Ep 86: Permission Coach Andrea Enright Tells All: It's OK to Want More & Here's How to Get it!

In this episode, Janelle interviews Permission Coach Andrea Enright, who shares her own struggles about following life’s script and coming up empty. She then explains how through insights, reflections and radical acceptance, she helps forty-something women who have the “mid-life meh’s” to R.I.S.E, and come home to themselves. Using her own haikus, shell analogies, accents, musical lyrics and unbridled passion, Andrea does NOT gloss over the difficulty of releasing our own deep cultural conditioning and evolving into radiance. There’s a nod to Winter Icely and Mad Men.

You’ll hear:

--Why she helps women do the hard shit: leave the guy, quit the job, change their life

--What Andrea had to unlearn from Hollywood, capitalism and Catholicism

--How Andrea’s coaching and the R.I.S.E. model helps women find freedom

--Real life success stories of transformation

--Why you’re not alone in this feeling of “mid-life meh”

--How permission starts small--color your hair purple, stop working on the weekends, start ice skating again!

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 00:01

Struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth. If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel left alone along the way we got you. Hi Andrea, hi Janelle And hi rave hearts. Welcome to permission to be human. And we're excited. This is a new episode format for you today and the next time, in between our series of 12 episodes per question, we have had a bunch of brave hearts ask us to tell us a little bit more about what it is that we do. So on this episode, I'm going to be interviewing Andrea, who is a permission Coach, and we're going to hear about her journey, how she got here, what it is that she does, who is it she works with, and what that all means. So I'm super excited. It's an opportunity for us to all get to know Andrea a little bit better. Yay. Hi, brave hearts. I'm here like I always am. Thanks for listening, and I'm excited to tell you all about it today. Yeah, so let's just dive in. Andrea, you call yourself a permission coach. Can you please let us know what it is that means? What

Andrea Enright 02:16

does that mean? I help people do the hard shit, leave the partnership, quit the job, not have the child, start the business, move to Portland, whatever it is that cultural conditioning has told you, no, you can't do that. You can't want that. That's not okay. That's against the rules. It's not supposed to look like that, and in the process of helping them do this, I am helping people come home to themselves. I am giving them permission to choose themselves, instead of waiting to be chosen. It is not not an easy journey. It's not a journey for the faint of heart. There's tons of discomfort, tantrums, tears, and I'm holding their hand and navigating the whole way so that they can, in fact, come home to themselves and change their life.

Janelle Orion 03:17

Beautiful as someone who has witnessed you and myself on this journey. I believe everything that you're saying, and I know well how painful it's been. I also know the beauty that is on the other side. So I would love for you to subscribe like the journey that you took to get here, to be able to support others and giving themselves permission. Wait, first, I just need to say, like, Wait, fuck, does the journey ever end? Oh no, it doesn't actually Good point. Good point. I hate to start with that bad news, brave hearts, but you have more trust as the journey goes on, because you've seen the other side of things. But it's still hard, like it's still uncomfortable, it's still edgy, it's still sticky and messy, and so I am still on this journey. Maybe every day there's this, you know, there's like phases, plateaus, you might call them, where I'm running around on the plateau, dancing, and then I see another mountain. So, but what I just want to pause you with that, because I think it's such a good point, is that you're not actually offering destinations of like, oh, here you're gonna, like, check this box, right, for anyone that you're working with, because you yourself know, and I know that there isn't a box to check in this journey of giving yourself permission to change your life, yeah,

Andrea Enright 04:36

there isn't a box to check. That's totally true. And in fact, I talk about that later. It's you're not like, Stop checking the boxes and start opening them, right? We're just gonna keep open boxes, opening boxes. We're just gonna keep opening boxes, and pretty soon we're gonna have a room full of boxes. And sometimes we get to throw the box away, otherwise we're creating a total fucking mess. But it's your mess, and it's beautiful. And while there's no ribbon wrapped box, it's just a collage of your life. So yeah, how did I get here? Well, I am from a small town in the Midwest. I was raised by loving parents. I was fortunate to have a very stable home, and I'm very grateful for all of that. I was also raised with what I call now, like the trying so hard but terrible trifecta of Hollywood, capitalism and Catholicism. Hollywood told me fairy tales and forever are real, yo, and so is happily ever after. Catholicism told me, whoever dies without getting divorced wins, and capitalism told me, achieve more and buy more, and you will feel better and like while those in moderation, actually, no, I take that back, like I would say, capitalism and moderation is okay, but in general, those messages just were ultimately leaving me disillusioned. But you know, I followed the script. I did what I was told. I worked hard, I found a good job, I found the right guy. Got married, you know, I had my my child, and I wanted to do all of that for the first 25 years or so. I was like, I really played that part well. But by age 30, like my writing business and my marathon training runs and my banana republic purchases, like, all the things I was doing right were leaving me unfulfilled. And I was like, like, what gives like, What do you mean? Like, I'm supposed to be fulfilled. This is like, I'm supposed to be happy. But it was empty. And so my husband and I, in a huge departure from conventional life, shut down our lives, sold our cars, rented out our house and joined the Peace Corps.

