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And Darla, that night I went to bed and I actually was given this vision of sitting at the pool’s edge of where the retreat was going to be held, and I was just sitting with my feet in the water. And this might seem extreme, but Jesus came and sat beside me, and he told me, “Tamara, you need to run this retreat, because whoever comes, there’s something really powerful that’s going to happen in Mexico for these people.”
– Tamara Arnold
Darla LeDoux: Hello, an welcome to today’s episode of Retreat and Grow Rich, the podcast, this is Darla LeDoux, and I’m so excited to be your host today, and I am thrilled that we have the magical Tamara Arnold with us today. Hi Tamara.
Tamara Arnold: Hey, Darla, hey everyone.
Darla LeDoux: Welcome, welcome. We are going to go behind the scenes, this is our Transform the Leader series, so as you may have guessed, Tamara is a retreat leader, and she is going to give you something really magical today, so I’m super excited about this because I know we’re going to talk about magic on retreats.
So let me just tell you a little bit more about Tamara formally. She is a three-time international best-selling author, mompreneur, mental health advocate, energy reader, and spiritual badass. Creator of the Own Your Intuitive podcast, which I’ve been featured on guys, go check it out. And founder of the Chakra Business Academy. Tamara helps spiritual entrepreneurs create the space within themselves to hold success, so they can make a bigger impact on the world with their stardust.
As a guide into the unknown, Tamara walks her clients through their chakras, showing them how to remove blocks quickly and easily, opening them up to receive abundance from the universe, and that the universe wants for them. So I know we hold the same idea that the universe wants more for us than we even know, and so you help clear that out so people can actually receive it.
Tamara Arnold: Yes. 100%.
Darla LeDoux: Amazing. And then, you just moved into a new home, so talk a little bit about your journey in business and what brings you to where you are today. Let’s start there.
Tamara Arnold: Oh, my journey into business. Well, to tell you the truth, the journey into entrepreneurship was unexpected in some way, and I haven’t actually started the story with this, Darla, so it’s coming in live for you and your listeners today.
Darla LeDoux: That means it’s going to be good.
Tamara Arnold: It is good because an expected entrepreneur is … So my son had severe mental illness, in grade six he cut himself, and he was hospitalized, and the school wouldn’t let him back into the regular daytime classes because he had had a back history and things like that until they put systems in place. And so, they were only going to let my son come back to school for one block, so an hour and 15 minutes in the day.
And I’d gotten to the place of business that I was working as a personal trainer at the time when I said, “Listen, I need to go down to part-time hours because I need to take care of my son,” and they said, “Well, we only allow full-time trainers here, so, sorry.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, so I need to figure out something else to do.”
So my journey into entrepreneurship was so that I could take care of my son, and so I did at-home personal training so that I could be there to get him to school, to be in the house while he was home at all times, and to make sure that I could keep a watchful eye over what was going on in the house. Probably about five years before I actually launched into the life coaching world, and so it was an unexpected way to start, but it was what needed to happen to create the space for it to evolve into where it needed to go.
Darla LeDoux: What was your passion for personal training at that time?
Tamara Arnold: So, I am like … I absolutely am obsessed with the human body, and it started with the fitness field, and I didn’t always know I was an empath, and so when I awakened to the fact that I was an empath and looking back in the history of my life, I was like, I was guided to work in places where energy was really positive, and when I would go to work I felt really good, because I’d tried all the other jobs.
You know? I was a waitress, and I did service, and I did working in stores and all that, and it was just like, you know, “People are mean. Why are they yelling at me? I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t cook the food, like what’s going on with people?” Right? And so, when I found myself teaching fitness classes, which led into personal training, it was like people were there to better themselves.
People were there to feel good, and it was like I was walking in and filling my cup all day long, and I would leave. And learning the physical way that the body worked was like … it became an obsession, and then it moved into the nutritional body, and then into the energetic body.
Darla LeDoux: Wow. Okay, this is juicy. So yeah, how did that transpire? So you’ve got a personal training business at home, working when you want so you can be there with your son. How did that transition into coaching?
Tamara Arnold: So, because on some level my thought process was this, “I’m actually coaching my personal training clients more than they’re coming for fitness.” They were coming to me, and they would come for a few months, they would get results, but they would come to talk to me, like that’s what my soul contract was, right? So I was doing the coaching on the platform of fitness for many years before I got my certification as a life coach and just steered the ship into doing that full time.
And the actual energy reading part came when my son and I had to split up for about six months, because we just were toxic for each other, and it was in the darkness of going through like, “I’m a terrible mom,” bad mom syndrome, like guilt, shame, all the lower emotional register emotions that I started to lean into spirit a lot more, and ask a lot more of like, “How can I feel better each day? I just want to feel better than I did yesterday. What can I do each day?”
