On-Air Coaching: From Doubt to Decision – The Choice to Have Kids

Makena: Welcome, everyone! 

We are back with a very exciting episode here – an on-air coaching session with our beautiful guest today. 

Gigi and I are both here. You want to say hello, Gigi? 

Gigi: Hello. Thank you so much for doing this and having the courage to be on here. 

We’re excited to work with you.

Val: Thank you. Thank you both for giving me the opportunity to come on. When I heard of this opportunity I was like, “Yes, pick me! Pick me!” 

Gigi: Well, you’re our first one. This is super exciting. We’re all learning here. 

We’d sent you some questions and you sent in your answers. I looked through those, but we were chatting a little bit before we got started – about what’s kind of underneath everything.

I’d love to dig in deep right away and see what that is – you talked about some fear. You’ve got a lot going on in your life.

You’re successful. You’re moving forward. You have an exciting life. 

But there’s some things that you’re feeling underneath. 

Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Val: Yes, absolutely! In my current circumstances or my life and where it is today… 

I am co-living with some of my best friends – really soul family. They have a little family. And it’s like, I get a glimpse into a possible future that a part of me desires. But also scares the shit out of me. Really.

A lot of it is because I didn’t have a stable family upbringing. And I look at this example that I’m watching live in action and it’s so beautiful. It’s graceful. Kids are kids, so it’s chaotic as well. But it’s handled with so much grace and love.

There’s a part of me that is fearful that I won’t be able to create that.

And it really comes down to financial stability. I’m a new business owner in this venture I acquired in the last year. It’s not hitting the level of success that I envisioned and mapped out for it. 

Not to say that it’s not a great business venture. It’s just not getting the traction that I desire to propel me to a future that I feel stable in. 

So it puts me in this fear state of like, “Oh, do I even want this? Do I want to put myself in this scenario.”

There’s just this fear that comes up that I won’t be able to create that.

Gigi: I see some sadness come up and when you talk about that – definitely some emotion in your eyes. 

Is it something that you want? If we put all that stuff on the side. If I said your financial situation is great and would you go for having a baby?

Val: Even there, I hesitate. Understanding the commitment level and the sacrifice of what it takes on a mother…

I’m a driver and so there’s this fear that I won’t be supported in that path of motherhood.

A part of it feels like it’s not even reachable for me. And a part of me just shuts it down actually.

I’m like, “No, I’ll think about that next year.”

And I’ve given myself a timeline – internally. Now this clock is actually starting to tick a little bit and in the background – “tick-tock.” Where that wasn’t the case beforehand. 

So there is a dance with that. And what comes up is the fear.

Gigi: I’m curious. If you set that fear aside, would you go for it?

Val: Yes. 

Gigi: You would. I can see that absolutely. 

If you really tune into that and put your mind aside for a moment and really feel into that – I think it’s absolutely what you want. 

And again, I just have been working with people for a long time. Often I can just see – they don’t even need to talk about it. 

So that’s the line of energy and clarity. You understand? 

You wanted some clarity. Right there is your clarity. Because inside, that’s really what you want. 

When you go from that place of what you want, the interesting thing is when you move forward with that instead of the fear – what happens is life starts to help you organize around that. 

If I sit in my fear, I can sit and think of a thousand different ways things can go wrong or fear and everything. There’s no way for me to finally tune in and really gravitate to what I want and what I’m looking to do. 

But when I look inside and go, “Okay, what do I really want here? If this fear was set aside, would I go for this?”

And it’s an absolute yes for you. 

Val: It is. It is. Absolutely in my heart, stomach, core.

Gigi: You get stronger and you get brighter when you talk about that. You see that Makena?

Makena: Yeah, very much. Peaceful. I also see a lot of peace. 

Gigi: Your beauty comes out even more.  When you talked about it earlier you looked sad. There was a lot of fear.

Now doesn’t mean that the fear is just going to disappear.

But when we tune in and go, “Okay, now I know what I want.” And then come from that place, “Now, how do I organize my life and everything I’m going to do around that desire?” 

That’s where you can sit down and really look at what are the fears.  It’s that exercise of looking about what you don’t want – have you ever done that? 

You write down everything you don’t want. All the fears – “I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want that to happen.” Then you shift and go, “Okay, if I don’t want that, what do I want?”

Then you focus on what you want.

Because I always say, we get what we don’t want, and we get what we do want. 