Janelle Orion 07:02

And And how old were you for that when you joined the Peace Corps? I

Andrea Enright 07:06

was 30 when we did that, so I was like early. It wasn't in the midlife yet. I would say it was early. And we spent two and a half years in Bulgaria, and then we couch surfed and hitchhiked across the Middle East and North Africa for 10 months after crazy experience, so amazing. And I returned to Denver, and I stayed in a fairly familiar framework, I would say, for a while. You know, I moved into this little yellow house with red trim and Platt Park and and it turns out, though, that Peace Corps was just the beginning of questioning everything, right? And I got more confident as I went right. I was a Braveheart. I was like, oh, at 36 I had my daughter in a birthing center instead of a hospital, right? Much the sugar of my mother and my mother in law, but everything turned out great. And at 39 I started wearing cowboy boots, even though I don't ride horses, because I was like, What the fuck I can wear cowboy boots if I want, you know, little permissions. And then at 36 I sent no at 40 I sent my daughter to a school where they don't teach reading until third grade. And then at 41 I started my second business. And at 42 I started wearing a cowboy hat a lot. And so my freedom came in these little bits and spurts. I

Janelle Orion 08:23

love that. I love that you're just calling out one the question, everything we know we've done a podcast on this right question, everything, especially your mother's advice. And I love that you're naming the little permissions, right? We often think of like changing our life as these like big moments, but you're calling out that you're you gave yourself little permissions to change your life, and it sounds like you built off of those. Yeah,

Andrea Enright 08:45

exactly because I had to start small sometimes, and it was amazing what those small permissions gave me the freedom to do. I felt more like myself. And then at 42 my husband and I were kind of meh about her relationship. It's like we still liked each other and we still loved each other, and we built this, this beautiful life, and we were, you know, taking our daughter to swim team and hosting happy hours in our neighborhood, and doing all the things, but we we somehow, like, didn't see each other anymore. And Esther Perel says, like, when two become one that you can't there's no one to connect with. And I think we had, just like, despite very good intentions, to remain our individual selves, we had glommed on to each other and so. So when I felt some chemistry with an old flame, I dared to ask the question, Will polyamory ruin our relationship or enhance it? And it was nerve wracking. It was hard, but I knew I wanted more vibrancy, more connection. I wanted to feel alive. Poly is not for the faint of heart. We know that we've discussed it many times on the podcast, so fuck. Hard, so much discomfort, like, and people didn't understand what they were doing we were doing. I mean, we got all sorts of just, like, judgment and looks. And

Janelle Orion 10:10

this is also, like seven years ago, right when, like, you know, poly might be for some poly could be seen as trending right now, but this was at a time when it was not trending at all. Yeah, it was nine years ago, nine years ago, and I realized that beneath the surface of my marriage, while seemingly very honest and we were traditionally honest with each other,

Andrea Enright 10:33

we were not being honest with ourselves. There was resentment, there was Unspoken desires, there was a dynamic that had been formed in our 20s that somehow no longer applied. Our Stories needed updated, and it wasn't working for us anymore. My new partner was a soul mirror, and he gave me two important gifts. One, he reflected me back to me, and I thought, Oh, I'm really awesome. Like, I need to be myself more. I need to fully express myself. I need to be singing with the car windows down, and I need to dance more. You need to wear my cowboy hat to parent pick up and like, I felt more alive and I felt more like myself, which was amazing. Yeah, I love that. He also reflected the shitty parts of me, right? He reflected my passive aggression, he reflected my overreaction. He reflected how much I talk, and I saw the parts of me and him, and I thought Shit, I gotta do something about those Whoa, and my road to self improvement began.