And I just started to get the guidance, and eventually, it opened up to them saying, “Like, hey you can read chakras.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s big.” But that ultimately led to the course of my business shifting, but I didn’t receive that right away. I had been listening to spirit for probably close to about eight months, and taking their guidance, and actually being in a co-creative relationship.
And I always say, it’s like a business partnership where both partners show up, one’s not taking the heavy the load of the work. And so, because you are co-creating and they were saying like, “Can you do this? And can you do that?” And I would just show up and do what I was asked, no matter how uncomfortable it made me or how big it was, or how strange it seemed.
Because sometimes when they’re saying like, “Make a coloring agenda,” you’re like, “Why? Just because you say you never finish things, but I know that this is going to actually help you and help others.” And it was like, “Okay, I’ll make a coloring agenda.” And literally had no idea what I was doing, I wouldn’t know how to publish it, I wouldn’t know anything.
But when I’d get the message I’d be like, “I’m doing it.” And that’s how it led to retreats too, right? It was the next thing with people, they’d be like, “You’re going to run a retreat?” “I might. Yeah, I am, I might.” “That’s really great.” “Okay, let’s do that.” And then, leaning into it.
Darla LeDoux: Oh, I love that so much because I so believe people are being called, tapped on the shoulder to lead retreats right now, and I am … Gosh, what was I reading? Oh, I was reading a book about the Buffalo medicine woman, you maybe know … have read it. I can’t remember who the author is.
But she was talking about how they would gather in groups like Native American tribes would gather in groups to … You’re going to love this. I was like, “Really? She’s giving us this guidance to do this,” and I’m thinking, “How would I do this?” If you have a dream or a vision, they would actually get together in groups and have different people like reenact the vision, so that the person who had it could get the most stuff out of it.
Tamara Arnold: Oh, I do love this. I just got shivers.
Darla LeDoux: Isn’t that amazing? It’s like a little retreat.
Tamara Arnold: It is, but it also offers so much for the person hosting the retreat, and the participants, to be a part of that physical journey with that person, as well, to be physically there to experience it as a group. Powerful.
Darla LeDoux: Isn’t that cool? It’s like the one person is getting the vision, but it’s not just for them, it’s for the community. Right? And having that ritual actually has them get it on a deeper level, and be held by their community in that vision.
Tamara Arnold: Yes.
Darla LeDoux: So amazing. So, you talked about … I kind of want to circle back because I bet a lot of people listening have a similar story or they are where you were, where they’re doing that one-on-one service, but they’re actually coaching for free. So whether someone is a massage therapist, a hairstylist, a personal trainer, a … I don’t know, acupuncturist, but you know so many … Even a virtual assistant or something like that.
A lot of times, people who are coach-like end up coaching, but they’re charging the going rate for whatever that service is, and they’re not actually getting paid for coaching. So how did you make that leap, or what was it that made you go, “Oh, I should actually shift this”?
Tamara Arnold: So, I always knew that there was something more. There was an innate thing for years, years and years, for as long as I can remember, I would buy books that would be about creating an online platform. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was almost like squirreling away ideas or thoughts or different ways that it could happen.
Now, it wasn’t something that I could actually take action on for many, many years. I mean, you do get wrapped up into the … what is dollars for hours, 100%. It is so easy to get caught in that trap. But I decided in 2016, early in 2016, when I was coming out of my dark status or state, I started to see the people that I was following online.
There was a big group of them, and they were what I call like my angels at the time because I just … They were saying what I needed to hear, they were like my coaches and mentors, even though I never met them. And so, in early 2016, they all promoted one program, and it was about creating an online business.
I took that, I signed up, I didn’t have the money, I didn’t know where I was going to find the money, but I was hellbent determined that that was going to be the answer, so I had a desire and an intention to create something different than what I was doing.
I believed that it was possible. It didn’t happen right away, I didn’t make it very far in that program, but what happened by joining that, is that I discovered about myself that I would do whatever it took to make something happen, meaning I decided at that moment that I was going to do craft shows to pay for this course.
And I walked into what is the Canadian version of Hobby Lobby, it’s called Michaels, and I … My sister had played with FIMO clay when we were kids. And I walked in and I remember going like, “What am I going to make? I’m going to do these craft shows, this is what I’m going to do, that’s what I’m being guided to.”
Darla LeDoux: Oh, you didn’t even have a passion project?
