Seline: Think about what you’re most grateful for, what is working in your life so that they can have that shift in orientation, because that can instantly make them feel better. Right. Gratitude. And really focusing on what is going right. Okay. Now, when it comes to filling that gap between, you know, where they are and where they want to be in terms of their emotional state, I think they would first need to connect with themselves deeper. That’s one of the chapters in my book, the Nomadic Soul, where I speak about building a really strong relationship with your interior world. Because if you’re tuned in, you would be pretty clued in with what’s going on with you.

Stacy: Welcome. I am so excited about this week’s topic because it’s so in line with the whole point of this podcast. It’s called Beyond Better, and it’s about living a life that is not just better, but it’s beyond better. It’s about creating a life you love and really designing your own life and making choices in alignment with the life that you want for yourself. It’s also about choicefulness.

Stacy: So this idea that one decision does not make the rest of our lives, we always have the opportunity to make different choices. And I feel that this week’s guest perfectly embodies a lot of what this podcast is about. So I’m really excited to get to introduce you to this week’s guest. Celine Chinoy is an author, blogger, and podcaster whose work focuses on personal development, self esteem, productivity, and culture. Her online community, the Dreamcatcher, connects and encourages thousands of readers and listeners every month from all over the world to live their dream lives and make a difference. Her book, the Nomadic Soul, draws from realms of philosophy, history, and spirituality to reveal a revolutionary framework for discovering your true self and manifesting a life that’s exclusively your own. Welcome, Seline.

Seline: Hi, Stacy. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on the show. Yeah.

Stacy: I am so excited to get to talk with you today. One of the things that I noticed as I was reading about you in preparation for today’s interview is that you have been at this online thing for a long time, which I have, too. I Don’t often get to talk with guests who have been so consistently building their impact over such a long period of time. I’d love to hear a little bit about your backstory. What led you to create the Dreamcatcher community and then eventually write your book and do the work that you do today.

Seline: Sure. So I had this interest in personal growth since as far as I can remember. I think I was about 15 or 16 years old when I started watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. And I don’t know if you remember, but she used to feature guests who had written all these fabulous books on this genre. We had people like Gary Zuka, Dr. Phil, Cheryl Richardson. And I remember watching those interviews, Stacy, and just being absolutely captivated. And even though I didn’t quite understand a lot of themes they were discussing, like, I was quite young, right. I was 15 or 16, and I. I had not had enough life experience, but something about it really drew me in. And I bought a couple of their books, started reading it, and I found myself really pulled into that world.

Seline: So my interest really took root from that time. And then I just continued on that path. And then in my early 20s, I realized that I want to use all this knowledge that I learned from these books and from watching the shows and attending some workshops. I thought I wanted to actually use this knowledge not just in my life, but to actually channel that in the form of a coaching practice. Right. So I got my coaching certification, and I started my coaching practice, and I was working mostly with teenagers and young adults. I did that for about six years, and I got a little burned out towards the end. And I realized that while I loved. I loved helping people, I loved helping people in that sort of format.

Seline: I found myself getting a bit drained during the sessions, and I somehow realized that it really wasn’t for me. I’m what they call an empath. And I. And later on, I realized that I was not doing enough to protect my energy field. But anyway, at that time, I didn’t know that. And then I realized that I’m going to stop my. My coaching practice. And during that time, I was also sending out newsletters to all my coaching clients. And a lot of them complimented me on my writing skills and my ability to give form to quite complex topics. Right. And so that motivated me to start the blog. I heard about blogging, and it was. This was back in 2014, and I said, okay, I’m going to give it a go. And people responded. They loved the content, and I think it was because I.

Seline: I was going through a very rough passion in my life at that time, and I was writing from this place. I was really raw and genuine and authentic, and that is something that people really picked up on, and that is. I realized that is such an important quality to have as a content creator. And the blog really took off, and so I continued down that path. And later on, I started the podcast in 2018, early 2018, and then I wrote my first book at that time. So I guess it was a very natural evolution, if you will. As I learned more about it and the more I learned about my audience, what they like, what they’re responding to, I just started creating content that I felt that would be helpful for them and that they would, you know, gain some benefit from. So.

