Joy Ambition with Emma Lavelle

Emma Lavelle
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Weekly Wednesday Voice Notes. Me in your ear giving you an energy drop on what is traditionally DWTFILD (Do Whatever The Fck I Like Day) - the antidote to polished studio style podcasts, think the sigh of relief of being handed a mocktail in a cool speakeasy playing vinyl records ✨ emmalavelleco.substack.com

  1. Sep 8

    Danger, Chaos & Magic - Healing Your Self-trust (We’ve moved!

    HELLO GANG! The new Life Atelier podcast is over here - if you want to get new episodes come say hi and add it to your favourite podcast player, that way you can shape the content I create too! ✨ Welcome, I’m Emma Lavelle - Embodied Freedom Guide & co-founder of Joy Studio, you can connect with me on Instagram here, you can find how to work with me privately here, you can join my business community here ❤️‍🔥 I’m running my own little experiment with the Voice note transcript cleaned up below the links as some of you may prefer to read rather than listen or to return to points quickly, let me know if you like it in the comments! Episode Links: * Find Your Signature Essence Guide (Free) * Sign up for the Signature Essence Workshop this month (27€) * Schedule Your SovReina Session (Limited availability, 495€) * Apply for The Life Atelier - the 3 month Focus journey leaves at the end of this month * Come and say hello on Instagram! Episode Transcript - lightly edited with Claude for the readers ✨ The Life Atelier Podcast — On Self-Trust Welcome back to the Life Atelier podcast with me, your host, Emma Lavelle. We are talking about self-trust today, and you might be able to hear the sound of my dog Rita in the background — just little scratchy pads of dog paws going along the wooden floor. And I think that’s kind of perfect, because I just took a walk with her, and it was amazing — the temperature has dropped. It’s 31 degrees for the first time in months. It’s been 37, 38, feeling like 40 here in Toulouse, and it’s been pretty unbearable. Today was the first day where the morning was cool enough that I didn’t need to rush and walk her before it started to get hot. I have the whole day with no calls scheduled — it’s just a day to be, and to be creative. While I was walking her, I was thinking about a voice note I had from one of my clients asking about self-trust. Before I took the walk with Rita, I put my phone on airplane. It’s still on airplane. I’m recording this, and I’ve got a list of things that I want to do, and my phone doesn’t come off airplane until I’ve done them — because that is one of the tools I have in my toolkit to really stay tuned into my self-trust: creating silence, creating space, to listen, to reflect, to notice, to check in with my body, to ask questions like — is it possible? Is it possible that I’m scared right now? Is it possible that I’m repeating an old pattern? That’s how we tune into our self-trust. Whether you want to call it self-trust or intuition, it doesn’t really matter. What I want to invite you to think about today is your relationship with your self-trust, and how that is driving your life. I want to invite you today to notice if actually maybe there are really good reasons that it’s harder for you to listen to your self-trust. Maybe it feels really, really scary. And so your nervous system, which is trying to protect you and keep you safe, thinks that actually it’s a very bad idea for you to listen to your intuition — because if you listen to what it is that you want to do, and if you start to make changes, we don’t know what will happen. But the truth is, we don’t know what will happen anyway. I want to share that with you just so that — when I think about these concepts that our brain isn’t used to — I almost get this visual of having a boiled sweet, you know, like something you definitely can’t bite because it’ll break your teeth. And kind of rolling it around your mouth, just testing out the flavours. What is this? What am I eating? How do I consume it? Can I bite it? No, that feels dangerous. Do I like it? Mmm, sugar, right? Just really letting yourself do that test and investigation of what flavour this concept is — how does it feel to hold this in my body? In the same way as physically, tangibly tasting something before you feel you have to take it on. So this idea for you is — today may not be so organised. My way of doing these voice notes is I just bullet-point down everything in my head that’s come up on my dog walk, and then I start to cross them off as I work through — just to give you an insight into the process. What is self-trust? What I was thinking about today is: how do I see self-trust? What is self-trust? The visual I have for it — for those of you who have seen some fantasy series, or read the books — there are two I have in mind particularly: The Witcher and The Wheel of Time. You can also think about Harry Potter if you want, but I just want you to think about magic. Any stories you’ve read or heard of or seen, where a character discovers that they have magic. They discover that magic exists, magic is there. And what usually happens is they have uncontrolled experiences with the magic. I like the way they talk about it in The Witcher, because they call magic chaos. It’s this power that certain people have — but we all have it, really. It’s this power that, if it’s not controlled, can create chaos. If you think about ourselves and our nervous system — when our intuition has been really pushed into a stress state, where it’s no longer just gentle, regulated intuition but it’s now hypervigilance — that’s where we take very reactive decisions. Things can feel like they’re exploding. We can blow things up. We can really feel scared of ourselves. So again — think about that sweet I invited you to test the texture and flavour of. The idea that maybe you’re scared of yourself, and what you can do. How does that resonate? How does that feel? Just connect with your body. Just notice — do you have any responses? Maybe you feel like, no, that’s not true. Okay, and that’s cool, good to know. But maybe there’s a bit of you that feels like: oh yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared that if I have money, I’ll do bad things with it. I’m scared that if I have children, I’ll hurt them. I’m scared that if I’m in relationships, I will do something to hurt that person. I’m scared that if I share my work, I can’t deliver, I’ll let people down. Just notice that. Now, in The Witcher and in The Wheel of Time — my other favourite way to visualise what self-trust looks like — no one expects these witches to just understand how to use their magic. So when I talk about magic now, I want you to just interchange it with self-trust. Self-trust magic, magic self-trust. Because your self-trust — when you understand it, the power of it, when you learn how to use it, how to nourish it — it is a scary, powerful thing. Because you’re not controllable. When you can listen to your intuition, and you are tuned in enough to your intuition and your self-trust to act on it — to not be pushed, to not be forced, to not just go along with what the system says, what everybody else says, to do the expected thing (whatever that is, because for all of us it’s different). I just think it’s very interesting — if you grew up with parents who are artists, then maybe for you, being a doctor or an accountant was like super rebellious and not okay. Now you’re a disappointment. And then for the kids of the dentist — like Hermione Granger in Harry Potter — what, magic? What, no, just go be a dentist like us, it’s safe, it’s reliable, why would you do anything else? I share that just so you can see how this isn’t fixed. The idea of what is safe and normal and expected is so down to culture and society, and then the microcultures of your family and your circle, and then your industry as you get older. And so — you wielding that magic to say, this isn’t right for me, and I’m going to go this way — yes, people see that as quite dangerous. It’s scary. It’s scary for them. It’s scary for us. And it’s magic. It’s so powerful, because for each of us who decides to cultivate our self-trust, to repair it, to nourish it, we become like trees in the forest, in the ecosystem. Trees, fungus, and the signature essence I don’t know if you know this, but trees talk to each other, and there’s this amazing network they have under the earth. The tree roots can send messages — so if one tree isn’t getting the nutrients it needs, another tree, not even from the same species, can send it those nutrients underground. They all get stronger by one of them getting stronger. This is why we start with the signature essence when I work with my clients — so that you can know what kind of tree you are. Or maybe you’re a fungus, because the fungus are in this too — the fungus work with the tree. If that feels good, go for it. For me, my journey of rediscovering my self-trust and healing it involved me accepting that my signature essence — what I am amazing at — is regulating myself and healing. I am so good at healing. And what that means is, because I know that I heal, I can develop these tools. I can injure myself testing things, and I can come out of every difficult situation with something to share, and even more strong and more powerful than before. One of the things I’ve learned about is part of that means how I regulate myself. And what that then means for my clients is: they can regulate to me. I can be the anchor, so that they can stabilise themselves, so that they can look around, so that they can see themselves and they can heal. I cannot be your centre of gravity — that’s not possible. But what I can do is I can be the stick, the tree, for you to catch your breath on. And understanding how I do that is something that came later. Mirror neurons I’m sharing this with you because the journey of connecting with your self-trust involves a lot of stumbling around in the dark, it feels like. First you’re doing things intuitively. Then you find out why, and you’re like, oh okay, that’s how I can do that thing, that’s why that makes sense. Then you see other people doing things and you’re able to do it. And th

