Anjel: Hi, Anjel. Welcome to 40 Drinks.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Stephanie. I'm excited to be here.

Stephanie: I am excited to have you. One of the things that really excites me is that you are a local lady. I've spoken to so many people all around the world, but you and I met podcasting event last month and we're actually both New Hampshireites. So I love that.

Anjel: Yes, I'm from beginning, from birth. I don't know about you, Stephanie. Were you a transplant or were you born here?

Stephanie: Oh no, Anjel. I am third generation native.

Anjel: Okay, there's few of us left.

Stephanie: I know. I know.

Anjel: It's always like a unique and rare occasion. It's like sighting a unicorn or something.

Stephanie: It is.On my mom's side, my mom and her mom were both born, in and around Manchester. My dad is a South Boston guy. We lived in New York for a couple of years when I was a kid and both my brothers were born in New York. So I'm actually the only native of my siblings.

yeah, but you're right, we're dwindling. many fewer of us than there used to be. But I'm interested in you said something at the event last month that just, tickled my ears. What drew me to you was you said that when you were around 38, you had a spiritual awakening and you said, my hands turned on. My creativity turned on. My voice turned on. And I am, I just was so intrigued by that. So why don't we start from the beginning and tell me a little bit about the forces that shaped you before you got to the spiritual awakening. How did you become who you were then?

Anjel: Yeah. Great. My childhood, grew up in Hollis, New Hampshire, which is a little farm town. And my dad was a raging abusive alcoholic. And my mom was probably an undiagnosed borderline personality or something along those lines. So it was very tumultuous behind closed doors, growing up there, and I couldn't wait to get out.

I was like, get me out of here as fast as possible. And so I did everything I could to leave as swiftly as I possibly could. I was always a straight A student. I graduated high school a year in advance. And I ended up, my dad lost his job 2 weeks before I graduated from high school. my college dreams went up in, scotch whiskey, not smoke, but scotch whiskey, My college dreams went up in scotch whiskey. And so I had to, really young, make decisions to just go to work. And so I went to work, and I did a number of different things and ultimately ended up stumbling into the real estate industry. And so the first 20 years of my career was in real estate.

And at the end of that, I, was the national chairperson for my trade association. I was building with two partners, 51 single family units, 56 apartments and an office building. And then I had this spiritual awakening and,up until that point, I was very much, conditioned. I was so conditioned. I had the white house. I had the chain link fence. I had the dog. I had the two cars in the garage. I had the kid. I had the husband, who's now wasband. I have two wasbands.Anyway,

Stephanie: I've never heard it called that. That's fabulous.

Anjel: Yeah, well, I prefer it over ex because ex has just such a weird connotation to it. He was my husband and he's not anymore.

So I have two wasbands. Anyway, I was so like conditioned and I grew up in an era, they, talk about the baby boomers and Gen X and then there's like this generation that kind of overlaps those two that they sometimes call Generation Jones. And Generation Jones is all about keeping up with the Joneses. So, you know there was that oh you gotta have the house. You gotta have the car. You gotta have the kid. You gotta have the dog. You gotta have the white picket fence. All those things, and it was like ticking things off of the box until, until i had the spiritual awakening at 38

Stephanie: And what brought your spiritual awakening upon you? How did that unfold for you and what caused it?

Anjel: Yeah so really good question. Leading up to that, my son was born prematurely, so we had an emergency c section and, we almost lost him. And then three years later, he was sexually assaulted in daycare. And so that was pretty intense. And it was literally like five years of, of hit after hit after hit after hit after hit on a personal level. My my sister had a brain aneurysm. You know, there was just so much that was going on in my life and I was also at the peak of the intensity of building 51 single family houses 56 apartments in an office building with two partners and being the national chairperson of my trade association and certainly the assault in daycare was instrumental in creating enough of a,I think it's Oprah. Somebody says that you either get the whisper, you get the knock on the door, you get the 2 by 4, you get the Mac truck. That was a Mac truck moment. That was what we call a life rupture. It was a Mac truck moment. It was through that period of time that I began to really, question everything. I was in intense pain, intense psychological pain, intense emotional pain, intense, physical exhaustion from trying to hold all the things together and sooner or later the dam breaks.

