How to Actually Feel Alive in Business and Motherhood with Heather Chauvin

Because number one, I do not believe in hard things. I believe things are emotionally uncomfortable. Welcome to This Mother Means Business, the podcast where ambition meets motherhood and success has no limits. I'm your host, Laura St. Clairn, and if you're a mom who's passionate about building your own business, you're in the right place. Whether you're launching your first startup from your kitchen table, scaling your side hustle during nap time, or growing your established business while juggling family life, this show celebrates the incredible women who refuse to choose between being an amazing mother and a fierce entrepreneur. Each week, we're diving into real stories, practical strategies, and yes, a little tough love when you need it most. I'm here to push you past the excuses and give you permission to build your business and live your life exactly on your terms. Because here's what I know for sure. When a mother means business, extraordinary things happen. So let's dive in and get down to it. Welcome back to another episode of This Mother Means Business, today on the show I have a new friend, the incredible Heather Chauvin. She is a leadership coach. She is the host of the emotionally uncomfortable podcast, which I might be also referred to as the emotionally unstable podcast. Well, we are going to talk about so many things today. Heather was introduced to me from a business owner, from Bridgett, from Gut Personal, because we're both investors and Gut Personal. And here we are having our first official chat. It's always fun for me when I have someone on the show that I've never talked to before, because it's like what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to come up, but Heather, welcome to This Mother Means Business. Thank you. Yeah, it's like the modern day way to make friends. It's like start a podcast and invite people to a podcast and just have this like formal in-depth, heart to heart conversation. It's like dating on steroids. Honestly, selfishly, podcasting has been the best thing for that. My network has grown exponentially. I've met some really incredible people. And while I'm so loving the ability to bring these conversations to our listeners, selfishly, we wouldn't be having this conversation if it wasn't for the podcast. So I'm very, very grateful for that. And I'm grateful for you for coming and sharing some of your magic with us. You have the coolest energy. And I can see why Bridgett was like, Heather, are you in law or need to connect? But before we dive into all the good stuff and there's going to be a lot of good stuff today, do you mind introducing yourself for our listeners who might be meeting you for the first time? Yeah. It's funny, because every time someone asks me this question, I'm always like, I'm a soul having the human experience at this point. That is how I feel. And I'm sure we'll get into my story, and my journey, and everything. But right now, today, I really focus on helping women become well-resourced, but not just strategically with, if you're in business, everyone's like, I want to scale. I want more money, I want more profit. I really focus on the time and energy piece and the connection piece as well. Because most women build businesses for freedom. And then they just kind of trap themselves in this. They do the opposite of freedom, because they don't actually know how to feel free. So I find the energy leaks mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and then kind of help them reverse engineer where they need to focus first to create real freedom and real alignment while also going after the physical money that they're after. So many people build them self-cages. And I have had periods of time in my entrepreneurial journey built myself a cage and trying to get out of it can be really hard if you're not willing to look at all of the reasons why that happened in the first place. So I'm very excited, but before we dive into all of that good stuff, tell me a little bit about how we ended up here. Because I feel like if you're doing that work, I'm willing to bet that you maybe built yourself a version of that cage, or have you always been a person that's able to see these sort of big picture things. Well, you don't have like, it's like your breakdowns to the breakthroughs. And of course, we teach what we need. I like to say needed to learn. And yes, it's always repetition while you're still in it. But yeah, when I-- so here's the interesting part. So my oldest, I have three boys. They're 2015 and 12. And a lot of people are like, you have a 20-year-old? And I'm like, yeah, you can do the math. I was 18 when I had my son. I was super young. And I just remember looking at him for the first time, thinking, I don't want to become a statistic, and I don't want to fail us. I was a single mom on government assistance, living literally in my mother's basement, figured out how to get an education, went to university, had zero university credits in high school. And in high school, was that underachiever? It was definitely entrepreneurial and rebellious, but I wasn't nurtured or mentored in that way. So we know culturally education. It's like a plus plus, or you are a failure. And it's always those C students that hire the A students. And I just didn't know that those were my strengths. So I kind of shut down. My nervous system kind of just shut down. So