  2. May 30

    It All Starts With Energy

    You know that moment when you can’t decide between two things and your brain says just get both? My brain picked option three. Five minutes from closing time in my favourite stationery shop in Toulouse, holding two notebooks, feeling the very French version of being politely swept out the door — and I nearly did it. Nearly got both. Until I heard my own voice saying ‘simplify is the default’ - one or none Emma. So I left them, and when I woke up I knew exactly which one I wanted. AND Absolute certainty. Spaciousness. And the pleasure of knowing exactly what I was going to do, with the additional joy of the unexpected when the stationary shop I ended up in took the time to emboss my notebook with ‘My Life Atelier’ and I got to share what I do as well as practise my french. From contraction to expansion, like remembering to unclench your jaw and roll your shoulders. That’s what this episode is really about. We talk a about decision-making, about clarity, about knowing what you want — but underneath all of it is: your energy. And I wanted to know exactly what that means. Science level please. Not in the vague money is energy (it’s actually a technology which is fun, I really enjoyed this book The History of Money: A Story of Humanity to connect with what money IS). No in the actual, biological, what I now know is ATP-level way. Because this morning I woke up to birdsong, without an alarm, and the first thought I had was: it all starts with energy. And then my next thought? Yeah but wtf actually IS energy, how do I teach this to my clients and community? I looked it up. Then recorded this voice note as my last share with you here on Joy Ambition! Voila. In this episode I share: * The notebook story — and the surprisingly useful decision-making tool hiding inside it * Why simplification as a default is the actual path to your goals (and why your version of “hard” might be the opposite of mine) * What energy actually is at a physics and biology level — and why a difficult conversation can leave you exhausted the next day * ATP, your nervous system, and the six-times-per-second safety check running in the background of everything you do * Why your energy is rare and precious — and why that has nothing to do with being special * Co-regulation: Rita on the sofa, birdsong through the window, and what that tells us about how we’re all designed to work * The difference between energy being suppressed and energy flowing freely — and how that changes every decision you make And at the end, an invitation. The Life Atelier opens properly on Monday. If you’ve been thinking about it — this is the last weekend at current pricing. Email me at hello@emmalavelle.co before June 1st (my birthday, so you have until midnight to message me saying ‘I'm in’ and also secure your spot). I’ll be doing this work right alongside you, my job is to get you to your chosen summit and back again, so you can share the experience and have enjoyed it so much you’re ready to lead you own expedition! Emma ✨ Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

  3. May 29

    Miami Energy But Your Version.