And, what ended up happening was about three years after that happened in daycare, I ended up injuring myself skiing. And as a result of that injury, I started a yoga practice. And within three months of starting the yoga practice, that was when the spiritual awakening happened.

I was in the park, with my yoga teacher, she did a Sunday in the park yoga. And at the end of the yoga, we were in final shavasana, and I was next to this oak tree lying on the earth, and all of a sudden my third eye popped open. In that experience, I started to see, angels going up and down this golden white staircase, and these golden white orbs going, up and down this staircase. Then I sat up in the park and opened my physical eyes and everyone in the park was a golden white orb of light, which was a little freaky for me.

It was a little bit freaky for me. and I think if I had not had the yoga community at that time, if I had, not already put some spiritual support structures in place, I might've taken myself off to the psychiatrist and gotten medicated.

Stephanie: Right.

Anjel: Because I was very much a left brained, put the numbers in the spreadsheets. It was just so far out of the realm of my reality. And thankfully, I was able to allow myself to be in wonder. I was able to allow myself to be curious about what was happening, and I was able to put things in place to affirm myself, not the least of which was journaling.

I started journaling right around that same time. And because of the journaling, I was able to look back at these spiritual and supernatural experiences that I was having and affirm myself. So as you mentioned, my hands turned on. I began, I could heal with my hands. My creativity turned on. My artist came out. My healer came out. My performer came out.

I went through this period of allowing all of what had been dormant for my whole life to suddenly germinate. And I didn't suppress it. Instead I welcomed it and it caused you know, I left the real estate career behind. I left the wasband behind. And I just kept saying yes to these supernatural experiences that I was having.

And the more I said, yes, the more they happened. And the more I said, yes, the more I began to, become more confident in myself and in my gifts that had been hidden. And I also began to, find others. I wasn't all by myself, although I was pretty isolated here in New Hampshire. I did question if I was crazy a lot. The journal really helped because. Here in New Hampshire to have those kinds of experiences back then was at the very least unusual.

Stephanie: Yeah. I'm so curious about how I'm trying to put myself in your shoes and I would think two things as these elements are opening up for you. One completely freaked out. And then two, I don't want to say imposter necessarily, but something in that direction. How am I all of a sudden a healer? How am I all of a sudden a creative? How am I all of a sudden a performer? How did you work through some of that?

Stephanie: Mm

Anjel: I got a lot of pushback. However, one of the things that happened for me, Stephanie, was at a deep core level, I felt better the more I said yes. So if I would look at my life back, before the spiritual awakening, I was under so much stress.

I had so much anxiety. I would spend 28 out of 30 days, like just spun right up and maybe have two days a month that I felt somewhat capable of relaxing. I also started seeing other people who were healers as well, invested incredible amounts of money, time and energy to feel better. To stop feeling, stressed and distraught.

And so yes, here's the thing about the kind of imposter syndrome question. Like I was so in wonder and curiosity as all of these things started to emerge and I had made such a, final cut with the old life that I literally gave myself two years of just complete exploration. And I lived off MasterCard Visa, American Express, Discover, home equity. Like I gave myself two full years of exploration, of discovery. It wasn't that I was, putting myself out there and saying, I'm a healer now. It was more of, I discovered, Oh my God, I can heal with my hands. And Oh my God, I can make art. And Oh my God, I can write. And Oh my God, I can perform.

Like all, it was like I was in wonder. So it wasn't so much that I was concerned about my performance in that way. It was much more of this beautiful, period of time of permitting myself to do whatever was coming that day. What are we doing today? Kind of exploration.