Janelle Orion 11:35

So I want to pause right there is what I'm hearing. Is he reflected you back to you. So I'm not hearing he told you to change. You saw yourself in him, and you said, oh, there are parts of me that I want to change

Andrea Enright 11:50

exactly that's exactly, right. He did not ask me to change. I was just like, Oh, I'm seeing myself in a different way, and I'm ready to change and evolve. And that was like the biggest gift from the universe, I will forever be grateful for that gift. So meanwhile, that was happening, my husband and I repaired a lot of our diamond dynamic. I say repair as though it's like took three days. It actually took six years. It's really hard, but we became committed to a conscious relationship, one where we supported each other's expression, where we supported each other's becoming and we were actually more committed to the conscious relationship and the consciousness of each other, rather than the marriage container itself. Again, I say that easily, and it was a long awakening. We actually came back to each other full time for a while, but ultimately, while my husband and I had actually created something really beautiful, and we were so actually pleased with everything we had done in our life, we determined that what I craved the most he could not give me, and what he craved the most I could not give him. And so we have decided to get divorced in love, which is really challenging for me to come to the conclusion that I actually wanted a divorce, because I had a lot of shame and guilt wrapped up in that. But here's the real clincher, is that I am so grateful that I have already come home to me. I already gave myself permission to reduce the CO dependency my relationship, come home to myself, choose myself, instead of waiting to be chosen, instead of looking and for someone to complete me, I am already complete. And so if I have already done that work, and that makes this transition so much easier, not easy, but easier. Ah,

Janelle Orion 13:56

just gonna chime in here that I'm so, so proud of you as a friend who's been on you with you on this journey for eight of these years, the last eight years, to know what it took and watch this ride of continually like going deeper, uncovering more layers, discovering the parts of yourself that you totally loved so much so that you're willing to take a stand for them.

Andrea Enright 14:19

Mm, hmm. Thank you, yeah, and I needed permission. I had to give myself permission, and it wasn't easy road. And I want to make it easier for other people.

Janelle Orion 14:28

Is the easier part? I know we're going to go get into how you do that, but is it? Because I'm sure everyone's road is different, right? It's not like, Oh, they're going to be on your road.

Andrea Enright 14:37

Yeah, everyone's road is different, but I have found that it comes back to some of the same principles. Ultimately, there is a cultural conditioning that you are carrying. It could be about what flowers you plant. It could be about where you live. It could be about when you go home for Christmas. It could be about how you wear your hair. It could be about what you do for a living. Thing. It could be about how many kids you want to have, or it could be about what you eat for breakfast, but we're all living it's sometimes very contained, and that makes us just contract, and that doesn't allow for the real life. And so I think over time, I've really learned to spot the places where you're actually not giving yourself permission, because I've done it for myself. And when we give ourselves permission to do small things, we realize that our cage opens from the inside out, and we actually can exit that cage. And you know what? There might be a bigger cage, and we'll address that later, and then we get to exit from that cage, because there's definitely been a series of cages that I have had to to leave

Janelle Orion 15:47

beautiful, brave hearts. Do you hear that your cage opens from the inside out?

Andrea Enright 15:53

And I wanted to say, keep giving you examples, like, maybe you have to stop working on the weekends. Maybe you want to color your hair purple. Maybe you want to start ice skating again. Maybe you want to start knitting again. Maybe you want to quit your job like, I mean, I didn't even talk about this, but I basically had to quit my secure corporate contracting gig, even though it was making really good money, because at the end of each client, I was just feeling like I was working at the cutting edge of mediocrity. It wasn't for me, like I'm just like, No, I just am doing this thing, and it's really good for a while, and then I eventually get bored and met about life. So that's when I started my business. And so your permissions can start so small, and sometimes they're just as little as wearing that fringy pink free people sweater in the closet that's been hanging there that you're just like, well, it's not really me, and it's too edgy. And what will people think? And maybe I don't want people to think I want attention, and it's too big and it's too loud and like, take up fucking space, right? I have actually learned this from my choir also. Kathleen said, Actually, one day, Kathleen, we see you. Take up space. Yes, take up space. No bigger. Andrea, yes, right now, sing. It's your turn. And she just kept telling me that. And I've done solos because of it, even though I do not have an amazing voice, I assure you, like I'm not a singer, like I'm okay. So I was really encouraged to take up space, and that's what I'm doing for you. Okay, I think you you should ask, yeah, who do, who do I work with?