    A birthday gift from me to you. Think of it as the secret knock to the private time expansion members club. The private club where the door opens and the noise from outside just falls away. Where time passes with the carefree ease of a mid August day when you’re nine and have sweets in your pocket. The lazy generous luxury of time wealth. The cheerful easy shrug of ‘both, either’ reply to life choices Because urgency? Got checked in at the door with your phone and coat by the time butler. And instead you get to try on the tailored just to you jacket that is the deep self-trust of knowing you can slip into spaciousness with your next breath. Here AND back out in the real world. I’m sharing the secret knock because I would have happily done something quite unethical on the eve of my 35th birthday five years ago when life and time felt like a relentless dark tidal wave coming towards me. And now? I have to dig really deep to remember how it felt. Once you learn the knock? You don’t go back. So play, enjoy, explore, let me know what you discover! Emma 🐆 🛠 Tools & exercises from this episode 1. The body check-in Twice a day — or whenever you remember — just pause and ask: what do I feel? Then more space: what do I hear? You don’t need to fix or interpret what comes up. Just create the connection. Start small. Start now. I was so disconnected from my body in my 20s that I was blacking out from exhaustion and thought I had a brain tumour. The optician told me my eyes were simply exhausted. That’s how far the disconnection can go — and how completely it can be reversed. 2. Seek the boredom The connection points happen at the edge of boredom. Not in the middle of a podcast, not while scrolling. In the walk home from the supermarket. While you clean your teeth. In the car. Look for the boredom — that’s the edge where something else becomes available. I think of it as Peter Pan just on the horizon, just where the sunrise meets the water. 3. Name your energy In stillness and space, something unique about you starts to become audible. One of my clients discovered Miami Energy — the freedom and peace and power she feels at the beach, wearing clothes with the breeze moving through her, not wanting to be anywhere else. Another has Ocean Energy — diving in the evening, doing exactly what she wants, not caring who sees. Mine is sensual alegría — stillness in movement, sheer unselfconscious joy. What’s yours? You don’t have to know yet. Create the space and let it come. 4. The time expansion breath Time is perception. Five minutes when you’re bored can feel like nothing. Five minutes when you’re scared can feel like decades. Just breathe. Feel the exhale. You have time. You have all the time in the world to do what matters to you — whether you’re 18 or 99. You can find ✨ The Life Atelier, my 1:1 coaching programme, here [URL]. You can find me on Instagram here [URL]. You can find Joy Studio, my community for women in business, here [URL]. In this episode we talk about: 00:00 — welcome back, and the smashed glass that woke Rita up 00:30 — recording just before my birthday and why May always feels magical 01:00 — five years ago at 34: being followed around by a sand timer 02:00 — what that relationship with time actually felt like — the Hawaii analogy 03:30 — the dry side of the island: heat, oppression, and no release from the storm 05:00 — time expansion: what it means and what it makes possible 05:30 — feeling like it was already too late at 18 (grade seven piano, anyone?) 06:30 — David Attenborough turned 100 yesterday — it is not too late 07:00 — time is perception: breathe with me for a moment 08:00 — the birthday gift: experimenting with silence, space, and boredom 09:00 — the parts of you that have been pushed down and don’t feel safe to be heard 10:00 — creating space to hear what’s astonishing in you 10:30 — Miami Energy, Ocean Energy, and sensual alegría 12:00 — Rosie, the first dog, and que alegría in the dog park in Spain 13:30 — being so disconnected from my body I thought I had a brain tumour 14:30 — the body check-in practice and what started to become audible 15:30 — the boredom edge: Peter Pan on the horizon where the sunrise meets the water 16:30 — tying it all together: fall to fly, feel the pain to access the joy, seek the silence 17:30 — what is your energy? what’s there for you in that space? 18:00 — happy birthday to me — and the May offer, the life design session, and what happens either way Resources ✦ Book a complimentary Life Design Session → emmalavelle.co ✦ The Life Atelier — 3, 5 & 10 month containers, prices increase in June ✦ Start later in the year and still keep current pricing — just message me Reflection prompts from this episode Where in your life does time feel like something you’re running out of rather than something you’re living inside — and what is that costing you? When did you last seek the boredom? What happened in that space when you let it be there? And what is your energy — the thing that is uniquely, specifically, unmistakably you? What name would you give it? Joy Ambition is your weekly voice note with me, Emma Lavelle — life design and time expansion coach, and founder of The Life Atelier. New episodes every Friday. Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