Stephanie: Do you have any idea how you stayed out of fear during that time? Because it sounds like when you made that major break from your previous life, it sounds to me like your real estate career was pretty darn successful, stable, dependable. And you said, I'm out. How were you not fearful during that time?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anjel: I come home because I had paid a babysitter that night while I went out and did my little workshop. I came home and the babysitter had, and before this, I was starting to worry. I was starting to get a little fearful. I was like, I don't know how long this can go on because this was like 2 years in. I really don't know how long I can keep floating like this and being spiritually guided to do this or try that. So I was beginning to worry about the money for sure. The fear was more about the money than anything. And also about, being able to tend to my son, who was, a little guy and had some pretty serious issues as a result of the premature birth, the sexual assault in daycare, the divorce of his parents.

I definitely was fearful at that time. So here I am. I go to my crystal healing workshop. There's three people. They each paid 35 to hear me speak. I come home. I had paid the babysitter probably, I don't know, 30 for the night, right? She had put the popcorn into my microwave upside down and burnt a hole right through the top of my microwave.

The next day I get a call on the voicemail. It said you need four new tires for the car. And then I'm out in this sweating, like so hot, middle of June. I'm mowing the lawn. All of a sudden, I run over a bolt with the lawnmower, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, three things in a row. And in that moment, when I ran over this bolt with the lawnmower, I realized because by then I had some spiritually oriented mindset more. I realized that I was creating. I was creating what I was worried about. I was creating what I was fearful about. I was creating all, if you're worried about money, you're going to create all kinds of things to affirm, all kinds of experience to affirm. So I'm not going to say I didn't have fear and I'm not going to say that it doesn't show up every now and then. However, I am aware that it is very important to, not collude with the fears and have things in place, whether it's, support systems with coaches or mentors or healers. To have support systems in place so that when that comes up, when those things come up, when those fears come up, when those worries come up, that you have structures in place to support you to not indulge.

Stephanie: To choose to move beyond them. To choose to let those be the thoughts that float by that you don't put a, put a flag down on.

Anjel: And that doesn't mean to gaslight yourself if you're in the middle of something that's a challenge, and that's why you put support systems around you. People hire me and invest thousands and thousands of dollars to work with me to support them when they're having fears. And often the things that sabotage people are in their blind spot, they don't even see it.

Was there an equal and opposite moment where you manifested a pretty little pile of money?

Stephanie: Within 6 weeks of the ceremony, I found out that my partners had sold. I was the quarter share and they had 75%, so I didn't have any real control. But I did this ceremony and within six weeks found out that they had sold the apartment and the rest of the project to somebody. And I manifested 700, 000 for myself. Well, that is, as I requested, a pretty little pile.

Anjel: Pretty little pile. A pretty little pile. And that fueled, my evolution for years and growth.

Stephanie: Yeah. before we move on from there, tell me a little bit about the ceremony that you did. Was it something you made up yourself? How were you guided to do that?

Anjel: Great question. Interestingly enough, as part of this journey, I invested in this thing to learn about, publishing. And this woman said to me, you need to have a platform and I didn't understand what she was talking about.I had no idea what she was talking about. So I ended up building an art gallery and healing art center in the city of Nashua. I was like, Oh, here's my platform. Cause I had a little guy and I knew I wasn't going anywhere at that point. And, as part of building that art gallery and healing art center, I went to the bank and the banker was helping me with my card processing thing.

And I told him what I was doing and I was making jewelry that was energetically charged at that time. And I was making this art gallery and healing art center and all the things. And so the banker got really curious and he was like, oh I'm very curious. And he said I've just met this medicine man. So all these weird synchronicities were happening. So the banker said I've just met this medicine man you're gonna have to meet him.

I was like, great. And I offered to my banker, I said, because I was training to be a crystal healer at the time as well. I offered to my banker, I said, I need a, demo guy, would you like a crystal healing? And he said, okay, but you got to meet this medicine man. So I went to pick up my banker, to take him to do the healing and the medicine man walked into the room and I looked at the medicine man and I was like, You're the one I'm supposed to do the healing with.

It was like, my channel was so open at that point that I was just like, in the moment, I looked at the medicine man, I was like, you're the one. Afterwards, I was like, who the hell was I to say this to the medicine man. And so he dropped everything and came with me and my banker said, okay, I'll come later.