Janelle Orion 17:32

Let's take a breath, brave hearts, you just got this summary. We've had, what, 90 episodes where, like, Andrew and I have shared our story drip by drip by drip, but if you are getting a summary in seven minutes, so there you go about Andrea. So Andrea, who is it that you work with?

Andrea Enright 17:49

Yeah, I work with people in midlife who are having this midlife meh. This is a fucking thing. People like, I see you, I hear you. You are not alone. Other people have it too, but they're afraid to talk about it. They're just like, How can I complain like my life is beautiful. I'm not sick. I have loving people around me. I did all the things I have a good job. How can I possibly complain about this? I'm working with people who are saying that, who feel blah or empty, and intellectually, they can't understand it, because in their brain, in their linear checkbox brain, everything lines up from the outside, their life looks amazing.

Janelle Orion 18:34

So interesting that you're saying that because I remember when I first left my job after 15 years, I before I left it, I was talking to a friend, and I was like, oh, it's like, I feel like I'm complaining, but these are such first world problems, yes, and yeah, my friend reflected back to me. He's like, well, but you live in the first world, so it's okay that you have first world problems you don't. Yeah, I was like, comparing myself to those who like are less fortunate someplace else, he's like, but you don't live in those other places. You actually don't like. You live in the first world. You do come from, you know, a family of education, of money that allows you some privileges, but that doesn't mean you don't have problems.

Andrea Enright 19:16

Yeah, it's okay to want more. I think that's a great point. We do live in the first world, and how amazing it is it that you have this beautiful life, and you can be grateful for that, and you can want more.

Janelle Orion 19:30

Breathe through that. Brave hearts, breathe into that one

Andrea Enright 19:32

yes, yes. And so intellectually doesn't work, but something inside doesn't feel right, something in your stomach doesn't feel right, something in your body doesn't feel right, and it might have been giving you this message for years, but you haven't been listening, and that's okay, like, I like, forgive yourself for not listening, because sometimes you have to give that message many times to actually take heed and do something about it. When it's time, it's time, you might be hitting a breaking point. Point like I just can't do this anymore. And it's not selfish to want something different for yourself, because when you become a happier person, a more alive person, a more vibrant person, a more permission giving person, everyone else benefits, because your relationship with them is better, your children, your mom, your partner, your neighbors, your friends, they will see this difference in you.

Janelle Orion 20:28

Preach it,

Andrea Enright 20:30

preaching it, preaching it. Angio,

Janelle Orion 20:37

what is your process?

Andrea Enright 20:39

Yes, maybe I should talk about the container. So the container really is that I'm holding you in this brave space. I'm holding you in something I used to see in Janelle called radical acceptance, like anything is okay, like there is no judgment. I am offering reflections. I am offering insights. I'm offering support. I am offering human science concepts, and we'll navigate this journey together with embodiment and agency. So you can come home to yourself. It's not easy, it's a scary road, and I'm totally with you in that fear and anxiety that can take hold of you.

Janelle Orion 21:21

So do people typically work with you like it's online and for like how long it

Andrea Enright 21:27

is, a six month container. We meet twice a month, and I am gonna hold you with emails and snail mail and songs all along the way, as well as talking to you online. I do meet some of my clients in person when it worked, and we're going to slowly go through so that you can rise, and that rise, that rise is an acronym. It's our rediscover the real you. It's I it's identifying and releasing your cultural conditioning. And that takes much longer than you think, right? You think, Oh, I've been culturally conditioned to go to church. I don't go to church anymore. There are things so fucking deep in there that you're like, oh, shit, I don't even want to be doing this anymore. So that's I S is specify exactly what you want. This will you will fight this in the beginning, right? But we're going to specify exactly what you want, and then E is for embracing impermanence and emerging into the world again. That's R, rediscover the real you. I identify and release cultural conditioning. S, specify exactly what you want. E embrace and permanence and emerge. And I'm gonna kind of just walk you through some of the components of each of those stages. Okay, beautiful, yeah, okay, so in the R first, we're rediscovering the real you. And I get it, you're just like, No, I know who I am because I thought I did like. I was like, I'm independent. I like these things. I started my own business. I like to dance like, I definitely thought I knew who I was, and I did to an extent. But maybe it's like, Doug says there's like this last he said 10% I think there's maybe 20% that I actually wasn't acknowledging was me, and this is about developing a stronger relationship with yourself and going through the discomfort of that. It's about spending time alone. Yo, so something I did not do, and I think you didn't either a lot in the beginning of your right?