  4. May 26

    Performance Is the Expression of Health

    This week I’ve seen my clients horse riding on their lunch break, cheerfully swinging from a hoop attached to the ceiling in .. I don’t know what but it’s where I did an aerial silk class so somewhere between circus and yoga 😆, another had their second week of getting breakfast in their favourite cafe before starting work and I can see they’re sleeping better from the glowy skin that has reappeared. And I was thinking about how prioritising these activities that bring them joy came from little shifts, little self-trust deposits in their self-trust investment funds, the pause before automatically rushing, the ‘let me get back to you, I have a 36 hour breathing space before deciding on new opportunities’ delivered first wobbily and then confidently with practise. These shifts are the muscle that mean these women are already on the path to the goals we’ve set together based on their authenticity, wants, and an honest evaluation of what they’re capable and where they are. There will be others who think the goals are too ambitious, and others who think they are too timid, they should skip the horseriding and yoga sessions, ‘knuckle down’ suffer until the result. Noise. Distraction. Complication. Simplicity is beauty and simplicity plus self-trust applied to your goals? A joyful, liberating, powerful discipline. I mention Kilian Jornet in this episode because he is my favourite expression of that right now, endurance fuelled by play and desire for happiness. He says again and again that it’s what you do each day that adds up. And the version of you who made space to have a nourishing breakfast in the sunshine before picking up your phone, who chose to go to a horseriding class at lunchtime or hike in nature at the weekend instead of ‘pushing through’ week after week? They are the version of you who also leans into the fear, who picks courage again and again, they are the ones that make it to the end with a smile on their face, already planning the next peak with delicious tired energy in the car on the drive home instead of grimly punishing themselves for not doing it fast enough and comparing their performance to others on different paths. I’ve shared the questions I’m sending my clients this week who are starting their Life Atelier practise this June, and I would love for you to give yourself the gift of pausing to answer them yourself. And if you want to be one of the group I’m leading through The Life Atelier this year, to share your stories and what you create in 3, 5, or 10 months? You can save your spot at the current prices before the 1st June increase, by replying to this email and letting me know you’re in or we can schedule a conversation to talk about if this is the right fit for you and where you are 💛 Click here to learn about Your Life Atelier: The Practice Before We Begin: Terrain Check-in & Prehab Your Life Atelier: The Practice Before we run, we read the terrain. Before we climb, we check the conditions. Before the work begins, we get honest about where we are. This is not an assessment. You are not being evaluated. You are simply mapping the ground you are standing on — so that everything that follows can be built on something real. What this is The terrain check-in is the first thing you bring to your opening session. We use it together to understand where you are right now — your sleep, your body, your current pressures, how your brain and nervous system work — so we can build your practice around the actual you, not an imagined version. There are no right answers. There is no baseline to meet. The more honest you are, the more useful this becomes. Take your time. Come back to questions that do not land immediately. Write in whatever way feels natural — short answers, long answers, fragments, feelings. All of it is useful. Decisions about what to do with what you find here happen in your first session, together. Right now, just explore. Part 1 — The terrain Sleep What is your relationship with sleep right now? How do you feel when you wake up? What is most disrupting your sleep at the moment — if anything? Nourishment What is your relationship with food right now? How does eating feel — is it something you enjoy, something you manage, something you forget? What does your body feel like it needs that it is not currently getting? Movement and body How are you moving your body at the moment? How does that feel — energising, dutiful, absent, joyful? What is your relationship with your body like right now — honest version? Nature How much time are you spending in nature? What is your version of nature — what is accessible to you right now? What does being in nature give you when you do find your way there? Social media and digital noise What is your relationship with your phone and social media right now? How do you feel after you have been scrolling? What would you like that relationship to look like? Support Who do you have around you who genuinely supports you — not just practically, but in the deeper sense? Who in your life might find it difficult — consciously or unconsciously — when you start to change? What kind of support do you most need right now that you are not currently getting? Current pressures What is costing you the most energy right now? What are you carrying that you have not yet named out loud? What would it feel like to put some of that down — even temporarily — for the duration of a session? Part 2 — How your brain and nervous system work This is not a personality test. It is a practical map of how you are wired — so the tools can be calibrated to you rather than applied generically. Motivation What does it feel like when you are genuinely motivated — in your body, in your energy, in how you move through a day? What has historically helped you follow through on things that matter to you? What has historically got in the way? Focus How do you work best — what conditions, what time of day, what environment? When do you feel most scattered or unfocused — what tends to be happening? Your nervous system — stress responses When we are under pressure, our nervous system moves into one of four responses. Most of us have a dominant one — though all four can show up depending on the situation. Fight — pushing through, arguing, fixing, taking control Flight — leaving, getting busy, moving on, escaping the feeling Freeze — going quiet, going through the motions, shutting down Fawn — appeasing, over-giving, making it okay for everyone else first Which of these do you recognise most in yourself? What does it look like specifically for you — what do you say, what do you do, what do you stop doing? What are your personal dashboard lights — the specific words, thoughts, or behaviours that tell you your nervous system has been activated before you consciously realise it? (These are the early signals — the ones that, when you learn to spot them, change everything) What helps you return to yourself when you have been activated? Part 3 — Your starting point In one paragraph — where are you right now? Not where you want to be. Not where you think you should be. Where you actually are. The version you might not have said out loud yet. What do you most want to feel differently about? What would have to be true for you to feel that this work was worth it? What are you most afraid of — about doing this, or about what it might change? What are you most excited about? Part 4 — Prehab Prehab is what you do before the work begins so the work can actually land. You do not need to have everything in place before your first session. But reading through what follows — and noticing where there is friction — is useful preparation. Create some silence The most transformative practice in this programme is also the one most people resist: creating space to hear themselves. Before your first session, experiment with one of these — just once: * Walk without headphones or music * Sit with your coffee or tea without your phone * Drive without the radio * Do something with your hands with no audio in the background Notice what comes up in the silence. You do not need to do anything with it. Just notice. Reduce the noise — temporarily Creativity needs space. When there is constant input — podcasts, news, social media, other people’s opinions — you cannot hear your own. Consider, just for the first two weeks of the programme: * Turning off notifications for at least part of the day * Removing one source of background noise that is not serving you * Protecting one morning or evening a week that belongs only to you This is not permanent. It is deliberate clearing — so that into the quiet, you can start to hear what is actually there. Lower the bar for the beginning Your brain is designed to protect you from the unfamiliar. Even something deeply wanted will trigger some resistance. That is not a signal to stop. It is a signal that something real is beginning. The antidote is not to push harder. It is to lower the bar for the first weeks. Show up in small ways. Build the muscle before you add the weight. The practice will deepen naturally — you do not need to force it. Start the body check-in Before your first session, try this once a day for three days: Pause. Put your hand on your heart if that feels right. Notice your shoulders — what are they doing? Your jaw. Your belly. Your breath. Do not fix anything. Do not interpret anything. Just notice. This thirty-second practice is the foundation of everything. The earlier you build it, the more it will give you. A note on the acclimatisation You may not feel different after session one. You may not feel different after session three. And then something will shift — usually quietly, usually when you are doing something ordinary — and you will realise you are already different. That is the acclimatisation. The external catching up wit

