220. High Vibin' It with Kelsey Aida

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and, of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours.

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Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at Coach. Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Thank you for joining me today. Yes, of course. It's such an honor and a privilege to have you here and I love everything you're doing. You're a best selling author and transformation. Facilitator who helps women align with their.

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Highest potential and love themselves through success. What a beautiful mission. Yeah, I like it. It does feel beautiful. That's, like, beauty is actually one of my highest values in life and I like to sprinkle it and create it everywhere I go.

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So thank you for using that word. I love it. So we're going to dive into everything that you're doing and the books you've written. Over five books. We're going to talk about all that.

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Everyone has a story, and I love to have my guests start out with sharing their story just so that the audience can really hear who you are and then we can dive into everything that you're doing. Yeah. So I think your audience will find my story maybe similar to theirs, maybe not. But as many happiness journeys begin, mine began in a period of unhappiness where I found myself in an episode of depression. I suffered from depression for a solid, like, three years in my late teens, early adulthood, and it started because it was a combination of not being able to live my dream of becoming a professional ballerina, which wasn't just a dream, that was really, like, my life trajectory.

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I was training for it. And then I got injured. That wasn't really like, a viable career path anymore. And then at the same time, I was also a teenager, which is hard, and I went on birth control, which messed up my hormones and made me a little crazy. And it was just all kind of like the perfect storm of circumstances.

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Hormonal imbalances hardships of life, of just like, being transitioning into a new life, but not knowing what that is anymore. And I fell into a dark, dark hole, and I got kind of stuck there for a while. And when I was like at the bottom of this spiritual pit or whatever you want to say, at the depths of my depression, I was just like, man, this is not actually me. I used to be happy. I used to have hobbies, I used to have passions.

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I used to be excited. I used to enjoy life. Like, what went wrong? How did I end up here? What happened?

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And also, how can I feel better again? I need to learn. Otherwise this is very much going to be a trajectory of attempted suicide. And I don't want to do that to anyone I love, because then they're just going to be depressed and that's not going to help anybody. So I was like, okay, not an option.

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I need to figure out how to enjoy my life and be empowered and feel good and be mentally well. So when I set that intention as life and the Universe would have it, it responded with resources and help and the right therapist. And I started seeing a shaman, and I started reading all these spiritual texts and books and personal development and positive psychology. And as I was diving deep into these topics, I was practicing new modalities and changing my perspective about myself and my life. And I was doing the healing work, and in doing that, I healed.

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I started to feel better. I was climbing out of the hole, and before I knew it, I was feeling better than I had even felt before I became depressed. So I was like a next level version of myself coming out of that, using all this information that I was absorbing. And I just felt like, man, if only more people could access this information. Like, I need to be a teacher.

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And I've always been naturally a leader and a teacher. And I would always help my friends in school, if they didn't understand the lesson, to explain it to them from a new perspective or try looking at it this way or it's really just like this, and they would get it. People would understand the way that I explained things. So I was like, Well, I'm going to use this gift of explaining things well and synthesizing information and wanting the best for people to be a self help author. And I just decided the best way to help the most amount of people is to write books.

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Because books are so accessible and they can start a movement. It can be this worldwide phenomenon. And I've always been a big dreamer, so I was like, I'm going to be the next Debug Chopra. And here we go. We're writing books now.

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And I hadn't even gone to college, mind you. I ended up going to cosmetology school to be an artist and a hair artist because the dancing thing didn't work out. And I was always just really good at beautifying people, which kind of falls under the umbrella of making people feel better too, and all that to say. It was basically a journey of my own becoming and then wanting to share that and spread certain messages and techniques and modalities that were really working for me and everything that I had learned on my journey. Wow.

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Well, congratulations to you for all that you have become, and I'm so happy that you took the higher road and dove into self improvement. Yeah, we have a very similar background. I was an amateur figure skater. Oh, cool. And the only thing I wanted to do right out of high school was skate with the Ice Capades.

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And two weeks after my high school graduation, I get this letter in the mail. This is 1983. I'm totally dating myself. And it was like, congratulations, you're on a waiting list. Well, I'm too tall to be a figure skater.

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Yes, right. I know it would have been a better ballerina, but yeah, ballet wasn't just was just not my I took it to compliment. Skating wasn't my my jam, so yeah, I mean, I know, exactly. Like like, all of a sudden you're like, well, now what am I going to do with my life? Yeah.

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Identity crisis. Yeah. What do I do now? So, yeah, I totally get that.