Seline: So, yeah, that’s how it all went down. And I’m so happy that I took that journey because it’s completely changed me as a person. It’s given me purpose, it’s kept me sane. I believe that all of us need to have some outlet where we can express our creativity, a place where we can contribute. I believe that is so, so important, because without that, with. Without having those two pillars, you can find yourself going astray. And I’ve seen this happen with a lot of people. You know, they can fall for the traps of the ego. They can start, you know, just blindly following what others are doing.

Seline: So I believe that having some kind of creative hobby and having a place where you can contribute can keep you anchored and really lead to that sense of fulfillment and joy that all of us are aspiring to.

Stacy: I could not agree more. I think that’s such an important part of just like a life is having a way of expressing yourself in whatever modality that is, which. I know. I noticed in your book, the Nomadic Soul, you talk about different modes of expression that might be writing, it might be painting. I want to go back to the earlier part of the story that you just shared with us, because I had this realization in my own life just not very long ago, it was probably just a few months back, that I had listened to a lot of personal development, like, forcefully by my dad on road trips. He had played. I don’t know if you ever listened to Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Seline: Of course, I listened to a lot of his stuff. Yeah. I’ve even met him. I had the good fortune of meeting him.

Stacy:
Really?

Seline: Yes.

Stacy: How cool is that? Was he like the same as you would imagine?

Seline: Oh, yeah. He was bliss. He was full. He was just full of light. He’s just a joy to meet. Yes.

Stacy: Wow, cool. Yeah. So growing up, we lived in Idaho and we would take road trips to Oregon or California. That was like our summer, right. Would be going to the coast. And I remember one road trip, I pretty sure my dad had us listen the entire eight hour drive. And every time we complained about it, he would like, tell us we had to listen longer. So we ended up having this, just listening to that on this drive. And at the time I was, you know, I was like, oh, dad, this is the worst. Because I was maybe like 14 or something. Of course I didn’t want to listen. But then in. And this is where the connection got made for me because when I was in my bachelor’s program, I. I did a minor in visual art. And when I was.

Stacy: You had to be like a model for your classes as part of the class. At some point you had to volunteer to like, be a still life for everybody to draw. And so I just listened to Wayne Dyer for like eight hours or ten hours or something. And I really think that early seeding of his work and just this whole idea of personal development then paired with the creative expression of studying art and expressing art, was really formative in who I am as a person today. But I didn’t really even think about that until recently. How much I feel that really shaped me that just the pairing of those two things.

Stacy: And I’m curious, I know that you have a framework that we’re going to get into, but I’d love to dig a little deeper into this idea of creative expression and this kind of pairing of personal, like, growth and a desire to actualize, a desire to like, live the life that we truly discover what life we even want to begin with and then live into that. And how creativity really supports that in this form of expression, how that nurtures you in that direction.

Seline: Yeah, yeah, let’s. Let’s go there. That’s one of my favorite topics to speak about.

Stacy: When you meet somebody who’s maybe stuck or stagnant or feeling a sense of unrest, how do you advise them? Or what would you advise somebody that’s in that position who wants to start a creative practice? And what do you think that will unlock for them in. In helping them kind of achieve a fuller life?

Seline: Just to clarify, you mean to say they’re just generally feeling a sense of angst and they just need to find a way to kind of, I don’t know, heal that?

Stacy: I think angst is a good word because what I often come across is, you know, somebody who’s maybe successful in their life. Like, they’ve achieved the markers of success in their life, but there’s still this feeling of, like, unrest. But they can’t really pinpoint why. Like, they have everything that they. They feel that they. They should be like, totally content and really happy, but they’re not feeling that way. Maybe there is that sense of angst or unrest, but when you look at, like, the life that they’re living, it’s often not. It’s often devoid of expression. I think that’s really normal and really common in. For a lot of people.

Seline: Yeah, that’s true. It could be a number of things. First of all, maybe they need. They need to reframe. Reframe and see their life differently. Maybe they’re not grateful enough for what’s going on in their life. You know that. I mean, that would be the first thing I would say. Like, think about what you’re most grateful for, what is working in your life so that they can have that shift in orientation, because that can instantly make them feel better. Right? Gratitude and really focusing on what is going. Right. Okay. Now when it comes to filling that gap between, you know, where they are and where they want to be in terms of their emotional state, I think they would first need to connect with themselves deeper.