The medicine man came with me. I did this whole healing. It was just completely channeled through, completely spontaneous. I did this healing on him. afterwards I sat at the table with him and gave him some tea. And I was like, I don't know what just happened. He looked at me and he said, there is no hierarchy amongst medicine people. And that the work that I did with him was absolutely what he needed me to do. So he was the one that I asked to help me with the land ceremony. And so he came in and he did a whole ceremony with me. We did it together on the land.

Intermission

Stephanie: Thing that's really interesting. about just this piece of your story is, I've at this point, had well over a hundred conversations with people about this period of life. And so I can really start to slice and dice them and find, commonalities. And one of the things that people say quite often is,they hear these voices bubbling up inside of them that are saying things that are scary. And so most people, and myself included, either, turn the volume down, shove the voice down, shut the door, cover over it, and we avoid those voices. And that results in, like you said, right, the upgrade. I always say the universe will keep sending you lessons until you decide to learn them and they get progressively, more and more outrageous. And so you were talking about the 2 by 4 to the head or the Mac truck. And the people who have the easier time during this transitionary period of life tend to be more curious about those voices and tend to listen to those voices, even if they have what we perceive as scary things to say. And so it strikes me that, from the moment you laid down in Shavasana on that yoga mat in the park, you were doing a really wonderful job of listening to the voices and following them, regardless of how outrageous they were guiding you to be.

Anjel: Oh, I was definitely guided to be pretty outrageous. Really outrageous. I'm like, okay, here we go. 1One o the things I want to say about the scary things to say. They are scary, the voices and the things that are shown to you, or that you hear that you feel are only scary if you are looking at them from the frame of your old life.

Stephanie: Right.

Anjel: And for me, it was an ongoing process of saying, okay, I'll try that and see what happens.

Stephanie: Mm

Anjel: And the more I said, okay, I'll do that and see what happens, things got better.

Stephanie: Right? I came to understand that the voices are scary for the old me, but they're a guide for the me that I'm becoming.

Anjel: They're a guide for that.

Stephanie: There was a woman I spoke to who had who had done all the right things. She had worked herself up the corporate ladder, right? She head down, check all the boxes through her thirties and she was, at the height of, corporate success and she would be in a, boardroom after a meeting was done and she would think, is this all there is? I worked so hard and this is where I got? I'm supposed to feel better than this about getting here. And so the reason that we think these voices are scary is because for some people, it does require the dismantling of the life you've built, whether it's pieces of it, parts of it, or the whole. I love the way you're saying the voices are scary to the old you, but you did dismantle an entire life in order to become, right. Right.

We're just talking about this particular transition, right? so it can be scary because you do have to let go of the things that you built that you thought you were supposed to build in order to be safe and happy.

Anjel: Well, and it's conditioning, the societal conditioning, familial conditioning, religious conditioning, ancestral conditioning, Madison Avenue conditioning, Hollywood conditioning, fairytale conditioning, it's all conditioning. And that question, is this all there is, was certainly in my mind. Absolutely, in my mind, at the time during that, there was about a five year window, so the five year window ran from probably 38, yeah, 38 ish, but maybe even before that. There was a good few years before that, where the noises, the whispers, the knocks, the 2 by 4s were already coming.

Like, they were already coming And when you're in that kind of chaotic phase where it just keeps coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. You ultimately end up. You either surrender and give up or you end up having some kind of an awakening like I did. When you're in the chaos, it can be really hard to hear anything it can be just really. Like, you're just hanging on, you know, you're just hanging on by the claws trying to survive another day. You're really in survival mode.

It's the voices,when they came for me, there wasn't a sense of relief. There was a sense of shock. Like, what the heck is going on now? You know what I mean?

Stephanie: Yeah, because to that point you were, it sounds like, you know, a pretty normal middle class kind of person. So now to be seeing orbs in the park and angels and hearing voices and being called to things. That's, that's some weird shit. Yeah.

Anjel: To the old me. Absolutely.

Stephanie: Right.