Tamara Arnold: No, I just walked in, and I was like, “This is something, right?” And so like literally standing in the aisles, walking up and down, I saw this FIMO clay and I was like, “Okay, I remember my sister doing this,” like hours of her making jewelry, and I thought, “Maybe I’ll go home and I’ll make some jewelry, and that’s what I’ll do to pay for,” this course that I was taking.
So I brought the clay home and I laid it all out, my kids were with me, we were like, “We’re going to do an activity, everybody,” and I got the clay in my hand and I started to work with it, and lo and behold, fairy doors and fairy houses just started to be created.
I didn’t have an intention for them or anything, but this would actually launch later what … My business is called The Enchanted Fairy Inc, right? So it was like right from that moment, I solved a problem. Again, this is the piece that, when we’re going from dollars to hours to group coaching, or doing online things, is like there is a desire, intention, and a willingness to do whatever it takes in order to get the result, because oftentimes, it’s so easy with dollars and hours because you just book this session, you get paid.
But when you’re going into business in a different way, it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to do this thing. If this thing didn’t work, it’s not right or wrong, it’s simply information for me.” And not to take it personally, not to attach emotion to it, and then, “Great. So what is the next thing that I can do to try and solve this problem?”
So we become like detectives in this space of discovering what it is that works differently, and works more efficiently, and works more like energetically for us to thrive, as opposed to just being like, “This is the set time, and this is the price.” It creates so much freedom, but in the beginning it can be often a little scary because you’re like, “I don’t know how to navigate this open world.”
Darla LeDoux: Yeah, and especially then when you move into hosting retreats, where really, setting a price for a retreat, there’s so many factor that go into that, and it could be anything. Right? Because the value is … Well, it depends on what you’re doing, and what you’re delivering, and who the people are, and how you position it, and how you show up and what your energy is, and all of that.
I’m going to ask you more about your intuition and this really gift of reading chakras that you’ve discovered in a minute, but let’s talk about your call to retreat. So you got the message, “Host a retreat.”
Tamara Arnold: Right.
Darla LeDoux: And I know a lot of people listening probably are in that place where they’ve gotten that message, and they’re like, “Well, what’s that mean?”
Tamara Arnold: So again, it’s interesting because I started off this conversation with … I constantly hear whatever it is that I’m being told to do and take immediate action on it, that is what I have built my entire business on. I kind of call it the spiritual launch, it was given to me by one of my mentors. She was like, “You don’t do regular launches, you do spiritual launches.” It’s like receive the download and take action on it.
And so, I was kind of like … I’d been working with clients for months, like I had a group of people together, and there is nothing more powerful than taking people who have had the experiences that were being had, and having these transformations and these shifts occur, and bringing them into a physical space where we could touch and hug, and share and cry, and like really delve even deeper into things.
And so, when I received the message, no, I absolutely did not know what to do. We never do. The unknown is probably one of the scariest landscapes, right? But it was like, I simply, and I may not be like everybody else, but if you’re intuitive, I highly recommend this as the way that you do things.
It was like, “Where should I run my retreat?” What I heard was, “You’re going to use a vintage hotel in Niagara on the lake,” I was like, “Cool.” So instead of going, spending hours-
Darla LeDoux: That’s very specific.
Tamara Arnold: Well, it was, it was, but I also get specific answers, which I’m very grateful for, but I always … This is my teaching to my clients, is the first answer is the right answer. Right? So I work with my clients to get to that thing. We could spend many, many days in our ego trying to figure it out, or we could just simply ask the question, and when the answer comes we go, “Okay, cool. That’s cool, that sounds great.”
And so, that’s the way that I work, and so when I received the vintage hotel, it was the Pillar & Post, and/or Prince of Wales, I can’t remember because I’ve worked in all of them, but I just … I went to that one hotel trusting that that was going to be the space … what’s going to hold the container for my people.
I learned a lot now, because I had been in business for a short period of time, I did have somebody who did all of the booking of the retreat place for me. I had an assistant in place at that time, and I’m so very grateful to that, because I was just the person that said, “Okay, we’re going to do it here,” and I would just get the information.
So it would be like … There’s so much to the process of actually booking that I didn’t have to go through, I just needed to pick the price of the breakfast and the lunches, and the snacks that we were going to eat and all that kind of stuff, and then pay at the end.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah. And then pay at the end.
Tamara Arnold: Yeah.
Darla LeDoux: That little, small part, and probably a deposit at the beginning.
Tamara Arnold: Yes.
Darla LeDoux: Yes. So, I just love so much what you said about, you can spend days and days in the ego, or you can just take the first answer and say, “Okay, I’ll do that.” Did you ever fight that for yourself?