  5. May 24

    I'm Writing A Book

    Hello from Maison EmRita, One of my great pleasures right now is taking the AI written intro’s to these voice notes - (I use Claude to pull timestamps from podcasts because it feels helpful) - and cheerfully saying NOPE. Highlighting the copy. Deleting it. Then writing in my own grammatically distressing but gloriously human voice to you. Like a kid presenting their great artwork, drawn in Chanel red lipstick on your white wall - VOILA! Here I am, here you are, this is me communicating how much I love you right now and want to share my new experience, my way. ☺️💄🎨 So, the episode and surgically extracted by Claude tools are below, and I hope you will listen to it today, it’s about a life lived from you and that being not just enough, but the goal. It’s also my first public share that it turns out I am someone who responds to resting her sprained ankle by using the time to organise her body of work into the first draft of a book. And still can feel at 5pm like the day was a boring waste 😆 - but only for a few minutes, then I reminded myself what I’d done. That the rested ankle today means that birthday peak just got a lot more likely again, AND that I get to now invite my coaching clients to be part of the book. I want to share your stories. The process. From never having run in your life to preparing to climb the Matterhorn 12 months later, from feeling like it’s too late to change to writing your own book proposal this time next year, from a life where the idea of breakfast outside in the sunshine feels as laughably impossible as climbing Everest, turns into your daily ritual that everything else flows from. You know my story. And I want the people who pick up my book in the future to know yours, because being part of the beginning and seeing the messy middle before the still messy but magical next conclusion? That’s what gives them the hope to take the first step that changes everything. What do you think? Do you want to be part of Your Life Atelier: The Practise? My clients — those already with me and those starting in June — will be my team. Three months, five months, or ten. On 1st June, my birthday, I share the full toolkit and map. Then our adventure begins. ✨ If you’d like to talk about which option is best for you? Reply to this email with YES or you can schedule a conversation here, prices go up on 1st June so we have a whole week to explore if this is for you, have a beautiful Sunday, Emma ✨🌿 🛠 Tools & ideas from this episode 1. The Life Atelier: The Practice — what it actually is Not a course to add to the pile. Not another framework to implement. A workspace for your life — six modules, two seasons, one practice that builds into the architecture of how you actually live. Starting with your Signature Essence and ending with BE — the integration that most programmes skip entirely. 2. The two seasons — which one are you in? Focus season: one peak, one filter question, radical simplicity. Everything measured against: will this take me there — yes or no? Flow season: mind, body, project — 21-day cycles, Monday intention, Friday reflection. Building the longer-term muscles so that when Focus season comes, you are ready. One question to sit with: which season does your body recognise right now? 3. The acclimatisation practice Kilian Jornet at Everest base camp — bored in a tent, mountains to climb, asking: can I acclimatise faster so I can maximise my time having fun? You can apply this to anything you have always wanted but do not yet feel safe having. Start smaller than the dream. Get used to it in your body. Sit on the bench next to the park with your coffee before you have the garden. The external will catch up with what changes underneath. 4. Before learning that you weren’t enough The invitation in this episode — and in the whole programme — is to remember the version of you that existed before the stickers, the ticks, the boxes, the exams. Before you learned to modify. That version is still there. They were always there. They are incredible. This work is the practice of actually living like it. 5. Unconditional dog-levels of love (Rita dropped her ball at the exact right moment for this one.) Every being arrives with something cool, amazing, and beautiful just waiting to be expressed. The socialisation covered it. The conditioning taught you it was not safe. The practice is uncovering it — not performing it, not faking it till you make it, but genuinely falling over and saying: oh, interesting, so that’s what happens when I do that. In this episode we talk about: 00:00 — a spontaneous voice note, Rita’s big sigh, and why I recorded this now 00:30 — the last week of current prices and why spaces are limited 01:00 — before all of the stuff: before you learned you weren’t enough 01:45 — before you learned to get a sticker or a tick to be loved 02:15 — the you who you are is there right now — they were always there 02:45 — Jane Goodall’s favourite animal and unconditional dog-levels of love for yourself 03:30 — Rita drops her ball at exactly the right moment 04:00 — what genuinely believing you are amazing actually looks like (hint: it is falling over and getting curious) 04:45 — Rita: a month of being bitterly thin, the daily practice of trust, and the tipping point 05:30 — a sprained ankle, staying still, and wanting to see the sunrise on a mountain for my birthday 06:15 — what I did with the stillness: the first draft of The Life Atelier book and the journal 06:45 — the thing I most want you to know: your story will be in the book 07:30 — what a Life Atelier practice actually is: a workspace for your life 08:15 — what it feels like to have lost your centre of gravity — and what finding it again looks like 09:00 — the six threads woven through every module: Signature Essence, nature, stillness, play, sensual alegría, BE 09:30 — my Signature Essence: Wild, Sanctuary, Impact, Intimacy — and what each one actually means 11:30 — Kilian Jornet, intimacy, and why I cannot do superficial 12:00 — nature as regulation, rhythm, and the check-in that is always available 12:30 — stillness: the thing I resisted most my whole life, and why it is everything 13:15 — play as the thing that unfreezes us and helps us find what is authentic 13:45 — sensual alegría: a cat stretching in the sun — I’m here, I’m in my body, this is pleasure 14:30 — BE: acclimatising to your new level before the next peak 15:30 — Kilian climbing Everest twice and asking: can I acclimatise faster so I can have more fun? 16:00 — sitting on a bench next to a park with your coffee, getting used to having a garden 16:45 — the two seasons: Focus (race season, one peak, one filter) and Flow (training season, 21-day cycles) 18:00 — how the skills you build in one area flood into every other area of your life 19:00 — the overview: Safety, Wanting, Focus, Motivation, Creation, Decisions, BE 20:00 — the invitation: be one of the small group I take through this on 1st June 20:30 — their stories will be in the book — that is the magic of saying yes this week Resources ✦ Book a complimentary Life Design Session → emmalavelle.co ✦ The Life Atelier — 3, 5 & 10 month containers, prices increase 1st June ✦ Lock in current pricing now and start any time before September 2026 Reflection prompts from this episode Which season are you in right now — Focus or Flow? And is the way you are living actually matching that? What did you love doing before you learned to perform doing it? If your story were going to be in a book — what would you want it to say? Joy Ambition is your weekly voice note with me, Emma Lavelle — life design and time expansion coach, and founder of The Life Atelier. New episodes every Friday. Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