It’s all in where we put our focus.

If we focus on what we want, the probabilities increase exponentially.

If I focus on what I don’t want, they increase in that direction. Life is an up and down. We never know what’s going to happen. You can only tune in and go for that and live your life in a way that you are absolutely clear – “This is what I’m going for.”

And then that’s your connection piece to everything. 

So no matter what comes up, you go back to, “I know this is what I want.” 

How’s that? 

Val: It feels great. It feels great actually just to have that distinction and awareness around it. Because I have that in business where I can go after what I want and I surrendered to that.

And talking to you now or hearing this reflection now it’s like, “Oh, I focus on the things that I don’t want in this area.” Which is bringing up the fear and the doubt. Where I’ve seen it manifest in the business side. 

So just taking that over to this side and focusing on the things that I do want.

Gigi: Because when we go to the fear and we sit in that – what happens you start creating evidence. That’s how the mind works. 

It’s an energetic shift in your body and everything. It’s also a perspective shift in many ways and owning that in yourself – absolutely. 

Then the thing of comparing – when you’re sitting in a world and you see how people are navigating their families. Here’s the thing: you’re a loving person. You want a family and you’re going to do the best you can.

It’s not always going to be perfect. I’m going to tell you. 

That’s the other thing – you’ll mess up your kids. We all mess up our kids, no matter how wonderful we try to be for them. There’s always going to be something. 

Because every person – we always say every little person is like a snowflake. You have no idea the impact of this child. 

I have five children. They all have different views and different ways that they were impacted. One didn’t affect them at all. The other one, it affected them hugely. 

All you can do is stand in the center and go, “This is who I am. I want a family and I’m going to do everything I can – do the best I can.”

Through your love and your acceptance of that, you’ll create something beautiful. There’s going to have ups and downs. I’m not going to lie to you.

Val: Yes. That feels very good. 

Gigi: Let’s take this now from the approach of, “Okay, I know what I want and now what are the steps that you feel strongly about in knowing this? What do you want? What do you want to do?”

Val: Now the question is where do we want to raise them? That has been a big question.

That’s something I put in my intake form because we became nomadic. Through that, it gave us an opportunity to drive across the country. Not only for business but to see where there’s a possible future where we want to live next and raise a family.

I’m born and raised in Southern California. San Diego’s been my home. I love it here. But it doesn’t seem realistic in this day and age right now to start a family here. 

So that would mean the next step is making a decision: do trust and surrender and do it here – the universal support or make the move for future wise, stability wise.

Across the country, we’re looking at Virginia as a possibility. My partner in life, my significant other, is full pledged, like, “Let’s go to Virginia.” There are days that I’m yes. There’s days that I’m like, “Oh, no!”

Then the lack of clarity on that aspect of – okay, where from a step standpoint that’s also where there’s resistance or more fear comes up. 

Raising a family all across the country where I actually have nobody… I shouldn’t say “I don’t have anybody.” There’s a great tribe there. I felt very nourished there. 

We did two test runs. Two and a half months of staying in different parts of Virginia and testing it out. It felt really good. I felt very nourished there and supported and found a great group of women.

But also the reality of having a child and not being close to a support system. Also what I get a glimpse into living with a family that has that support. 

In reality, the logical brain comes in, “Okay, well, where are we going to do this?”

Gigi: Your partner, is it that he really loves Virginia or he just wants out of California? What’s the reasoning? 

Val: There’s some business opportunities there that he wants to pursue full force. 

There’s still a lot of unknown – would love to start brands and dispensaries in a new state that would open up recreationally. Virginia is on track to opening up recreationally as a new state.

That’s the other part where the logic comes in from a business standpoint of, “How could we do that and also raise a family?”

Gigi: When would you want to get pregnant? When are you going to try?

Val: I would love next year this time. 

Gigi: Next year. Alright. You said you went and spent time in Virginia for how long?

Val: The last two years, we’ve spent about two and a half months there each time. 

Gigi: There’s a lot of different ways to look at this because maybe right now you don’t know where you want to put your family. 

If there’s business opportunities now… you’re not planning – when you say next year, are we talking 8-10 months?

Val: I’ll be 40 next year. I would like to start my forties or at least go into my forties trying to get pregnant.

Gigi: When’s your birthday? 

Val: March…

Gigi: March. Alright. We really want to get the business up and going. 