I didn't get bigger. I didn't expand and didn't need to be seen and heard in a big way. So I kind of shrunk. And that turned into people being like, what's wrong with you? You're not motivated. Blah, blah, blah. So I just kept getting smaller, smaller, smaller. And I just slept a lot as a kid, as a teenager. And what happened is when I got pregnant, I did the office sit, and I became the overachiever. Because I was so afraid that I was going to fail. And fear was my motivator. I was running, running, running, running. But the reality was, while I was running, I had this internal thought of not this, not this. We all have it. You can call it intuition. You can call it wisdom. That inner knowing, I was like, oh my god. I was like, I could hear it. I was connected to it. So then I sought out mentorship. And I was like, I need help. I need help. I went to therapy. I went to the doctors. I did the things I was supposed to do. And I'm using air quotes. And the feedback I got was, yes, suck it up, buttercup. This is adulthood. This is motherhood. And I was like, oh, now I can't trust people. Now I can't trust adults. So I didn't necessarily-- I just kept running and running. I got to check the boxes. I got to do the damn thing. Became a social worker, got the degree, got the pinnacle social work job. Like, I was like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. So did all the things. And while I was doing that, had two other boys got married, still married to my husband today. And in 2013, so my oldest was nine. Right? I'd laugh, because I just sometimes life is-- life is funny. But I was about six months after I signed the papers to not go back to my social work job. And at the time, I was building my business. So still in that startup phase. And my youngest was like a year old. I was diagnosed with cancer. And I didn't have a safety net. I didn't have a financial safety net. I didn't have a lot of safety nets. Because I physically cut them off. And again, the only way it was through. But at that time, Laura, I was like, OK, I've been doing all the personal development work. I had the mentors. I had the coaches. I went to the retreats before that. This is in 2013 and before that. So that felt like the training for my diagnosis. And when I got my diagnosis, I was like, OK, worst case scenarios in front of me. It's a stage four. I need to figure out how to do the opposite. I need to figure out how to feel alive. And that was when I really leaned into energy management. Because I knew it wasn't the thing that I wanted. It was the feeling. And it was energy. So it kind of forced me to look in the mirror and to really take a hard look at you've been running, running, running. You have been seeking support and mentorship. It's not like you were avoidant. But that was when I realized women in general did not know how to feel alive or to reverse engineer how they wanted to feel. And because I had no privilege and literally no privilege of could not let fear run the show anymore, I ran towards creating my own solution and becoming the version of me that I needed. So that's what I've been doing since 2013. And I'm human. So it's repetition. And it's a tool and a skill. And that's what I do today, supporting women. Because-- and they're like, this can't be. This needs to be hard. I need to suffer and struggle. And I'm like, yeah, that's what we've been taught is women, especially women raising children. Yeah. I know there are so many people that are listening to you hear that, that are seeing themselves in what exactly you've just said, that idea, that this can't be it. And what do you mean? I can feel something other than the thing that I feel right now. So take me through that. This idea of feeling alive, that's the piece that's really jumping out for me. It's like, what does that mean to you to feel alive? OK. So this is where I'll give like some practical step by step. And so when I say, okay, do this, like I truly mean it. Everything is always easier said than done. And my podcast is called "Emotionally Uncomfortable" because number one, I do not believe in hard things. Like think about the worst thing that could happen in your life. You're like, I can do hard things. I was addicted to hard and it almost killed me. You know, we talk about masculine and feminine energy. And I can ride the line kind of in the middle where I'm like, some days I really need to just get shit done and be in that masculine. And other days I need to really honor like, I've been pushing a little too far. There's something in me that I'm neglecting and I just need to have a little pause. If it's for 24 hours, 48 hours, and this is alignment, this is energy management. So I like to tell this story just to create a visual for people. One night when I was in recovery, I came home from the hospital. I kind of did a functional approach and I had all the things. And I remember one night I came home and my body was just in a state of fight or flight. And I could see this. The story in my mind was, you're going to die, you're going to die. We all have these, so I call that mental energy. So this mental loop was going and I was observing this mental loop. The reality was that could have been true, right? So I go to the bathroom because again, I'm holding it in. I don't want to disrupt my family at two o'clock in the morning and I'm crying and I'm like, I don't want to die. I want to die. I want to die. And then I get a moment