well, it looks different when you're in another country than it does when you're in the middle of your own country, say on the 4th of July, right? So it's very interesting to travel. Travel has given me such a capacity of understanding myself, of understanding other cultures, and having a greater love and ability to speak the universal language of love and connection. Whether or not you speak the same language, whether or not you have the same view on things. Speaking of the same view on things, there have been some really interesting things going on in my small town. I just told you I live on the border of Idaho and Wyoming, so I'm going to share this one really quick. So there is a cool coffee shop here called Witaho, which just made national news. Now, it made national news because of some clickbait created by someone making a video of the owner saying, You have to leave my coffee shop. You're as bad as the KKK having a pro-life meeting here. I've asked you to leave. And that went viral. Now, what didn't go viral is that she had posted starting this group behind her 15-year-old son. And she's part of like the Charlie Kirk train and all of these things, and actually a lot of love for Charlie Kirk. So I just want to put that out there. And I was heartbroken when he died. And I'm not necessarily pro-life. And I'm not here to have a political conversation. I am here to share the story and how it affected me and what it made me think. So she posted on this like Facebook page that she wanted to meet and start this group behind her 15-year-old son, who's part of a college or high school group or something like that, Christian group. And he, the owner of the coffee shop, Widaho, said, Don't meet at my coffee shop, my private business. I don't support this in my private business. Now, he does a lot of like trans and everyone is welcome. He's got a GLPT, rainbow flag in the front, stuff like that. Kind of doesn't surprise me that he wouldn't want someone who's pro-life publicly advertising to meet at his business. Now, coffee shops are a bit of a gray area because that's where a lot of these conversations happen, but I'd never seen someone play a play like this. So they show up anyways. They order coffee, even though they're told, please don't order, we asked you not to have your meeting here. They begin the meeting and then he comes up and then they clickbaited him into that video. Then they posted it, then it went viral. Ooh. What a world we live in. The level of manipulation to play into someone else's beliefs. Now, how could that have gone differently? I was talking to my hairdresser about this because I got a haircut yesterday. She was like, I just would have ignored them. I would have let them do their thing and just not even talk to them about it. I just would have let it go. Hmm. That would have been a pretty boss move, actually. You could have called the cops quietly on them, too. Actually, that totally would have gone viral.
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Oh man. But bias in our businesses. I got my nails done. Actually, not these ones. I got these really cute toes done, but I gotta show off these really fun cat eye nails super quick. So I got my nails done, and there was a sign that says, we have the right to refuse business to anyone. And I would kind of thinking about that sign when I was a business owner, when I had a brick and mortar, I knew that that was my right, but I didn't actually post that. And I was thinking about this nail shop downtown Jackson Hole, right off the square, and what kinds of experiences they might have had of people maybe being inappropriate or whatever, to have to have a sign like that up. And again, English, a second language for a lot of the folks working there, was really interesting for me to think about and then have this other experience with Widaho happening at the same time. And so here's the thing: if you own a business, whether it's a coffee shop, fitness club, nail, salon, whatever it is, you do have the right to refuse service to anyone. Now, obviously, if you are getting more and more politically or religiously affiliated, that may trickle down into your business becoming, say, exclusively a Christian business or exclusively a liberal business per se. Like you will get a reputation based off of your beliefs, depending on how much of them you share. This is one reason why, especially in life coaching and in leading people home to themselves. I work really hard to keep my political opinions to myself. I don't think they're helpful. I think it's so easy for us to get really wound up in the other side and putting people into these two boxes. And I think that we live in a world that wants us to do that. And when we take the clickbait, we are falling for the trap. And we're not seeing, wait a second, there's a whole other world beyond the two boxes. The same with like beyond long hair or short hair. Dude, it's just hair, it's just a head, it's just me. Like my energy is so much freer. Look at our beliefs about one way or the other. I mean, just hear me now. I'm so much freer. Like, come on. Could we just have a moment to have some humor with ourselves? Laughter is the closest distance between two people. So that's what I'm after. I'm after some laughter. I like that. After some laughter. And I hope you're after some laughter today. If you are after some laughter, hang out with some children. This month we have a pretty big focus, as Dean talked about it a little bit with sharing his legacy with his son of coming from Morocco and doing these trips to Morocco. We have child entrepreneurs, we have the Miracle Children's Network and talking to celebrities. Some really interesting stuff. Talk about that separation. You're a celebrity, you're in the box, you're not, I'm not. Hey, we're all humans, in or out of the box. Like what? It's so interesting. And we have a lot of celebrities around here. And some people think of me as a celebrity because I make these videos, right? Like anyone can have their 15 minutes of fame right now. And it's just ridiculous. We're also still human. And we can be triggered, right? And we can be manipulated. And probably we're not going to be able to see it coming. And then we're going to have to work with them on the other side, which is what I'm watching this coffee shop do, which is pretty cool to see how they're working through it and very honestly posting about what happened and how they feel about it. And yeah, it's just really interesting. So, all that to say, last month, if you missed it, we were focusing on supplements on the go, how to stay healthy when summer is really fast. I was moving through all of that. So you didn't see a lot of solo episodes. I don't know if I did any in July. But here we are, and I will be back for more. My kids will be back to school in September, and maybe I'll even pop in before that. But otherwise, I wish you a happy, happy summer. Go get yourself a haircut if you haven't, and try on something new. Try on a new attitude, try on a new way of thinking, especially if you're struggling with the situation. Maybe consider not just the other side, but like how does maybe God see this or something bigger beyond this side or that side? Like, what just is? The sun. The sun rising. That just is. All right. Adventure on. Love you guys. Thank you for listening or watching if you chose to, and we will meet again. Bye bye.