  6. May 22

    Pleasure As Your Success Metric - What Changes?

    Hello from Maison EmRita, today’s voice note is an invitation to notice where you’re sitting uncomfortably in the shade instead of feeling the sunshine on your face and stretching because someone else put the perfectly moveable chair inside a chalk circle and wrote ‘Do not move.’ My loves, you can move. You can pick that chair up if you do indeed want a chair and put it wherever you want. Might the bristling British gentleman with the chalk be upset? Sure. But is that worth sitting in the shade? I think not. In fact, seeing you enjoy the sunshine over here might be exactly what he needs to investigate life outside the lines too! Enjoy, let me know what metric you decide to play with Emma ✨🐆 🛠 Tools & exercises from this episode 1. The SovReina Compass check-in Four sliders to navigate back to yourself. Notice where you are on each one: * Are the decisions you’re taking expansive or contractive? * Is your focus creating the future or recreating the past? * Are the words you’re using opening up possibility or shutting down options? * Is your validation coming from inside or outside? No fixing required — just notice. That’s the compass doing its job. 2. Set your own metric What is the internal measure you actually care about? Mine is: am I enjoying this? Not performing enjoyment — genuinely in it. Name yours. Write it down. Then use it. 3. Run two experiments this month Pick one thing that piques your curiosity and just do it — message, sign up, say yes, before the thought passes. Then pick one thing you’d normally dismiss as not for you — and try it anyway. Both experiments give you data. Both bring you closer to your own metrics. 4. Small injuries, small data — big injuries, big data When you ignore your internal signals and follow someone else’s protocol, you push past the small signs until they become big ones. The small injuries — the moments of friction, the things that feel slightly off — are data. Meet them with curiosity before they become the kind of data that lands you in a collapsing cottage in Normandy with no money and a dog, starting completely over. (Which, for the record, turned out to be the most transformative experience of my life. But still.) You can find ✨ The Life Atelier, my 1:1 coaching programme, here (20% off in May). You can find me on Instagram here. You can find Joy Studio, my community for women in business, here. In this episode we talk about: 00:00 — this week’s tool: creating your own metrics 00:30 — the SovReina Compass and its four sliders 01:30 — flow state: what it actually is and when you’ve already felt it 02:30 — the light on the wooden floor and why anchors matter 03:00 — painting the fence in Normandy and losing track of time 04:00 — setting up Claude as a French tutor (eco-entrepreneurship, wild swimming, mountains) 05:30 — the moment I cracked the past tense and why grammar bores me to tears 06:00 — am I enjoying this? — why that’s a serious metric 07:00 — the Welsh lake, the sauna, and the cold plunge I did at my own pace 09:00 — going in slowly, a bird of prey overhead, the parts of me under the water feeling warmer 10:30 — am I doing this for me? — the second metric 11:00 — joining Creative Mornings Running in Toulouse (I’m a runner now apparently) 12:30 — running in Australia with a fireman ex and the story I told about my weak ankles 14:00 — showing up to run club fully prepared to be purple and at the back 15:00 — running on tippy toes and being that annoying person chatting at the front 16:00 — “when are you joining a race?” — and why my answer was never 16:30 — a race is someone else’s metric — and why that matters 17:00 — Lina’s answer: internal validation, going slow, and injuries as data 18:00 — small signals ignored become big injuries — burnout, collapse, the corporate grind 19:00 — the cottage in Normandy at 34: big injury, big data, most transformative experience of my life 21:00 — 40 is coming and I have never felt more possibility, more strength, more alive 22:00 — the tool: two experiments to find your own metrics this month 23:00 — the life design session: what it is and why it’s worth doing either way Resources ✦ Book a complimentary Life Design Session → emmalavelle.co ✦ The Life Atelier — 3, 5 & 10 month containers, prices increase in June ✦ Start later in the year and still keep current pricing — just message me Reflection prompts from this episode Where in your life are you currently running someone else’s race — measuring yourself against a metric that was never yours to begin with? What are the small signals — the little friction points, the things that feel slightly off — that you might be pushing past right now? And if you were to set just one internal metric for this month, something that’s truly yours: what would it be? Joy Ambition is your weekly voice note with me, Emma Lavelle — life design and time expansion coach, and founder of The Life Atelier. New episodes every Friday. Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