of, okay, Heather. Like you're living in the future. come back to the present. I could mentally talk myself down, like self coaching. So, I got myself to the present moment, and the present moment was, "you are here, you are physically alive right now." So then I asked myself this question, and this is the one I encourage people to write down. I'm like, "how do you want to feel? How do you want to feel?" I kept repeating that, instead of, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I got back present, I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive." How do I want to feel? I'm like, "I want to feel alive, I don't want to feel dead, I want to feel alive, I want to feel alive." So, the way that I'm describing this is, you're kind of like, "come back, come back, come over here, get back on the path, come back to present." So, there's a lot of self awareness that happens in that moment, and kind of turning the ship around. But, how do I want to feel my response was alive? And then Laura, I started crying, and I got scared again, because I was like, "I have no evidence of an identity of when I felt alive." Like, I literally reflectin' at that time, having three young children, being married, having the job, check, check, check, check, check, in startup, everyone looking at me patting me on the back, going, "Oh my gosh, you're figuring, looking at you, looking at you." And me feeling alone, like I'm dying, not just physically at the moment, but going, "Nobody, I'm hiding, I'm screaming, seeking help," and everyone's like, "Just fakin' it, fakin' it till you make it." And I'm like, "How the hell do I feel alive?" So, this was where I had to all these woo-woo books that you read about manifestation, or, I mean, since then a lot has happened, but people will say it over and over again. Not the million dollars that you want, it's the feeling of safety, or whatever the word is for you. It's not the other, it's not traveling the world that you want, it's like freedom, or luxury, or whatever that feeling is. And that is something that it's a yes and, like, you can feel safe right now in this moment, and you can take the physical strategic action to create financial safety in your life. But the reality is, everything is temporary, including how you feel. So, that's the skill. And that's kind of like, "Yeah, so that was the start of the process and framework that I teach, which is called energetic time management." And I could go on and on, so let me know what else you want me in. I could just, I could keep going. No, I mean, I'm sitting here, and we're like, "Please keep going together." No, I think it's so interesting. And as a person that, you know, is inside this one of the main business, I'm talking to a lot of early stage moms in their businesses and in motherhood, right there, largely with kids that are before teenage hood. The thing that I hear the most, and I've had this conversation four or five times in the last three months, so a lot. And it's not a good conversation. I hate this conversation when I have it, but it comes up for so many people. It's this, "I'm so overwhelmed and burnt out in my business, but I have to. " I'm also the primary breadwinner at home, because, you know, husband's not working, or I doesn't have the potential to make as much money, or I'm single parenting, or whatever. And I know that I need to take a break, but I can't take one, because I have to be the person that is doing this. And I can't break this cycle anywhere, because it's just too much. And so instead, I'm going to choose to stay in this cycle until, you know, the worst possible scenario happens. And so often, we ask that, right? How do you want to feel? But then, like, can you even visualize what it'll look like? Right? We're in this moment of survival. So I'm curious, like, what would you say to that person? How do I break out of that cycle if that's a place that we're living? Because I see this way more than I wish that I did. Okay, so number one, I don't think you can just stop taking advice from people in general that are not in, like, in your situation. And what I mean by that is when we're seeking out support, you're going to go to a health care provider, and they might go, you need to rest, you need to recover. Like, take a nap or do this or do that or take a break. Now, again, the thing you want, like, highly ambitious people, I am one of them. I am a driver in the sense of like, I identify as a visionary. And I see people that they're like, I was just driving to prove myself. Sure. But there's a lot of, I really gain a lot of energy from, and I'll answer your question. I really gain a lot of energy from the challenge. When I started my journey, it was literally from a place of survival that I had no, I had no other option. I had to quote unquote hustle. I'm using air quotes because everyone's familiar with the hustle. I had to make money to pay the bills. I had to survive. Then something happened in my identity. And it wasn't, it was like where I was running away from the problem and now is running towards possibility. That is a completely different energy. So you can see someone doing something. And it is incredibly life-giving to them. You could see somebody doing the exact same thing, which is life depleting. So when I look at other people's lives, and I think, damn, how the hell do they have the capacity to do so much? Well, maybe that's the way that their energy sources