Maybe it is a matter of going to Virginia for a little bit longer and really making it around. I don’t know if you’re still up for living a little bit nomadic or want to get settled right now. 

Because you could do for 90 days you get in there and really try to grow the business and everything.

Do you have to live there when the business starts growing? 

Val: It’s still up for creation, I should say. It’s not legal yet to even be able to plan that.

Makena: It’s not really in a position. If they went there right now, they can’t really do anything. 

Val: We won’t have an inclination in terms of who gets voted in until November. It’s a process.

Gigi: I’m just going to tell you in terms of feedback – there’s so much more energy and light with California. Don’t you see that Makena? 

Makena: Oh yeah, so much energy.. Yeah.

Gigi: You become stronger and brighter. 

Business wise, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have businesses in other states.

If you’re willing to create the lifestyle that maybe you are back and forth. You can have a little one and that little one can go anywhere. Unless you’re really set on the baby needs to be in one place. 

That’s not the way I raised my kids at all. I raised my kids to be travelers. Some really resonated to that and some didn’t resonate to it so much.

But at this point, it’s really important that you are growing your business and being able to focus on your business. You have a time period here for the next year and a half. And really choosing where you’ll be open to – it could be California or Virginia.

But if you want to put roots in, then I would really look at the numbers. Have you done that? How much more would it cost you to live here? 

Val: It depends. It really does. Buying a house over there where the barrier of entry here in California almost feels impossible today. 

Virginia would definitely be a place where we could buy right away and there would be a sense of stability there – in that sense of building wealth and a future in terms of assets.

I agree it was very inspiring to hear your full story and how you created that with your family. And I was like, “That’s amazing!” 

It definitely opened up the possibilities. I definitely have never lived by societal standards after 26. That was really cool to hear how you created that with a family of five. 

It felt possible when I heard your story.

Gigi: We lived in different places. Austin was where we bought land. 

Makena: Spring and fall in Texas. Then in Europe most of the summers. 

Gigi: Yeah. But we bought and invested in Texas. 

So you could invest in Virginia – get yourself a place and still spend time in California.

Makena: I think I want to share too… I’ve been on this journey in a very big way of coming to clarity about whether I wanted kids. I always thought I did, and then I thought, “Well, am I sure about this?” 

I went on a big soul searching journey with that. Ultimately what it got down to, I saw, I absolutely want kids. 

But there were all these other pieces. I think the question was, “What is the experience I want to have with my kids?” 

We were thinking about moving back to San Diego and Gigi had us go for several weeks, “Go like you’re living there.”

I tapped back into our community here, the way it is now. I experienced how people were raising their kids here and what it felt like to be in the community here. It wasn’t a conceptual idea anymore. It felt right in my body. It felt like this is the experience I want. 

And so that made it very clear.

Yes, California is far more expensive than Texas. There were all these different things. But for both me and Sunny, this is the experience we want. We’re going to move toward that experience. 

You never know in life. If things work out or how they’re going to work out. But to move in that direction, things then can start to line up around that.

Often with babies, what I’ve seen and Gigi’s pointed out to me, is sometimes they become this spark that creates a timeline and that creates energy and opportunity. 

Before there’s not as much of that. Once you’re pregnant that timeline’s clear…

Gigi: … then you choose. It’s wonderful to have the option to be able to think what are the different ways you’d like to live. I think the distinction is shifting it from worry to curiosity 

Makena: …and possibility 

Gigi: Instead of, “Oh my gosh! what if… what if it’s…” 

It’s “I’m curious if we approached it this way, what would we do?”

Our work is all about tapping into your vitality. What brings you alive? 

It doesn’t mean you go and do every single thing that brings you alive. But when we’re talking about something like this – right now is the time to do that for you. Because you do have time.

You have 18 months or maybe more until you have a baby.  This is the time to be curious and try some different things. 

Don’t worry that you haven’t figured it out yet. It’s okay. You will figure it out when the time is right.

Val: When you said the shift  from worry to curiosity, it felt like a stone was removed from my stomach.

Gigi: It’s great to think intentionally. But sometimes I see, especially with the younger generation, it’s almost too intentional sometimes. 

Life has a flow to it. You see what you want and you go after that. But trying to fix it and create it too much – you actually stop the flow.

Makena: Move with the energy.

Gigi: When you are so sure, super sure – that’s not the way things work.  You can go, “This is what I want. I’m clear about that.” 