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You've actually accomplished a lot. You're very young. For those that are just listening, she is a very young woman. Absolutely gorgeous. So let's talk about some of the books.

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I love the titles of your book. So just list off the titles real quick and then we'll pick one to dive into. Yeah, so I'll go in order. Let's see. There's, like, so many.

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Okay, so hashtag actually, I can. The Art of Affirming Yourself to Greatness was the first book that I wrote, and that one is like an Affirmation bible because I wanted to pair affirmations with the emotional guidance skill and teach people how to do them in an authentic way instead of just, like, fake it till you make it. Which I hate because that doesn't usually work. So, hashtag, actually, I can. And then the second book is Affirmations for Happiness, keeping with the Affirmation theme.

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And that one is almost like an oracle deck. Like, you can flip to any page, absorb a little mantra, kind of feel into it, meditate on it, and just like, start your day off right. Not a super long or complicated read at all. Neither of the first two are. And then the third book is My Pocket Guide to Manifestation, which is a manifesting guidebook that has tons of actual practices.

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So let's say you want to manifest more money. There's, like, 14 different ways you can do intention setting work in the book and exercises and stuff. So that's the pink one, I always go by the colors I'm like, okay, the gray one, the yellow one, the pink one, and then the next one is Letters to the Universe, which is less of a book and more of a journal. There's like a couple of chapters in the beginning, but it's actually a scripting manifesting journal, which for me, when I'm manifesting, the first thing I always do is go write to my journal. So that's why I created a manifesting journal, because I love to write it down, make it happen.

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And then the most recent book that I self published is called the Mini Book of Self Love for the Modern Woman. And that is basically a self love starter kit of like, okay, I know that I want to love myself. I need to love myself more. But what does that actually look like? How do I actually do it?

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So those are the five books so far, but there's more in the works. Oh, yeah, no, I know because I'm always working on a book. All right, so let's see. Let's talk about Letters to the Universe, because I'm all about raising your vibrational frequency. That's what I work with my clients on and I love that title, Letters to the Universe.

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So talk about that because let me just say, just to clear it up for anybody, generally speaking, when you use the term universe, it's just your version, whatever that version is, it could be God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, your lucky star, your favorite chair, or even just life. Writing a letter to your life, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So universe is just kind of a general term for whatever that higher your creator. Whatever.

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Yes, good preface.

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Dive into that because I love manifestation and I really believe that when we write things down, that's really so critical to because when you're writing things down, it's using more of your senses. You're digesting it more and you're kind of puts it more into concrete. So, yeah, so dive into that book because that sounds really fascinating. Yeah. So like I mentioned briefly, I love scripting, which is just a manifesting terminology for writing down what you want, basically, but writing it down in a way where you're, like, imagining as if it were already your reality or what.

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I also advise, which is a very unpopular opinion and most people would disagree with me on this you can also write letters to the universe or do manifesting scripting work in the form of, like, I'm really excited to receive this. Looking forward to experiencing this, blah, blah, blah. A lot of people say don't do that or be stuck in the future forever. But that's just not true. If you're excited and you're open, the universe responds well to that.

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That's right. The wording is not so important. It's more the feeling that is when you're writing things down. Right. So for me, every time I have a new goal or a new desire.

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I'm just like letters to the universe. Well, it used to be before I had letters to the universe and I had written that journal, it was just like my manifesting journal, right? I would open up a new page and I would get to writing like, universe. I can't wait to experience x, Y, and Z. Thank you in advance for helping me to make this happen.

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Or I would write something like, let's say, concrete example. So my fiance, we're about to get married literally in like six weeks. So I was just wedding planning before I hopped on this call. And before I met him, I was writing in my journal. I was writing letters to him, actually, before I had met him, like, oh, I can't wait to meet you.

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I don't even know how awesome you are yet, but I can just feel that you're awesome and you're my person and I can't wait to learn everything about you. But also I would write things in my journal. Like, we have so much fun together. Our relationship is super fulfilling. This is the healthiest partnership I've ever had.

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He loves taking me out to Thai food. We have a lot of fun watching our favorite shows. I would just take myself there in my mind and write it down on paper and let myself dream. Because the key is like, you can't be writing these things down, but then self editing like, oh, that's not my reality. I don't know how that's going to happen.

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You have to let yourself dream and let go of all the doubt for a few moments. And every time I've done that with anything, it's manifested. So I was like, well, I think I need to make a journal about this to guide people through my special scripting process, so to speak. And I like to do a little bit of self inquiry before I dive into the scripting because it's nice to get clear about what you want and especially to identify for yourself why you want that. What do you actually want?