work, like meaning like that's aligned for them. And they love the capacity where other people, my point is, you're living out of alignment with your values. So if you say to me, kind of what you said of like, I'm the, like, soul income, producing, like, I got to work. Great. How do you want to feel in your work? I want to feel alive and energized, fabulous. So there's four types of energy, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. Every time I do time and energy audits with people, physical energy management, people are very aware of. We call that productivity and time management. We also call it strategy. And sometimes it's the to do list. Those are physical, tangible things. It can also be your physical body. Mental, emotional, and spiritual people are like, that is such a foreign language to me. I'm just going to like, that makes me uncomfortable. So therefore, I'm not going to look at it. I'm like, that's fine. But if you don't know how to manage mental physical and, um, or sorry, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy, you also can't create connection with your children. Your relationships will be shit. You will feel incredibly disconnected from yourself and never feel fully fulfilled. So you're always going to be operating at like a 25% energetic capacity because you have four energy types and physical energy management, which can include money, um, is the only little corner that you're operating with. So you don't have access to these. other three. And then we wonder why we're never fulfilled. So balance or integration to me is when you understand what all four are. And then you learn to co-create like where do I need to focus today? What do I need to do? So I actually don't tell people to stop anything. And go, okay, you eat rest like air quotes rest. What do you think rest feels like to you? I don't know because I've never experienced rest before. Amazing. So maybe your nervous system might just need some actual rest. It may be booking a bodywork session. It may be doing some breath work. Like intuitively you start to pick and choose your modalities. But I'm like, don't take a break. Taking a break might actually put you into a crisis state. And or sometimes you do need to take a break. So a beautiful example of this. And I just had a conversation with a client, I don't know yesterday. She is this chickener of the egg scenario where she's like, I'm the sole income earner. I'm actually single. I own a brick and mortar practice. And I'm living like, you know, my time is like dollar per hour. And I'm just wrapped. And at the end of the day, like she doesn't have right supports. She doesn't have anything in place. I said, listen, you know your vision. You know your goals. You know where you want to go. But you don't feel safe getting there. So you number one need to learn how to create safety within yourself mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Physically, you know how to take massive action. That is a new skill for you to develop. You would never go and be like, I'm going to be a doctor next week. You would go and learn a skill. You would implement the skill and your identity is going to change at the same time. So I'm teaching her the skills. She's using the ETM process. And I'm like, listen, your brain wants like this magical like thing overnight. It's the journey of becoming. And so what she's doing is she's making more money, like starting to sell different things. And she slowly like disconnecting herself from her brick and mortar. And I was like, if you can buy back your time and energy. And then you're still making more money. And then slowly you can let go of your brick and mortar. But we have the plan. And now it's just chipping away at the plan. So it's such a slow progression. But people want this all or nothing, which is such a big mindset thing to heal. Yeah. Talking a little bit about building safety through these other energetic spaces that you're talking about. I think that's a really interesting one because for a lot of women, a lot of women that I talk to and even myself in my own experiences, we want to create safety for our children and for the people that we love. But I'm a person that's well aware of my own desire for safety. So I'd love to just hear a little bit more. Maybe this is inside of the the UTM process. How do we create safety in those other energetic pathways? Well, it's a feeling, safety is a feeling. And we can't do other people's work for them. The fascinating part is when we tell ourselves a story that if I do this and I build out this quote unquote legacy for my children, they're not going to have the same problems as me. And then we forget that we are literally spiritual beings having this human experience and that our children are going to have emotions that they need to regulate. They're going to have questions about what's the purpose of life. They're going to need to know how to manage their big emotions like fear and overwhelm. And I work with a lot of women who are like, Heather, money is not my issue. I just got a huge inheritance or I had a trust fund or I won the lottery or like ridiculousness. And I'm like, then what's the issue? And it's like the guilt eats away at them or something else eats the way at them or like, I thought all my problems were going to go away. We are all searching for meaning and connection. But we have no idea how to meaning like live meaningful lives and connect with ourselves. The first thing I ask people to do is write this journal prompt. Like write this journal prompt down. It's called Wouldn't it be nice if and I get a lot of like, oh my god, that was such a big gem. And I ask you to just take five minutes and write down, wouldn't it be nice if and whatever comes out, like just put that down. Like wouldn't it be nice fat, a glass of water? Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to work today? Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't worry about money like all the things after you have that out. Ask yourself what the feeling is next to it. And it will tell you you just need to listen. So you need to be able to ask yourself what is the feeling? You're going to get a court desired feeling next to each item and that's going to be alive, energized, free, whatever. Now this is where I get really wooboo. So I can go into, I'm like very practical. I can be strategic when we need to be strategic. That's like 5% of the game. 95% of the game is energy management. So let's say you tell me that you want to feel alive. We do two things. We either go to the aliveness, this is where we feel it, or we talk to what we no longer want to experience, which may be overwhelmed or anxiety. So I will go through this process with people or I teach them to go through the process with themselves. And I'm like, what does the aliveness need to feel bigger? So we talk to it. I say, I always say, this is the child you didn't know you had. This is your fourth child you didn't know your had for me. It would be my fourth child. And this is where I'm creating deep intimacy with myself. So if I'm having an off day and I'm like, man, I'm great overwhelming anxiety. I will stop and ask myself and I close my eyes and I'm like, anxiety, why are you here? And then I ask, what do you need to feel safe to leave my body? Every time I do this work with people, they will tell me exactly what they need. Now, the doing part of that, when we do that, what actually happens is we are deeply listening to ourselves. And when we do that, we have the answers. But then you need to have courage to take the action because who are you without your anxiety? Who are you? So when people say, I want to feel safe, I'm like, okay, we can go in, we can talk to it, we can figure out, you know, what your body, mind, soul needs to feel safe. But if you actually act on that strategy to take the action to cultivate and create safety, you're then going to feel unsafe again because your identity needs to catch up of like, it's okay to make money and work way less. It is okay to charge more and take on less. Like all these things, it's okay to hold a boundary with someone and to let them figure out their stuff. So it is just wild. The amount of inner work required to actually up level strategy is very little. I love that. You work with so many high-performing women. What do you feel like is the most common emotional pattern that you see holding the back if there is one? They don't trust people. Because they've lost, they tell themselves a story of like, you know, I had to figure this out myself. I'm the responsible one. I don't really have, I haven't had people that I could depend on. So they keep the the mask and the walls very, very thick and they don't let people in. And I see it all the time. I see it with friends. I see it with colleagues. And then I'm the person that people go to when they're like, having a crisis or something. And I was like, well, she let me in. She must have felt safe for like five minutes. But it is wild to watch and observe. And let's the other side of the spectrum too, where there's like, it's the hyperindependence versus like, you know, the the raging co-dependence. We're we are still co-dependent, but we're co-dependent on other things like adrenaline or fears or anxiety or like the addiction to like rescue everybody. So it just depends on how tightly gripped everybody is. But I can get, which is fascinating to watch. Like also a room full of women or all host retreats from all different walks of life. And this person who's the high performer will say, I want to be around other high performers. And then the other one who has not had the same life experience. Different personalities will say, oh, I wanna be around these people. I was like, of course, you wanna be around like, mind it, but what you don't realize is all of you are wearing a mask and protecting yourself just with different, different lipstick. Like, it's just fascinating to watch. So I like to look at the core of the human and then help them reverse engineer that. And it's really just dependent on how willing somebody is to get the result that they're actually going for. How quickly they wanna get there. - You must be a fun person to hang out with at entrepreneurial. - Oh my gosh. (laughs) - I'm actually super quiet. - I won't. - I won't. - Yeah. - You just sit back and watch it happen. - Yeah. - Yeah, I love that. That's, I enjoy that too. I enjoy that too. I love that. What, one last question for you before we wrap up and I'm sad that we have to do that 'cause I feel like we could chat forever but what would you say to the woman that feels like they're doing all of the right things but still feels stuck? Feel so like they're maybe there in that cage that we talked about at the beginning. - Yeah, I just like, if you think you're doing all of the right things but you're not getting the result that