Anjel: And, to my community, and to my marriage, and to my parents. Like, it was weird shit to everybody. Right.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. To the mainstream.

Anjel: The mainstream. Yeah. Because they're all still conditioned. And many people have these experiences and do what exactly what you said, Stephanie, which is suppress, repress, and depress.

We're actually encouraged and conditioned and often medicated to repress, suppress, and depress. So, it is, it's pretty rare to actualize what's possible, which is your potential. That you don't even know is there if you're unwilling to allow for it.

Stephanie: Wow. So this next phase of your life was about an art gallery and a healing center. What were those years like?

Anjel: Yeah, that was 2 years of money pitting. Everything

Stephanie: Okay.

Anjel: but,I had that big 700, 000 dollars came in and went back out pretty quickly, unfortunately. I ended up, hosting a lot of people in my art gallery. It was like a beacon space in the city and I ended up, at the end of that, I ran a street festival. I started Art Walk Nashua that went on for 18 years. They just ended that last year, 18 or 19 years. I was instrumental in starting City Arts Nashua, so there was a lot of, positive things that came out from that. I had a street festival at the end. And I had built the art gallery and healing art center thinking, Oh, like my kiddo was like eight when I started that.

I was like, Oh, I got 10 years here. No, no. Within two years, it was really clear that was a no. And I was so pissed at my upstairs team. I call my guide team, my upstairs team. I was so pissed. I was like going down the stairs, collecting art, from the artists who were displaying in my store.

And I was like, why did I go through all this? Why did I build this thing? I was mad. And they flashed a vision into my third eye of the place burning down. And I was like, Oh no, I'll go the easy way. If I'm going, I'll go the easy way. I don't need the place to burn down. Thank you very much. So sometimes I get like really feisty. Yeah.

And I was like, back that Mac truck up. I see what you're showing me here. I'm good. I'm good. I'm out. I'll go. Sometimes you have to push back on the upstairs team, though, so I learned in that moment, oh, okay. The choices are you go the easy way or you go the hard way, but you're going either way.

Stephanie: How'd youu get into podcasting?

Anjel: For 10 years, I was virtual speaking, and I had clients from all over the world, made multiple millions of dollars from home in my pajamas. I was the mom that baked brownies for every football game. So there was this part of me that was still wanting to be the suburban mom housewife, you know what I mean? There were that and I had to indulge her and make the brownies football team. And I was the house where all the kids came after school. And at the same time, I was literally serving people all over the world and making millions of dollars from home and keeping the roof over his head. And all the things.

But the thing about podcasting for me was, my podcasts have always served my business. It's not been for me, like an artistic thing or, a hobby thing. It's always been my podcast serves my business. My business serves my life. My life serves my purpose. So Yeah, that's how I got into podcasting. And I already had 10 years of experience speaking virtually and serving people all over the world, right? So when it came time to be behind the mic, that was the next step.

Stephanie: Natural. Yeah. Wow.

The thing that I love that your story illustrates so well is just that the listening to the voices, the listening to the crazy voices. Not too long ago, I spoke with a guy by the name of Jeff Glauser, who, His life for years had been going just wrong, even though he was working hard. He was doing the responsible thing. He was making the responsible choices, but it was just hard, hard, hard. And he had to make a change. His life did break down around him and he had to make conscious change. And then follow a different path. And you did very much the same thing, but your story really illustrates listening to the voices and letting them follow you, because you always hear, listen to your gut, it will never lie to you. And you're calling it the upstairs team. You're tuning into your higher powers. But there's that same kind of thing there that they will never lead you astray.

Anjel: That is correct. It might seem completely illogical. A lot of people use the word counterintuitive and counterintuitive is actually not the correct word. It's actually counter logical. Things may seem counter logical, right?

Stephanie: Yes.

Anjel: When you're following your intuitive knowing, they may seem counter logical. My mother was freaked out when I left behind the real estate career. She was like, what are you doing? But she didn't know some of the things that were going on behind the scenes there either. And nobody really knows what's happening in your life, but you, and sometimes you don't have, a lot of times you don't have a full picture of what's going on in your life.