Seline: That’s one of the chapters in my book the Nomadic Soul, where I speak about building a really strong relationship with your interior world. Because if you’re tuned in, you would be pretty clued in with what’s going on with you. One of the best ways to do it, for me at least, is journaling. Journaling. Journaling will really be able to put your thoughts on paper and give you that ability to be objective about what’s going on and give your feelings and emotions some. Some kind of structure and form. Because if it’s in your mind, it’s kind of all over the place, right? There’s. You can’t give it. It’s not coherent, basically. Right. So I would say first do that. And if. If they’re more of a talker, they’re more of an extrovert, then perhaps talk about your.

Seline: About your issues with a close friend, a therapist, a coach. The point is get some. Get. Get some clarity about what is going on within you, because that’s the first step kind of framing the problem. Like what is. What is it that is making you feel unsettled. Once you did do that, then you can look into different avenues that will help you get over that. So, I mean, those would be the primary Steps that I would say people need to take initially. First of all, defining the problem and having that awareness of what is going on within them.

Stacy: It’s so rare that we sit quietly with ourselves or really like process how we’re feeling and, and like uncover what’s really going on. Was. There’s so much input every day.

Seline: I know.

Stacy: Just shuts down our thoughts.

Seline: Yeah. And, and you know, social media doesn’t help. You know, we’re busy watching TikTok videos or you know, reading about other people’s experiences and trying to transpose that on our life circumstances, which is not really going to work because what’s happening for them and what works for them is probably not going to work for you. Like, you need to find out what is going on in your own situation. And that requires that quiet space that you just mentioned. That requires you to take that journey within yourself and explore the interior being. And that’s becoming increasingly harder, Stacy. The busier we’re getting as a society, the more stimuli around us. And I think we really need to protect that sacred space where we can actually have that time to connect with ourselves.

Seline: Because the minute we lose that, we might reach a place where we don’t know how we got there. And that’s when we start feeling that dissatisfaction, that apathy, that Inuit that, you know, that feeling that, okay, everything seems fine in my life, but I’m still not feeling fulfilled. I’m not feeling that zest for life. That usually happens when we have strayed too far away from who we actually are as a person and we have lost touch with the signals that our inner self is sending us because our intuition is always speaking to us.

Stacy: It’s interesting. In my professional life I really dug into learning about business growth and just kind of absorbing everything. I joined programs, went to the things I, you know, I did all this stuff and after about three years of that I realized that I was going outward and not going inward and I came back around. But to your point, there’s so much grabbing in our attention all the time and sometimes it’s. It’s not social media. It might be that we’re reading a book which obviously I’m a big fan of books and I want people to read books, but sometimes we can take in, in and not actually look in to uncover the right path or the right choices or understand ourselves.

Seline: Yeah, you’re so right. I actually remember reading this chapter in Tim Ferriss book. I don’t remember which One. But he talked about going on an information diet where we really become discerning about what we’re taking in and really consciously choose where we’re getting our information from and how much we’re getting per day. Because no matter what we. No matter what we do, we can’t overlook the fact that our mental bandwidth is limited. Right. So we have to respect that our limitations, and kind of cull our information diet accordingly, because if we don’t, we’ll be overwhelmed. It will diminish the quality of our thinking, and we won’t be effective as a person because we’re going to be kind of flooded in our mind. And that’s happened to me a couple of times in the past.

Seline: And that’s when I realized that I really need to take in less and just take a break for some time.

Stacy: Yeah, that really resonates with me. Actually, right now I’m in a period of, like, very intentionally, I’m reading one book, and I’m implementing that one book rather than reading 12. Well, I am also reading a novel, but I feel like that’s okay. You can read it a nonfiction and fiction at the same time. You say that having an experience, explorer’s spirit, is important to personal growth. I’d love to hear a little bit more about what this means and how somebody would embody this explorer spirit. It’s the New Year, and maybe last year you said you were going to finish a book, but it didn’t happen. And so I want to invite you to something that is going to support your author journey. It’s a free webinar that I’m hosting, New Year, New book. How to finally finish your nonfiction book in 2025.