  7. May 15

    The offer. 3 Days of Heartbreak For 18 Months of Transformative Love, Do you take it?

    Hello from Maison EmRita, this might be one of those voice notes where you don’t love me immediately, but you sit with it and a few days later you reach out and say, ok, yes, I get it. I’m in. A little like the banana bread I was offered on Friday post run club that was either burnt tasting or deliciously caramel chewy. It took a beat and an espresso to come down on the side of delicious caramel chewy. But if anyone else said - eew. Burnt? Sure. I can see that too. If you’re IN the 3 days I’m offering then yes, burnt is the dominant experience. But if you’re on the other side and in the realisation of a lifetime of transformative love? Oh now we’re nodding at each other with our eyes lit up in surprise and the deep caramel chewy taste! If you don’t like bananas. Change the analogy. Don’t lose the lesson 💛 So, before you listen, ask yourself the following question: The offer. 3 Days of Heartbreak For 18 Months of Transformative Love, Do you take it? Then? Come back to me after the voice note. Emma ✨ 🛠 Tools & exercises from this episode 1. The lake exercise Picture your mind as a lake you’re crossing in a boat. In the shallows you can see the small uncomfortable thoughts — the gym membership guilt, the unmade call. Deeper, the water darkens: the relationship you’re unsure about, the job you might hate. Deeper still: the things you’ve never let yourself look at directly. Just noticing where you are on the lake is the first step. You don’t have to dive in. Just see what’s there. 2. The emotion-to-joy equation If you only ever allow yourself to feel sadness at a level 3, you’re only ever available for joy at a level 3. The cap is symmetrical. Ask yourself: what emotion am I most avoiding — and what level of joy am I accidentally capping along with it? 3. The tattoo / vaccination reframe Before you avoid an emotion, cost it out. A tattoo is 30-40 minutes of discomfort for something beautiful you carry forever. Heartbreak, when you actually go into it, can be a few days — for 18 months of being fully in love. The vaccination hurts for minutes; the anxiety of not having it lasts the whole trip. What is the actual cost of feeling the thing you’re avoiding? 4. The 30-second emotion practice Put the thought out of your head — because it’s the thought that drags the emotion out, not the emotion itself. Then just feel the sensation in your body. Where is it? What colour is it? Is it moving? Feel it fully, and feel it leave. A mentor told me emotions felt this way pass in 30 seconds. I’ve been testing it. It works. 5. The palate cleanser question When an emotion passes, ask: what am I being asked to create space for? This grief is asking me to create space for the love I want. This anger is asking me to create space for the change I want to see. The emotion isn’t the problem — it’s the signal. You can find ✨ The Life Atelier, my 1:1 coaching programme, here (20% off in May). You can find me on Instagram here. You can find Joy Studio, my community for women in business, here. In this episode we talk about: 00:00 — welcome back, and what this episode is the next level of 00:30 — what emotions actually are: sensations in the body as a response to thoughts in the mind 01:30 — 66,000 thoughts a day, most of them subconscious — and why that matters 02:00 — the hairs on the back of your neck: how your body knows before your brain does 03:00 — the little flickering thoughts running underneath (taxes, your mum, that friend) 04:00 — the lake: shallows, depths, and the things you’ve never looked at directly 06:00 — why we avoid emotions and why avoidance makes them louder 07:00 — the Enneagram and which emotion your type is most likely avoiding 08:00 — capping sadness caps joy: the symmetry of emotional capacity 09:00 — the tattoo and the vaccination: costing out what you’re actually afraid of 10:00 — all the vaccinations at once, and the 12-hour restaurant shift (yes, really) 11:00 — heartbreak: what it actually cost me versus what I got for it 12:30 — going all in on love because I knew I could care for myself through the grief 13:30 — “three days for 18 months” — the cost-benefit of feeling it fully 14:00 — learning to take a punch: why that advice never worked for me 15:00 — what a punch actually costs you (and what it teaches you for life) 16:00 — the up-level: a mentor told me emotions pass in 30 seconds 16:30 — it’s the thought that drags the emotion out, not the emotion itself 17:00 — the practice: feel it in your body, see it, feel it leave 17:30 — the palate cleanser question: what am I being asked to create space for? 18:00 — how I used the palate cleanser idea for the VAT increase (and made it fun) 19:00 — next week: creating your own metrics — and why “as long as it’s fun” is one of mine Resources ✦ Book a complimentary Life Design Session → emmalavelle.co ✦ The Life Atelier — 3, 5 & 10 month containers, prices increase in June ✦ Start later in the year and still keep current pricing — just message me Reflection prompts from this episode What emotion are you most consistently avoiding — and what level of joy might you be capping along with it? If you were to cost out the thing you’re dreading feeling — the grief, the anger, the sadness — what is it actually? Days? Hours? What’s on the other side of that cost? And what might you be being asked to create space for? Joy Ambition is your weekly voice note with me, Emma Lavelle — life design and time expansion coach, and founder of The Life Atelier. New episodes every Friday. Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