Then for the how, just play around. Be curious. Try a couple of different things here and then see what you’re really feeling moved to. What’s going to work?

Val: Just that alone feels so good. 

Gigi: Yeah, you look great. 

Val: I feel lighter already. 

Gigi: This is going to be a short time. It’s not a long session, but knowing that one piece helps you start to navigate everything else – even your business.

Now the question is sitting back and going, “What’s the strategic action to take right now so we can be where we want to be?” 

We may not be there when we get there. You may say, “I want this amount” – and it may not be there and you still move forward. 

But step back and reflect a little bit again, “What would be a way for us to approach things” – so 18 months from now, you can have some freedom there. You have things working. 

Val: This conversation is really bringing it to my awareness. I operate that way in business. But I don’t allow myself to operate this way and dream up possible family life – it goes to the worry and fear. 

So being in flow with it and allowing what’s going to take shape in the next year tenses up a little bit. 

The awareness around what cues up in my body, just saying that there’s this desire to want to control that side and letting go of that and being more in flow. And trusting that in the next year, we will be supported and, and have our family. 

Gigi: You said you do that in business. I know you’re a good business woman. So the same thing, you still want to think it through, but not out of fear.

Not out of fear, but out of curiosity. What do I want and what would work here?

Makena: “When you move with your desire, it opens the door for magic to come in.” 

Val: Let me write that down. A lot of good nuggets. 

Gigi: Write down: “When worry comes up, you go, “Oh, That’s interesting. How can I shift this and be curious about this?”

Val: It’s these tiny little nuggets. 

Gigi: Tiny little nuggets. They’re little baby shifts and they start to make the change in terms of your approach and moving forward. 

How’s that for the first little baby step? 

Val: That feels great already. I feel lighter in my body just having the awareness and distinction between how I’m operating – these two pillars of my life.

I can allow myself to bring that over to the other and it’ll come with a lot more ease versus angst and worry and fear. 

Makena: Is there anything else, Val, in this time that you want now?

Val: No. I mean that’s really the big overarching… This full and direction of our lives is for me, that’s agreed upon to like our north stars. We both do want that and we both want to give it an honest go. 

So to remove the worry and shift that is huge.

Gigi: Practice that and use that and start to see what shifts.

Then in your approach to journeys, come from this place of – you already know what you want. 

Now it’s just navigating and seeing, “Okay, how do I want this? What am I going to do here?” Play around with that.

What was your question, Makena?

Makena: I was just curious because you came in with a desire for clarity… So What’s clear now? 

Val: What’s clear for me is that “yes” of wanting a family. Granted, I am going to be pursuing a child or having children later on in life.

And that’ll be its own path – when we do try. And I’m doing everything in my wheelhouse to get my body the best opportunity in doing that. 

But having that feeling that it’s a hell yes and owning it. It’s not like “Oh, maybe” 

The session helped shift the maybe to a hell yes.

Some days I am more of a yes. Some days I’m like, “Oh, that looks like a fun life also to stay in the no-kids club and travel and have a great time.”

But then, the question comes back to, “What are we doing all this for? What’s the legacy? Why are we building businesses? Working and creating in this realm if we’re not also going to have a family.”

So that core yes, that hell yes – I feel it. Where I didn’t feel that before. 

Gigi: What else are you going to take away from today? 

Val: Shifting my worry to curiosity. 

Gigi: What a relief, huh? 

Val: Even just saying that I feel the lightness in my body. I feel it in my chest and to feel it like just taking a breath that doesn’t get trapped in the chest. It actually goes down to a belly breath. It’s so nice to feel that.

Also the distinction around like, “Oh, I operate in flow.” That’s how we manifested and acquired the business that we have today. Because we were fully surrendered and in flow and actually on a hunt for a completely different thing.

And it’s like, “Oh, well transfer that over here.”  Transfer that trust to yourself that you know it’s gonna happen. 

But also doubting it. because there was doubt that I’m not going to be able to have that. 

Gigi: Right. Thank you so much for coming on and being vulnerable. We really appreciate it.

Val: Oh, I appreciate this so much. So thank you both. 

Makena: I talked to so many women who are grappling with similar things. I think your story is going to help a lot of people. Thank you. 

Val: You’re welcome. Thank you both. 

Makena: Bye, everyone. We’ll see you in the next episode.