Stacy: This is a webinar I do every January. People love it. It’s hugely impactful in helping kickstart your goal of authorhood. And I’m going to be gifting something really cool that I’ve never, ever given away. So I hope you’ll join us. I hope you’ll take action on your goal of authorhood. You can sign up at staceyanis.com/new year, new book, and I will see you there.

Seline: Sure. So the idea of being an explorer, to means not allowing ourselves to be limited by the conventions that society has and the labels that are placed upon us, and to be able to look at the possibilities and see how far we can go, because that’s what an explorer does. Right. They are hungry and they’re not satisfied with the status quo. They want to go and see what’s out there, how much they can grow, how much. How far they can reach. Because I believe that the key to progress is continual and steady growth. And that can only come when you have the consciousness of an explorer. If you look back on history, some of the greatest pioneers in history and science, in practically every field, they were not happy with the way things were.

Seline: They knew that there was something beyond the horizon, and it was this hunger and this drive to keep going and to. And to just, you know, follow their curiosity. Basically, that’s all it takes. And I think that sometimes, Stacy, we get too. Our vision becomes too narrow for ourselves for whatever reason. You know, fear is a big one, social conditioning, and that kind of drowns that voice of that inner explorer. So what I’m trying to do is really urge people to get out of their comfort zone and to kind of break free from limited thinking, to adopt a growth mindset that will allow them to see how much more that they are capable of achieving. Because I feel that all of us have tremendous potential and we just need to give ourselves a chance and to be resource.

Seline: Resourceful enough to look for those opportunities out there. I mean, I’m experiencing that right now. I was told, like, I’m, you know, with my book, I felt that a lot of people told me, like, this is as far as you can go in terms of the marketing and the distribution, but I’m not allowing that to get in the way. I feel like I can do a lot more with it. So I walk my talk. Really, I do. So the bottom line is an explorer mindset is all about not limiting your vision and having that urge to follow your curiosity and to explore your potential and the possibilities that are out there for you in the world. Because they are. They are. There’s plenty out there. We live in a very abundant world.

Seline: You just need to believe that it is an abundant world and give yourself a chance.

Stacy: I mean, kids are great at this, right? They’re naturally curious and testing limits and trying things when they’re. When they’re very little. And as we get older, we, I think, become jaded, hardened as we go through life experiences. What are some practical. We love to get really practical on this podcast and give people just some. Some practical examples of ways that this shows up maybe in your life. I know you mentioned your. Your book distribution or maybe somebody in your community that has really demonstrated this explorer spirit. Can you share some examples of this so that our listeners could start to think about ways that this could express in their own lives?

Seline: I can’t think of a specific example of someone who’s actually applied this principle. In my book, I spotlight Walt Disney for this chapter on curiosity. And he has been a big source of inspiration for me since I was a kid. I mean, I grew up in the 90s, so I watched all the classics at that time. That was Disney’s golden era, a lot of people believe. And so his principles when it comes to, you know, exploring what’s out there. And really not because a lot of people doubted Walt Disney at every step of the way from. From the time when he. When he introduced this whole idea of starting the full feature animated movie Snow White back in the. In the 1920s, people said, you’re crazy. Nobody’s gonna, like, watch a full animated movie for like an hour and a half.

Seline: Who’s gonna do that? But he went ahead. He didn’t care because he believed in it so much. And then even, like with Disneyland, when he said, when he announced this huge mega project that he was going to build this park for families, like this massive park somewhere in Anaheim, California, again, people ridiculed him. They said, he’s crazy. He’s going to lose all his money. So by he demonstrated that he. He had such a strong vision, Stacy, that he did not allow. He did not allow others to water down his dreams. And he wanted to explore that vision. He knew that there was some fertile ground there. So Walt Disney is one of the prime examples of what it looks like to be led by a spirit of exploration.

Seline: And it’s what led him to become such an innovator in the animated world and, you know, in the entertainment industry, really. So, I mean, that is the case study that I write about in the Nomadic Soul.