  8. May 9

    The More You're Willing To Fall Flat On Your Face? The Less You Actually Do

    Hello from Maison EmRita! Today’s voice note, tumbling gracefully ‘oh a day late, who me?’ this Saturday, because sometimes life happens, we adapt and everyone is ok, let me be your example to take a breath and put down a few of the things you’re holding - or even take yourself for a walk without your phone. You’ll see what happens 💛 Enjoy the voice note, notes & tools below and let me know how you like the format! Happy Saturday, Emma ✨ Joy Ambition — Episode Notes The more you’re willing to fall flat on your face, the less you do 🛠 Tools & exercises from this episode 1. The “what have I always done” audit Notice the pattern you keep repeating — waiting to feel ready, practising at home before going to the studio, preparing before you show up. Ask yourself: what have I always done, and what result has it created? That’s your data. 2. Change the goal Instead of making the goal not falling over, make it learning how to fall. What happens when you stop trying to avoid the thing and start getting curious about it? That shift changes everything — your body relaxes, you loosen up, and you actually move better. 3. Worst case, best case visualisation Sit with the worst case scenario you’re currently imagining. Really feel into it — what happens, what do you do, how do you meet it? Notice whether the fear passes when you actually walk through it. Then, when you’ve really been with the worst: what might the best be? And let the best be superficial if it wants to. Noble and superficial motivations are both allowed. 4. Pack a chocolate bar When you’ve walked through the worst case, make a practical plan for it. What do you actually need to meet that scenario with courage and a bit of cheer? Pack accordingly. This is sovereignty in action — deciding in advance, not panicking in the moment. You can find ✨ The Life Atelier, my 1:1 coaching programme, here (20% off in May). You can find me on Instagram here. You can find Joy Studio, my community for women in business, here. In this episode we talk about: 00:00 — the gas incident and why the windows were open 01:00 — the topic I wish someone had told me sooner 02:30 — growing up “not sporty” — and how that story was completely wrong 04:00 — forging fake orthodontist notes to drive to Snowdonia (yes, really) 05:30 — deciding to love my body exactly as it was, and what that unlocked 06:30 — the yoga studio moment: why preparing at home was keeping me stuck 07:30 — the fear of falling — headstands, handstands, and breaking my neck 09:00 — changing the goal: from not falling to learning how to fall 09:30 — the Foix mountain, seven days, and realising I wasn’t scared of heights 10:00 — the tool: visualising your worst case scenario with curiosity 11:00 — becoming an English teacher at 27 and learning to model the fall 12:15 — “slipping into cold water” — what limitless actually feels like 13:00 — this works for business, love, your body — wherever you’re holding back 14:00 — when you make falling the goal, you relax. here’s what happened. 15:00 — the graceful forward roll that taught me everything 15:30 — falling down the mountain (and learning I just... stop) 16:30 — how to actually walk through a worst case scenario 18:00 — the secret I wasn’t proud of: going straight up gives you an amazing ass 19:00 — you get to have superficial motivations AND noble ones 19:30 — the more willing you are to fall, the less you do — and what that means 20:00 — next week: emotions, how to be with them, and what’s on the other side Resources ✦ Book a complimentary Life Design Session → emmalavelle.co ✦ The Life Atelier — 3, 5 & 10 month containers, prices increase in June ✦ Start later in the year and still keep current pricing — just message me Reflection prompts from this episode What story have you been telling yourself about who you are — and what does the evidence of your life actually show? What would change if the goal wasn’t to avoid falling, but to learn how to fall? And what is the worst case you keep imagining — have you ever actually sat with it, walked through it, felt it to the end? What’s there when you do? Joy Ambition is your weekly voice note with me, Emma Lavelle — life design and time expansion coach, and founder of The Life Atelier. New episodes every Friday. Thanks for reading Joy Ambition! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emmalavelleco.substack.com/subscribe

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Weekly Wednesday Voice Notes. Me in your ear giving you an energy drop on what is traditionally DWTFILD (Do Whatever The Fck I Like Day) - the antidote to polished studio style podcasts, think the sigh of relief of being handed a mocktail in a cool speakeasy playing vinyl records ✨ emmalavelleco.substack.com

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