you're looking for, you're not doing all of the quote unquote right things. And so stop telling yourself that and to literally go for a walk and again, step one, bring down bit, like voice texted to yourself, putting your notes, wouldn't it be nice if? Then ask yourself, what's the actual feeling that I'm after? And then start just playing, like just playing with, does my day feel in the line with how I wanna feel? Is my week feel that way? What did I say yes to? What did I say like that? I really should have said no to. So it's just all of these awareness builders instead of doing the right things and like push, push, push, push, push. It's the magic of women is our intuition and the magic of women is our ability to quote unquote multitask but the shadow of that is overwhelmed and burnout, anger, resentment. And so there's a lot of decluttering that we have to do instead of just adding more to the plate. - Yeah. I mean, this is your 10 for me of entrepreneurship and I think one of the reasons that I'm still here is just that sort of willingness to get curious about things. And why is that? Why is that coming up? And I always say that motherhood and entrepreneurship can be the two greatest personal development journeys over go on if you allow them to be otherwise you're in a world of hurt. - Yeah, your children are boundary creators. They will show you number one exactly where you need to grow. Yeah, my former life as a social worker, I talked a lot about children's behavior and my own experience as a child and a teenager. And so that's huge for me, but I'm like, we're not listening. We're not listening to ourselves. We're not listening to our children. We're not listening to our businesses or other people. We are reactive. And so if we're reactive and judgmental, we're not present in the moment. And so we're seeking presence with the people we care about but we have absolutely no idea how to create that. So that's kind of my role is, okay, you wanna get there? Let's do it like so much quicker by doing less better and not making it so hard on yourself. And unfortunately I've had to go through some crazy shit in order to get there. So I've just surrendered to like, I'm gonna take the easy way. It's emotionally uncomfortable, but I can get 10 times more work done in a fraction of the time because I know exactly where to focus. I love that. Heather, how can I listen or learn more about you? Work with you. Tell us more. - Yeah, so you can check out the podcast emotionally uncomfortable. I talk a lot about like the inner workings of all of the stuff, parenting, business, career, profit, all the things. And something that we just created, which is really cool is a time and energy audit. It's free. You can head on over to Heather Show My C-H-A-U-V. Like V-As-N-V-T-R-I-N. Someone told me if I don't say the V, it sounds like a B. Heather Show My V-I-N.com/audit. And I kind of ask you all of these questions. And then we do use AI. And if you decide to upgrade to a call, I look at it. And we also have like, I give you the new OnC stuff. So I'm like, dump your crap out. We're gonna organize it for you and show you your energy leaks, your time leaks, and exactly where to focus to get the result you're actually seeking. - I love that. We'll make sure we put all the links to that in the show notes. And if you're a person that's listening to this, that feels a little bit called out. Make sure you check out that audit. I think that's gonna be an incredible job. - There's a lot of people say they go, I stopped listening to your podcast because I was so triggered. And then when I was ready, I came back. And I'm like, I do it from the highest place of love because I think that's what I was seeking. I was seeking someone not to be a bully. I was seeking someone to look me dead, square in the eyes and be like, I believe in your ability to thrive. And yeah, sometimes when you're ambitious, you need a little love tap. And you need that person that can hold you in a strong container of space 'cause we do kick and scream when we're uncomfortable. - Totally. - Does comfort isn't fun. Nobody likes being uncomfortable all the time. - No, it's like a contraction. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm in one right now. So it's never fun. - Me too. I think that's another really important piece of it. If you aren't returning to spaces where you feel uncomfortable, then I got questions for you, right? Then we're not on the journey. You're just staying complacent. So cheers to being uncomfortable. - We can keep talking. - I know, we can keep talking. We'll wrap it up. - We'll wrap it up. We'll do this again. We'll do this again. Heather, thank you for coming and sharing. Your story with us. I mean, you just found yourself a new listener of the emotionally uncomfortable podcast. I'm gonna go check it out. And I know that so many of our listeners will too. So thank you. - Yeah, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening. If today's episode gave you the push you needed, share it with your friend and don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Ready to take this even further? Head over to www.thismothermeansbusiness.com and become a member. You'll get real business growth support and build your virtual village of entrepreneurial moms walking the same path as you. Until next time, keep showing up, keep pushing forward and remember, when this mother means business, anything is possible.