Stacy: It makes me think about. I did some research around bravery, around courage and ways that people could develop courage if it wasn’t something that was being expressed regularly in their lives. And one of the things that I came across was the concept of micro bravery. So it’s like these small acts that begin to develop your sense of courage. So for a child that might be like walking into a dark room to turn a light on when they’re scared of the dark, or it might be petting a dog. I’m actually afraid of dogs and not dogs. I know, but I’ve had some experiences that have made me cautious. So for me, that might be within, like, a safe space, like petting a dog that’s a strange dog to me or something like that. So they’re these small things that are pretty like, low risk and.

Stacy: But they’re going to start to develop these muscles for you so that when it comes to time to maybe step on a stage, if that is your kind of next expression of courage, or start a business that you’ve started kind of working these muscles to develop this sense of courage within yourself in smaller ways to lead to these bigger ones. And to me it sounds like that might be something that could align with this idea of the explorer’s spirit. Maybe there’s some small things that people could start to do today or tomorrow that would begin to like, open them up to this way of being.

Seline: Oh, I love that. Micro courage, right? Oh, yeah. Because then it kind of grows from there, right? That cumulative effect. Eventually you build up those muscles, as you said, and then you can take on the bigger stuff as time goes on. Yeah, I love that.

Stacy: It’s like starting a workout routine almost, you know, like you kind of get into it.

Seline: That’s exactly what I was thinking. Yeah, you built. Yeah, yeah.

Stacy: In your book, obviously, it’s called the nomadic soul. And there are six core needs of the nomadic soul that you outline in your book. Can you share what those are and just give our listeners a little context around this concept and what those core needs are?

Seline: Okay, so I personally, I need to start out by explaining what the nomadic soul is because, you know, a lot of people can misinterpret what that really means. So the nomadic soul is an archetype that describes a person’s willingness to explore the inner and out the inner depths as well as the outer world. And I believe that the nomadic soul dwells within all of us and it holds the key from everything from life’s biggest questions to the minutiae of daily life. So I like to think of it almost like your higher self, right? You can recognize the nomadic soul by the primal yearning that you feel to really be more, do more and have more. That is when you know that you are being driven by the voice of your nomadic soul. So I modeled it after the ancient desert nomads.

Seline: I’m not sure if. I’m sure everyone knows what desert nomads, what they did, right? They were, they were traversing like these huge deserts. And usually they didn’t have any compass with them or any form of navigation like navigational tools. They listened to, they listened to their intuition and they instinctually knew which direction to head in. And of course they use certain markers like stones or they looked at the stars and they found their way through these desolate, barren lands. So I modeled it after I modeled the Nomadic soul after these figures because I thought there’s so much that we can learn from their courage and their spirit of exploration. The Nomadic soul has two aspects to it. The curious and pioneering spirit and the wise and creative sage. Now, each of these have different needs.

Seline: I encourage your viewers to actually, I’m going to explain it, but I encourage them to get the book because as I speak about it, because it is such a novel concept that not a lot of people have not heard about. So I definitely encourage them to get the book, to get a sense of what each of these needs are about in detail. But the two primary needs are the need for freedom and the need for connection. The need for freedom. There are three sub needs. The, the three types of needs for freedom are the freedom to develop an authentic identity, the freedom to explore and learn, and the freedom to express oneself. Okay. And the need for connection includes the connection to our inner world, the connection to other living beings, and the connection with a force that’s greater than ourselves.

Seline: So a person who embodies the nomadic soul and is able to express all of these in a balanced way, express all of these needs and facets in a balanced way. I believe that they would be able to achieve that state of self actualization that all first aspire to and they would experience that sense of fulfillment. I believe that when we are not able to meet these needs, that’s when we get that sense of, you know, that we feel that things are not going right in our life when we feel that sense that we’re not being fulfilled in any way. And this is based on a lot of research that I did, a lot of observation that I’ve done. And yeah, that’s what the framework of the Nomadic Soul is.

Stacy: So interesting. And I love how you outline that in such a clear way that you can understand what those needs are. In your book, you detail these visionaries and share their stories and outline your framework through their stories. One of them that I especially enjoyed was Maya Angelou. And it was interesting, especially for me. I was a high school language arts teacher. It was my first part of my career a long time ago in the Dominican Republic, because that’s the first country that we moved to after I graduated with my bachelor’s and I taught I know why the Caged Bird Sings.