And so for me, the practice has been like, I have a few prayers. One prayer is, let me be a pure, clear channel. And so that means that my job is just to keep my channel clear, because if I keep my channel clear, then I can be a clear receiver for that information. Another 1 of my favorite prayers is help, send help. I need some help here. You know, I think a lot of us are also conditioned to resist asking for help.

Stephanie: Right.

Anjel: so much resistance, so much, so much resistance. And then my third prayer is never let me lose my sense of awe and wonder.

Stephanie: What has turned on that sense of awe and wonder most recently? What, what has left you awestruck or in wonder most recently?

Anjel: Oh, I love that question. Well, I just love synchronicity. I love synchronicity because it's such a rush when synchronicity happens. So yesterday I was like, I had my day kind of open and I said, I think I'm going to go to the beach today. And I get a text in the morning from this woman who I've known for years, who lives over in Ireland. And she's like, Hey, I'm here. I'm with my cousins. We're driving through from Maine. And I'd love to see you. And I was like, Oh my God, I already had plans to go to the beach today. You know, if you're coming down from Maine, we can meet the beach. So we met at the beach at four o'clock. I had a five o'clock appointment.

We met at the beach at four. I sat down with her and her cousins and get a beep from my appointment that says, Hey, can we make it a little bit later? I'm like, Yeah, that would be great. Let's make it a little bit later.So now instead of being squished because one of my practices right now is I'm practicing not squishing. So we had tried to squish this into an hour and the spirit was like, no, the angels of my calendar were like, no, we're not going to squish. So we ended up having almost two hours that we could spend with each other. So then we're leaving. They go to the restroom at the restaurant. I leave, I get partway down the street and turn around and say, Oh no, I got to go to the restroom myself. So I use the main, like the beach restroom, come out of the beach restroom and there they are again. So we got to hug again. It's like, yes, this is the way I want to live my life. Like that's the game. Synchronicity.

Stephanie: Funny thing if we're gonna add to the I leave for Ireland on Tuesday.

Anjel: Of course you did.

Stephanie: Of course it was a friend from Ireland. Isn't that a riot? Yeah. Oh my goodness Oh, so what are you doing these days Anjel?

Anjel: So these days I am doing Wickedly Smart Woman podcast. I have a book series that we've started with Wickedly Smart Women podcast that's called Trusting Intuition. It's Wickedly Smart Women, Trusting Intuition, Taking Action, Transforming Worlds. That's right there.

That's book one, but we're going to do book two, book three, book four, book five. I have another podcast that I started last June. We just won our first award for it's called Leading Visionaries and that's non gender specific. It's my first non gender specific podcast. So I'm having some fun with that and I'm preparing for a hiatus for the summer because I like to take the summer off from podcast recording. I still serve my clients but I do like to take the summer off from podcast recording so I am gonna have a hiatus and have a nice little vacation. I rented a lake house in Weare, New Hampshire.

So I have a little vacation planned and going to see you tomorrow at the New England podcasters meeting.

Stephanie: Right.

Anjel: Yeah. What's going on with me right now is I'm open. I'm open to see because all those things could just get thrown out the window and there could be something else that shows up, that is for my higher good. So I will also be making ceremony on, the solstice to just, reset my connections with the land and with my source and open the awe and wonder.

Stephanie: Thank you so much for joining me today, for being so generous with your story. I've really enjoyed my time with you.

Anjel: It's my pleasure. I do have something for your listeners if they're interested, where I do talk a little bit about the story of getting into the virtual speaking business. It's my book, called Be Heard by Millions and Live Your Destiny. See if I have a copy right here. Be Heard by Millions and Live Your Destiny. It's a creative age leaders guide to speak, sell, serve, and succeed. And they can get that, for free, the whole book, a PDF of the book at BeHeardByMillions. com.

Stephanie: Excellent. And I will put that in the show notes. So if you're driving or walking or doing something, you can always come back and there'll be a link straight to it.

Anjel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me today, Stephanie. This is such a pleasure.

Stephanie: Thanks for being here.