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Because everybody thinks, oh, I want a million dollars. Oh, I want this relationship. Oh, I want blah, blah, blah, XYZ. But why? What's the goal of the goal, right?

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And when you can identify that, you can go directly for it and it makes manifestation a lot easier, a lot more clear and a lot more powerful. So there's like, I think it's eight questions that I guide people through in the journal to get their vibes right, to get their mind right, and then they get to write their letter to the universe. And it has perforated pages. So you can get witchy with your letter after you write it, so you can burn it if you want, you can sleep with it under your pillow, you can put it in your little crystal box, whatever you want to do. But it's actually one of my bestsellers and people really love that book.

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Oh, that's awesome. You brought up a really good point that I want to talk a little bit more about because and you use the phrase you want a million dollars because everybody thinks that the money would make them feel a certain way or whatever. And what it really is, there's always something underneath of it. It's never really because, why do you want the million dollars? And a lot of times it's going to be different for every person.

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But usually when people say they want a million dollars, well, what it really comes down to is like, for some, it may be security. The real feeling that they are craving is they want to feel secure, right? Or they want to feel more free, whatever the case may be. Because if you're looking at the million dollars thinking it's going to make you bring you happiness, that's the wrong why. Yeah, because money is not going to buy you think.

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Exactly. Once I have that thing, then I will feel the way that I actually want to feel. But if you can identify the feeling that you're actually after one, you can start to cultivate it now because you realize, okay, I'm really after this feeling. I don't need that thing to access this feeling. Like, I can access any feeling right now if I think the right thought or if I look at my life the right way, or if I just use more deliberate intention or if I troubleshoot, why I can't feel that feeling.

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So let's say, like, people who want to manifest more money because they want to feel abundant, they're like, okay, well, all these Law of Attraction teachers are telling me I need to feel abundant in order for more abundance to come, but I don't feel abundant, which is why I want the money. So what the heck, right? They get in this loop of like, I don't know what to do. And that would be my invitation to you to ask yourself, like, why am I not allowing myself to feel abundance? Why am I not allowing myself to notice the abundance that's already in my life?

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How can I shift my focus to feel more abundant now while the money is in the process of coming? Because if you're living your life so conditionally that you're withholding certain feelings from yourself in order to try and motivate yourself to achieve your goals, you're only doing yourself and the world a disservice. And your goals are only going to come slower because you're not actually a vibrational match to what you're asking for. Right? So it's like when you can identify the feelings that you're after, not only can you start cultivating them now, so you're going to get what you want, but also that makes the thing that you thought you needed in order to feel that feeling come to you faster because you're actually a vibrational match to it.

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So it's a win win and I call it direct manifestation versus like indirect manifestation. So knowing what you actually want and then going directly for that and then the actual thing that you thought that you wanted, it'll still come, but it doesn't have to in order for you to feel how you want to feel. Right? And then I also want to just add to that the universe doesn't understand between negative and positive. It's all the same.

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It's all the same. So when you're putting out the positivity, you're going to get that back tenfold. However, if you start to focus on everything that you want to bring into your life and it's all positive and you're feeling grateful and you're feeling love and peace and joy, the second that you go to and you harbor on negativity, jealousy, greed, shame, comparing yourself to others, all of those things, you're just erasing everything that you just tried to manifest. Yeah, you're just like putting a pause on it because you're not in open receptive state. When you're in those lower vibrational states, you are energetically closed or you're even to the point of repelling what you say that you want.

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But it doesn't have to be forever because a lot of people are scared like, oh my God, if I feel bad for 5 seconds, it's not going to come. And I'm like, no, it's fine. Everybody feels bad. Exactly. Just don't hang out there forever and make it like your dominant vibration.

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But you're allowed to feel human feelings as a part of the process. So do you have any tools like one gold nugget that people can apply right now to help them shift from a lower vibrational frequency to a higher one so they can keep bringing in what they want to attract in their life? Yeah, so it depends where you are vibrationally in the moment, but let's say you're in a really low space and it's hard for you to think like a positive thought instead of trying to jump the Grand Canyon and think like, of course my life is awesome, everything's going to work out for me, blah, blah, blah. That feels like dumb to you in that moment because you're not about that, right? Just ask yourself, okay, what could I think right now?

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What could I tell myself right now that would bring me some sense of relief? Go for relief instead of just like optimal positivity. Unless you're feeling okay or sort of hopeful, like kind of in the middle of the vibrational scale, unless you're feeling like on the verge of happiness. I wouldn't go for like a super happy feeling. Thought if you're really low on the scale and you're feeling really bad and your vibes are just low in the moment, just aim for relief.