Seline: Oh, nice.

Stacy: Of course, her history around that. And so for me it was really interesting reading that story in particular because I was familiar with it. But you gave some different insights into her story and how it relates can you talk a little bit about why you chose to share your concept through these visionaries, through these legacy stories, and how you use these stories in your book to teach these concepts of the nomadic soul?

Seline: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I realized that without grounding these concepts in form of a story, it might seem a bit esoteric for people. And I felt that, as you know, storytelling is one of the best ways to get a message across to people. And these specific six individuals that I feature in the book, I’m familiar with the arc of their lifetime and they’ve always been a source of inspiration to me. And I was looking for people who had a very strong moral compass and who demonstrated a really strong character throughout their life and whose. Whose life was all about service. And these six just came to me naturally. And then I thought about the needs, each of the needs, and I meditated on whose life best exemplified the ability to meet each of those needs.

Seline: And immediately, like, each of them, like, just, you know, it all fell into place. Like, it seemed. It just seemed almost magical, to be honest. Like when I, as I meditated on it, and it just felt like each of them were such a natural choice for each of the needs of the nomadic soul. For instance, as I just talked about, Walt Disney for curiosity, Maya Angelou for creativity, expressing oneself, Carl Sagan the astrophysicist, for developing a relationship with a force greater than ourselves. So I felt that they would be the. Their life would be the best, best demonstration of what it means to meet that particular need and to live a life that is all about love, giving, and also about exploration and innovation. So these were the. That’s how I came up with these stories and these case studies.

Seline: And I, I think people are really responding well to it because it is helping them understand what it really looks like to live the life of Nomadic Soul. Because now they can see it through the, through the lens of someone’s life. And I feel like I really made the right decision in doing that because initially I was like, do I really want to start out each chapter with a case study? I was a little bit unsure about that, but the more I thought about it and the more that I read the stories of each one of these individuals, the surer I became about. About doing that.

Stacy: So I love any integration of storytelling. And it’s so smart. And it’s interesting because a lot of the authors that I work with are initially kind of hesitant about stories because it’s, you know, often we think it’s Fluffy and nonfiction, but actually that’s how people learn. It’s how they remember things. So I 100% agree. Now, I would be remiss if I did not ask you about your writing process because so many of our listeners and viewers are aspiring authors. It’s something that is a big goal of theirs or something maybe they’re actively working on. And so I would love to hear a little bit about your book writing journey. Can you tell us a bit about what that process was like for you as you wrote your book?

Stacy: Did you hit any downs along the way, like areas of waning motivation or had to work through, maybe some self talk or those kind of typical things that authors. Authors go through? And if so, how did you overcome that to get your book out into the world?

Seline: Yeah, as you write, you. You pointed out there were definitely ups and downs. And I actually took a break from writing this book. I actually, I went back to school in the middle of it. And so I kind of set it aside for two years. But then when I came back to the book, to writing the book, I. I felt like taking that break really helped me in some way because maybe on a subconscious level, like all the ideas that I thought about before taking that break kind of percolated in my brain and something was happening to something. Something was taking form. So when I went back to it, I just felt like I was channeling so much information. I just was typing and typing for days. And that’s the almost magical thing about creativity, right? Like, you don’t know where it comes from.

Seline: It seems like when the time is right, you can get like all these downloads of all these ideas. And. And then after that, it’s about giving it some shape and form, because even if it makes sense in your mind, it’s not necessarily the case with your readers. You have to give it structure. You have to give it. You have to give it some form. You have to make it digestible for readers. That took a while for me because it was a little bit jumbled, like it was a bit of mishmash. And I said, okay, how can I all put this together in a way that would make sense to people? Like I needed to.

Seline: I was adamant about creating a frame, a proper framework for the nomadic soul, because I feel like that’s the best way, one of the best ways for people to learn. And I also wanted to. To make it in a way that people can take away some practical steps and actually apply it in their life rather than just a bunch of esoteric information or just some theories and concept. So that required me to get really intentional about what I was writing and to make sure that what the concepts that I was introducing can be translated into actual action steps that people can take in their daily life. So yeah, I’d say the biggest challenge about writing this book was about giving it form and making it have a very clear flow because all the ideas were there. I did a lot of mind mapping.