Tamara Arnold: I have, absolutely, 100% fight, and I can actually tell you about my first destination retreat, I wanted to cancel it.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: Because I was guided to run a retreat into New Mexico, and I set it all up, I had somebody in Tulum who was going to put it all together, and then I started to panic, and I was like … I was in my head, and I was in my ego like, “This isn’t going to work, people aren’t signing up, I should cancel, I should give this up. It’s too much for me.”
This was bigger than me, all those kinds of things. And Darla, that night I went to bed and I actually was given this vision of sitting at the pool’s edge of where the retreat was going to be held, and I was just sitting with my feet in the water. And this might seem extreme, but Jesus came and sat beside me, and he told me, “Tamara, you need to run this retreat because whoever comes, there’s something really powerful that’s going to happen in Mexico for these people.”
And I woke up the next morning and I looked over at my husband and I said, “It doesn’t matter who’s coming. We have to run this retreat.” And he was like, “Really?” And still, my whole crown tingles when I talk about this because I could have … I could’ve 100% canceled, I was this close. I was like …
And that retreat, in particular, was an experience … We just came up for a year, it was a year ago last weekend that I ran that retreat-
Darla LeDoux: Oh, nice.
Tamara Arnold: And yeah, and to this day, to this moment, I can remember everything we did with crystal clarity, because there were so many powerful shifts that occurred for every single person that came.
Darla LeDoux: Wow. People often get afraid who’s going to come. Did you have the numbers that you thought you would?
Tamara Arnold: I didn’t. I did lose a little bit of money on this retreat. I probably lost about $8,000 on this particular retreat, but what we gained as … in the human experience on this retreat, I would do it again. I would do it again and again. I didn’t feel it-
Darla LeDoux: So let’s talk about that, because I’ve had retreats that have lost money, I’ve had also retreats that maybe didn’t lose money but it’s like … Your ego could consider being embarrassed that it’s small, or right? That kind of thing. And what was in it for you? Because every time I’ve had that happen, either …
We had one person on retreat who ended up being a coach for people with dyslexia, and my wife was in the room and she’s listening as we’re like mapping out the marketing for parents of a child with dyslexia, and my wife is going, “I’m dyslexic.” She figured it out from that conversation, like that would’ve never happened if it had been a big group.
So we’ve had lots of interesting experiences like that, and every time I have lost money. It hasn’t been a lot, but I can think of a couple. Always, what I got in here was like worth way more than that. So I’m curious, how was that for you?
Tamara Arnold: Oh my goodness, Darla, this was like … It was interesting, because I always get … Once I have the confirmed people who are coming, I download a theme for the retreat, and this one was about facing our fears. And so, when you’re hosting the retreat in Mexico, you’re doing all the things that everybody else is doing.
So we had, we climbed a ruin, and when we got to the ruin there was … bikes, we had to bike in, and somebody was afraid of riding bikes. You can’t make this up, I didn’t know there was going to be bikes, so there was no like prepping this person and all those kinds of things, but my fear came up.
I didn’t even know how big it was going to be, so we climbed a ruin, we did like a sweat lodge, we did all sorts of different things, but mine is jumping into the unknown, surprisingly. So cenotes, so any kind of standing on a platform to jump into water, I’m petrified. I am absolutely terrified. And so, we had this beautiful in Mexico names Marguerite, and she was our guide.
And we go down into the cenote and there’s two levels, there’s two different layers, like you could do like the 20-feet or 30 feet, or something like that. And I remember standing on that platform, and I was shaking, and it was the lower platform, and my knees were knocking, and there would … been a girl on the platform before me, and I can’t remember her name.
And it was her birthday, and she had been there for a really long time, like standing on that platform trying to jump, so I stood there probably for 30 minutes, no word of a lie, and me and this girl, it was her birthday, we connected at such a deep level, and she keep saying to me, “If you jump, I’ll jump. If you jump, I’ll jump.”
She wasn’t part of my retreat, she wasn’t part of anything else, she was just this girl that we were like here in this moment, totally connected in some way, because we were both as scared as we were, and it’s so funny because Marguerite was like, “Tamara you’re the leader, you have to jump.” I’m like, “I’m very well aware that I’m the leader of this retreat,” and I couldn’t jump.
But it was so powerful because once this girl had been beside me, cheering me on that I didn’t know, on her birthday, in Mexico, in this xenote, and when I finally jumped, I came out, swamp up and met her, like walked up the stairs, and I got to be side by side with this woman who then took the leap into this beautiful pool of water on her birthday, after having been there for half a day, and be part of that experience.
Darla LeDoux: Wow.