Janelle Orion 23:39

I was an extrovert, and I love to socialize and be around people. Yeah,

Andrea Enright 23:43

I was out all the time. I was building new relationships. And one of my haikus, one of the first ones I wrote, I did 100 days of Haiku, I'm sure, brave hearts, you've heard about this. And one of my favorite haikus is, saw an old friend yesterday, couldn't quite place her. Wait, that's a mirror. You are your own best friend. And this is was spun off. I have to give credit to Elizabeth Gilbert, who talked about seeing herself in a mirror and recognizing herself as her friend. I

Janelle Orion 24:12

just want to pause on that if you get nothing else out of working with Andrea is to figure out that you are your own best friend. Damn. That is amazing. Yeah. And

Andrea Enright 24:23

can you get to a place where you are just really enjoying your own company? You are looking within I remember Kimberly Joy said that actually that she likes her own company. That's what allows her to drive across the country and stay in different Airbnbs. Like, good for you, girl. And so this is really about spending time alone. Something else I bring up is Namaste. Like the light in me sees the light in you, we tend to focus that on the light in you, but it starts with the light in me. What is the light in you? So there X. Sizes around that, and we really spend a lot of time rediscovering the real you. The next part is permission to identify and release your cultural conditioning. And these are habits. They're rules. It's an understanding of the destruction and the unlearning that has to happen before the learning can begin, which really is just such a bitch. Like, seriously, I have to go backwards a bunch first. I have to unlearn this shit, which is, like it took years to get in my heart and in my brain. And so you'll get permission to release how life is supposed to look and open up to receive and create a life that you love

Janelle Orion 25:44

if you're if you're watching this, for whatever reason. I know a few of you do watch on YouTube like you can see me laughing because Andrea just makes me laugh so hard. So you're also getting humor and joy and snarkiness and sassiness when you're hanging out with Andrea, because she just tells it like it is. She is not glossing over and being like, oh, everything is like, light and love and unicorns and rainbows. She's like, not, it's not, it's fucking hard. And so like, if it's hard for you, like, she's gonna totally support you and embrace you and help you. Like, just like, wallow in celebration of the hardness of the whole thing. I want

Andrea Enright 26:21

to point out an example of releasing cultural conditioning, because these are Slippery little suckers, like, you can you get the concrete ones that are obvious, like, oh, I don't have to get married. I don't have kids. Great. Those are big. But something that Janelle taught me is letting go of form. And this just keeps coming up again and again and again. And I the hardest part for me of releasing cultural conditioning was that I had to let go of the form that I thought love was supposed to look like, because I got love a particular way for a long time in my life. And I'm like, okay, great, this is love. This is what love looks like. Let's wrap up in a box. Let's put it in a curio cabinet, and let's close the door and let's keep it there forever, right? Except love looks all sorts of different ways. We know this now, from our expanded world, love can look so many different ways, and I've had a huge challenge in my life with someone whose love does look really different. But by saying no, I don't want the love this way. I want it this way, I am actually denying myself of love. So that is a way I have released cultural conditioning, and I have to practice it every fucking day because I forget. So then there's that, what I'm hearing is that,

Janelle Orion 27:37

right, there's an expectation, right? Like, there's this part of this conditioning is that, Oh, love it. There's an expectation that something is going to look a certain way, and then you let it go. And I just want to jump in that letting go inform is not actually my thing. I learned it from winter icely. So we're just spreading the Good News, everyone all around, just giving each other credit. Love

Andrea Enright 27:57

that. Okay? And, you know, I think this is a lot of the cultural conditioning around fairy tales and forever, and you know what you're supposed to do. And one of the, another one of the haikus I wrote was, I'm a princess locked in a tower of sadness. But I know parkour, right? So really, like I did feel. I remember sitting on the porch once in the dark in the morning and being like, I'm in a fucking tower of sadness. Someone come and fucking help me. I'm like, oh yeah. Like, no one is coming to save me except me. And that is ultimately what I have learned, which is, it doesn't mean I don't still want it sometimes. But you know,