Seline: I just was writing like all sorts of notes. I had post its everywhere. So yeah, I think it was giving the book a good structure that was the toughest part for me. But to be honest, it was very exciting for me. I didn’t find it distressing at any point. It was almost like going on an adventure. And of course it was work as you know, like writing is work and it has a big piece of. Big part of it is about being disciplined and really applying yourself to the process. And. But that wasn’t a problem for me. And if anyone out there has a book in them but they feel a little held back from writing it for whatever reason, I just say like, just go for it. Like don’t aim for perfection.

Seline: Like just put it all down on paper and just let it, just let it take, let it guide you. Because I believe like what you have, your creative work has a life of its own. I know Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in her book Big Magic. It’s like it’s. It’s about sometimes letting the creative work, that creative piece speak to you and listening to it and letting it guide you about the next steps you need to take. And I think that was pivotal in my journey as a writer. Allowing myself to go with the flow and to not really force myself to follow a certain trajectory in the creative process so well.

Stacy: And it makes sense too with your work having such a spiritual connection that would flow into the writing of your book. I also love a good sticky note process. So that’s great. And you also mentioned something that I think a lot of people don’t really think consider when they go into the writing process about getting things to like a digestible format for the reader that often takes like getting very complicated first and like weeding it down, calling it, you know, shaping it until your reader can really understand it. And it made me think of a Kurt Vonnegut quote. The title of the book is completely escaping me right now. And I’m totally going to butcher the actual quote.

Stacy: But in it one of the characters says something like, anyone who cannot explain that a concept to an eight year old as a charlatan, like, it’s just this idea.

Seline: I’ve heard that before.

Stacy: Yeah. Do you remember the book title? Because I’ll be like, I don’t remember the book title.

Seline: But I don’t.

Stacy: I’m like, here is it in my brain. But it actually is really difficult to explain things in a way that well. Also when people read, they’re not always like so on with their attention. You know, maybe they’re reading, maybe they’re a little tired, maybe they’re, you know. So you really have to give people things in a way that they’re going to be able to take it in, connect with it, understand it and use it. And that can be really tough.

Seline: Yeah. And I have to say that I had the advantage because I have experience. I wrote the blog for 10 years when I started writing. Actually nine years when I started writing the book. So it was the culmination of all my writing experience that led to this book. So I have a lot of practice and that’s what I would advise people to do. Get some writing practice. So that not only because you want to improve your writing process, but also develop your identity as a writer and figure out what you’re standing for, what are your ethics, your values, because that is going to inform your writing.

Stacy: That’s such great advice. And also just to develop that muscle again to go back to that metaphor of writing. It’s so profound. Celine, I really loved our conversation and we’ll be sure of course to include all the links to all the things and certainly to your book. Where is the best place for people to find, follow your journey, connect with your work and learn more about you?

Seline: Yeah, sure. So you can Visit my website, celineshnoi.com if you want to follow me on Instagram. It’s Helene Chinoy. I have my own podcast, the Dreamcatcher Podcast, where we have over, let’s say 450 episodes and over 180 interviews with some bestselling authors and some spiritual leaders that I’m sure many of you heard of. So you can sign up for that on Celine Chinoy as well. Just click on the podcast category and yeah, those are the best ways to reach. Yeah. And my blog, the dreamcatch.com and please purchase my book, the Nomadic Soul, if you feel inclined to. It’s available wherever books are sold.

Stacy: Celine, thank you so much. For joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Seline: Thank you. Stacy and I had a great time speaking with you and you’re a great host.

Stacy: Oh, thanks. Oh, that lifted me up today. I appreciate that. And thank you to you, our viewer, our listener, for joining us. I hope this conversation inspired you, maybe also inspires you to go grab a copy of her book and begin to learn more about the nomadic soul and how to live into that in your life. Thank you as always to Rita Domingues for her production of this fine podcast. I I am not exaggerating when I say every single week that this would not happen without her. Like, absolutely would not. She does everything behind the scenes and I am so grateful. And if you’re still listening and you have 30 seconds to rate and leave a review for me, it would be such a huge benefit to help us reach more listeners with the message of living a life that is beyond better. And I will be back with you before you know it.