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What can you do? Say, think, believe, to feel more relief. And then once you've opened yourself to relief, then it's easier to go up vibrationally from there. I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

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I think that's really fantastic because sometimes it's really hard to feel gratitude if you're in a lower space. Yeah, totally. Forcing yourself to be positive. Even if that doesn't feel authentic or accessible in that moment, you can just be slightly less negative, just a little more relief. Baby steps.

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Baby steps. All right, so you host international self love retreats. Yes. Can you share a little bit about that? I was like, OOH.

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Retreats. Yeah. Speaking of raising your vibration, I think it's really important for women to gather, and I found that when women gather in the name of raising their vibration, healing, making their lives better, connecting, it just really creates magic. And I started these retreats because originally I had an online course called Radical Self Love, and it was a video course, and I was teaching people how to love themselves. But eventually I just felt this call that I needed to teach it more in person.

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And it was funny how it happened because my grandmother had sold this property and they were doing like, a 1031 exchange, and she ended up putting some of the money into this luxury airbnb property that she bought as an income property. And people started renting out this property for retreats, like yoga teachers and stuff. And when I saw that, I was like, what the heck? Why aren't I utilizing this resource that's in my family to host retreats? Like, this is kind of a no brainer.

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And I hadn't taught this work in person much before because it's just been so online ever since I started. And yeah, once I saw other people doing it, I was like, that's what I need to do. That's the next step. I need to get women together in Mexico for the name of Self Love and teach them in person and work with them one on one and in a group setting. And it's kind of evolved.

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I've done, like four or five retreats now, and it's really evolved into a spiritual yoga and healing retreat meets the ultimate girl time sleepover, because we do all kinds of fun things while we're in Mexico. Not just like, crying and laughing and pulling cards and doing healing work, because that can be, like, a little heavy. We're moving a lot of energy, but at the same time, we're like going to the beach, hanging by the pool, getting dressed up, going out to dinner, having fun vacation time, going around town, walking the cobblestone streets, going to private beaches. So it really is just like a once in a lifetime week of learning how to love on yourself, loving on yourself in all forms, like being nourished by the sun and by the company and by the food and by the lessons and by the activations just to really feel better about yourself and up level your life. And it ends up being kind of like a rebirth for a lot of the women who come it's pretty cool.

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That sounds amazing. What part of Mexico is it in? In Puerto Vallarta, which is a beach town on the Pacific side. Have you been there before? I have not been there, but we own a timeshare, and there's some properties there that I'm looking at you should visit.

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It's awesome. It's such a good part of Mexico, and it's, like, touristy enough where there's a lot of English speaking, but it's not, like, so touristy, like Cabo or, like, one of those more popular areas. Wow, that sounds incredible. Incredible. So you have a personal development podcast called High Vibe in it.

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Love that name. How long have you been doing that? Oh, my gosh. Well, today I just published episode 193, so almost 200 episodes, and we've been doing it at least three or four years. I want to say closer to four because we do it about every yeah, pretty nuts.

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I'm coming up on my 200th episode. Coming up. Oh, nice. Every week. I release two a week.

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Okay. Yeah. That's awesome. So where can people find you and learn more about your podcast, your books, and your retreat? Yeah, so people can find everything@kelsey.com.

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The retreat still has spaces open, so if you want to apply, go ahead, Kelsey.com retreat. But you can find all the books on there. The podcast, coaching, everything is there. And then on social media, I'm just Kelsey aida pretty much everywhere, but you can find me mostly on Instagram because that's my favorite platform.

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When is your next retreat? It's actually in October, so october 2023. 4th through the 9th, I believe. Nice. All right, so this will be out in plenty of time for people to hear about that and go to your website and apply.

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So, Kelsey, thank you so much for joining me today. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience before we finish up? Good question. Yeah, let me get a little download for everybody. Okay, so what's coming through the strongest is just that even if you don't believe it yet, you deserve to live your best life.

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And all the dreams that are planted in your heart and in your mind are not there to just torture you. They're actually there to be birthed through you for you to experience. So just know that if you have a dream, if you have a desire, if you really want something, even if it's just a feeling that you're after, it really is meant to be yours. Love it. All right, on that note, thank you, everybody, for listening today.

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And, Kelsey, thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe. And that your lives are filled with. Peace, joy, and happiness. Take care, everyone.