Janelle Orion 28:41

there's parts of you that want to be saved, yes, someone else, yeah, right. And

Andrea Enright 28:45

it's okay at some point for someone else to save you, as long as you know you can save yourself. And I think ultimately this stage, this identify and release your cultural conditioning stage, is also about letting go, right? It's really about like, oh, that doesn't serve me anymore. I have to let that go. And these are the limpets. The limpets the shells that I love in Costa Rica limpets are these little shells that attach themselves onto rocks at the risk of being destroyed. Basically, they love little suction suction cups, and they hold on for dear life to those rocks and the the water keeps knocking itself against the rock, and they're holding on. They're holding on. Nope. They're like, Nope, I can't let go. Nope. This is my life. This is my life. This is my life. And I have really learned that I have to let I have to let go. Okay? S stands for specify your desires. And Don Draper and Mad Men said people want to be told so badly what to do that they will listen to anyone. This is an awful sentiment, but I do think it's true, because we really get uncomfortable going within to find out who we are. But when we do, when we take space, it might take a day, it might take a year, we actually figure out exactly what we want. Yeah, and after you do that, I coach you to know which voice to listen to, because there are a lot of voices in your head, not all the ones that serve you, but you have to discern, like really, your evil twin from your inner witch. And that is a that's an exercise and an experience in itself. We will specify your desires and figure out exactly what you want so you can make conscious decisions moving forward. E stands for embrace and permanence and emerge. And the Haiku for this is uncertainty sucks, but wait, could I be missing the bliss of the blur. I was on a balcony when I was in the Peace Corps. I had not put my contacts in, and I was looking out at this alley behind my building. Nothing fucking romantic about it at all, like Patti Smith never had coffee here. There's no curlicues. It's just gravel and a bunch of shitty bikes. But I couldn't see it because I know my contacts in everything was blurry. And I was like, Ooh, this is kind of pretty. It's kind of pretty without my contacts. Am I missing the bliss of the blur? I want so badly to know what's gonna happen, so badly to know exactly when we're gonna have dinner, that I think sometimes I'm missing the bliss of the blur. So I teach people to embrace that impermanence and to emerge into the world so that they can relate with people from this new state of being. It is permission slips. It is big. Is going within. But you, when you do come home to yourself, you will be free, and that is ultimately the result so amazing.

Janelle Orion 31:42

Yeah, so beautiful. So something. I just want to point out brave hearts. If you were someone who actually, like, knows, pop culture references, Andrea is another, that's another reason why you want to work with Andrea, because I'm someone who doesn't. So I know I miss a lot of what she says, saying when I get them, I laugh so hard, and she is chock full of them, and so you can get to see your life through this colorful, visceral, yeah, like, metaphorical

Andrea Enright 32:11

way. Thank you. Yeah, there's so many songs. I'm like, I can't even decide. I'm like, It's my life. By Bon Jovi, you can go your own way. By Fleetwood Mac, like, I want to see you be brave. Sara Bareilles, freedom. George Michael, like we could keep going. This is how, actually, pop culture did serve me, not Hollywood, but the songs of lyrics of songs. Okay, so the outcomes, permission to make big changes, elimination of that meh feeling, tools to be brave in your relationships, skills for listening to your inner witch and not your evil twin, wisdom about how to let go of so much so many outcomes to this process,

Janelle Orion 32:52

amazing. I know you have worked with people already. Can you give us an example of someone's journey with you? Yes. So

Andrea Enright 32:58

I have worked with a couple women about quitting their secure corporate jobs, and this was a long journey. Yo. So Kelly's life looked really great. She was single, she played ukulele, she liked hiking with her dog. She had a set of friends, and she was kind of a big corporate HR gal at a company, and she loathed her job, and she'd been in HR for a long time, and it clearly matched her skills, but she had, like, I don't know, 72 direct reports, and she was just like, I can't do this. Like, I'm not good at doing this. It's too hard. Like, it's impossible. I can't be present with everyone. But she came from a family that really wanted her to keep that job, right? Her parents were like, What are you gonna do? You gonna like, how you can't quit? You make good money, you need bonuses, like, you need promotions, and you have health insurance? Yeah, you have health insurance, right? And it's funny, her, her family was from the East Coast and and they were just like, like, she could channel them. She was just like, you can't quit your job. What are you gonna do? You're gonna teach. You're gonna write, you're gonna stop you're gonna write. You gotta keep your job. Wait, this is really important. Like, this was what her life looked like. And she was like, Dude, how I can't do this, like my parents will kill me. But she also knew she didn't feel good and she didn't feel right about it. And so over the course of several months, I got her to return to herself, and I said, Kelly, what do you really want to do? And she's like, I want to get a PhD in Russian literature, right? And I coached her through the goodbyes and the script for letting go of the job and what she was gonna tell people when they're like, What are you doing? You don't have a job. You don't have a job, another job set up, and over time, she eventually quit her job, and she is now getting a PhD in Russian literature so that she could teach. Yay. I'm so proud of her, like, and I've coached other women in the same boat who are like, wow, I didn't know that I was in a cage. I knew I was on the wrong path, but I didn't know how to how to course correct. And so this, this is the same thing with moving with with spending less time with your family, and with leaving a relationship

Janelle Orion 35:21

so beautiful. Yeah, what I hear you is like having people be just less alone, ultimately, right, guiding them, you know, to see themselves more clearly and then be less alone in the moments where that feels scary Exactly, exactly,

Andrea Enright 35:37

because they are going to go through scary and uncomfortable times, but I'm there with them and giving them, cheering them on, and giving them reasons like reflecting back to them. I heard you say this. I heard you say this. There are scientific points that back this up. It's not just you, it's it's so many people

Janelle Orion 35:56

incredible. Well, I know there are some testimonials that people have said about you that I would love to read a couple of them. Yeah, sure. Great. Okay, so one of them is when I met Andrea, I was feeling completely trapped. I felt like I'd done all the right things, but wasn't feeling the right way, and was afraid to deviate from that path admitting what I actually wanted was alarmingly difficult. Andrea helped me stay the course, and I'm so grateful. Yeah, that was from Kelly, another one, I will be forever grateful that I chose to invest in myself and my future by working with Andrea. Our sessions were full of ahas and building a foundation to start my journey. I didn't know what was next, but I knew I had to stop traveling the path I was on. Thank you for helping my heart to be brave. You, you fellow uncaged bird, you. And that was from Katie. After hiring Andrea, I went from being stuck and scared to courageous and confident. She helped me tap into my energy, intuition and wisdom. Now I feel calm, less reactive, and more energetic. Working with her has dramatically changed my life. In only six months. I highly recommend her, and we've got one more here. That one was from TD, we've got one more from CA, I'm so grateful for you. Andrea, you helped me understand that I was an empath and living in a parasitic relationship with a narcissist. I am learning to protect myself, get my power back. You helped me find a new mindset and create a new vision for my life.

Andrea Enright 37:37

Yay. Such a privilege to work with these people like I love it. I love watching their transformation. And I will say one more thing that came up as I was listening to those testimonials, that I think there are a lot of coaching programs, there's a lot of medicine journeys, there's sound baths and meditation. And I fear that sometimes these techniques encourage people to go outside of themselves to find the answers. There's nothing wrong with any of that. I've done all of it, and it can be amazing and it can be beneficial. But the most important thing about my approach is that we are actually going within, like, all the answers are inside you, like, you don't have to buy anything, you don't have to go on a weekend, you don't have to, you know, have this amazing out of body experience. And then, you know, the henna falls off, and you close the retreat doors, and you drive back home, and you're just like, sucking traffic again, right? This is something that is inside you, and I can help you find it. What

Janelle Orion 38:42

I hear in that Andrea is that you don't have the answers, you just have the insights to help them find their way home to themselves. Yeah, that's

Andrea Enright 38:51

true. Just like we say on the podcast, we don't have answers, we just have insights. And this is why we started the podcast, to give people permission to be human, permission to want what they want, permission to do, what's right for them.

Janelle Orion 39:07

So beautiful. So Andrew, what? How can people reach out to you

Andrea Enright 39:11

if you want permission visit the boot factor.com. That's T, H, E, B, O, O T, F, A, C, T, O, r.com, the boot factor.com. There you can sign up for a permission slip session. You can follow me on sub stack. You can follow me on Instagram, or you can sign up and begin the permission toward a free your life. Yeah,

Janelle Orion 39:33

thank you Andrea for sharing about your journey your life and how you're you know, taking the the hard path that you walked and turning it around to be in service to others, to help them find their way home to themselves. So

Andrea Enright 39:46

yay, I can give you permission. Brave hearts, I love you. We love you. Bye. Hey. Brave hearts, looking for permission, work with us. Yes. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website, permission to be human. Dot live. You.