Tamara Arnold: And so, you never know the experience that you’re going to have, and I will remember that forever.
Darla LeDoux: That’s beautiful. I can feel it through the phone lines. Oh, so I want to ask several things about that, since you’re mentioning Mexico. Would you be okay sharing with people, so … Because I think some people are thinking, “Oh, just $8,000,” some people are thinking, “What the hell? Like, I’ve never even made $8,000. How can you just lose that? I’m never going to do retreats. This is crazy.”
First of all, I want people to know when you go international … Like, for me, when I do international, I do all-inclusive. When I do domestic, people buy their own hotel rooms and it’s much … For me, the way I do it, it’s a little different. You had excursions, and tours, and things, so those add additional budget.
What did you charge for the retreat, and how many people came? Do you remember?
Tamara Arnold: I undercharged for the retreat 100%. Math was not my strong suit in school, everybody. And so, you know, I just really wanted the experience, and so I was charging 1200 to $1500 per person, and I ended up having … Let’s see, there were eight of us, so six people plus myself and my husband, and it was all-inclusive. We stayed in one spot, the resort, all meals were paid for. I booked the excursions, and just so you guys know, everything’s going to work out okay, because this is a true story about Mexico too.
Is I didn’t bring any Mexican money with me, at all. I thought I could do it at the airport. I could just take out a big lump of Mexican … “Here’s my credit card or my bank cars,” or whatever, and like, “Here’s some Canadian cash,” anything, and they would just give me some Mexican money, and they didn’t. They couldn’t do it at the airport.
So now, I am in Mexico with a group of people, and no Mexican money to pay everybody, and so I was just in this state of, “Okay, spirit, like seriously? I know this is going to work out.” The hardest part is not to stress. The hardest part is not to fall prey to the anxiety, because everything will work okay.
If you’re being guided to some place to do something magical, and I had that dream, I was like, “I’m going to figure it out.” And what we actually figured out is in Tulum there was a 7-Eleven, and I could go to the bank machine at the back of a 7-Eleven in Tulum, Mexico, and take out, and take out, and take out all the money that I needed.
I couldn’t take it out in one lump sum, but I could just put my card back in and take out another lump, and put it back in, and take out … Like right back-to-back, and so it was a really cool trust game I played while I was there.
Darla LeDoux: That’s one extra thing to be thinking about while you’re also holding space for people and they’re traveling. I mean, a lot of things can come up for people in that environment.
Tamara Arnold: Yes, yes. 100%. But it almost was like to teach … It was our fear, it was our greatest fear has come to life-
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: … in the retreat, that’s what we were experiencing.
Darla LeDoux: So, the idea of having no currency is like a mirror. Was that a mirror for you of your greatest fear?
Tamara Arnold: Oh, for sure, like, “What would I do if we were stranded there?” I was leading, and we had no money to pay for any of the things that we had booked for anyone, that would be … Goodness, what … You know what I mean? That would be shameful in some way, right? So even though I didn’t get the money till day two, everybody, like I went a whole full day in Mexico without any Mexican money, and it worked out.
Truly, truly, truly, going to bed that night and not losing sleep, because you go into the state of, “I’m here for a reason, I was guided here for these people. I know that something’s going to work out. I just need to be open to seeing it when it does.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah, that’s amazing, and that’s a whole different approach than being in your head and planning from a place of logic, and going, “Here’s my plan, here’s my budget.” It’s a different context as a retreat leader.
Tamara Arnold: Yes, yes, so I’m sure you have people on who are very planned. That is not me. Every time I go with a plan, spirit is like, “You can’t teach that,” and I’m like, “What do you mean I can’t teach that?” “They haven’t even learned what you just said, so how are you going to move into the next thing, when we’re still not done with this first thing?”
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: And I’m like, “Okay, scrap it. We’re going off the grid, we’re going into a world that is specific to the people who are involved.” But again, for those who are listening who are intuitive, right, this is the world I live in, is that I don’t have a script because I’m so tapped in and tuned in to what the people that I’m holding the container for are going through.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah. Do you find that a lot of times it ends up that you have to scrap content because you have to go deeper on step one?
Tamara Arnold: Every single time.
Darla LeDoux: Or something totally different?
Tamara Arnold: Yeah, every single time.
Darla LeDoux: I’m always, always, always telling clients like, “Okay, and then let’s cut this content by half, and you still aren’t going to use it, but it’ll help you feel better.”
Tamara Arnold: Yes.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: I have a broad idea of what the retreat theme is, and I hire the people to come in and be part of the process, like I’m not going … My next retreat is coming up in September, I know the themes of the day. I’ve hired the people to come in and co-create that experience for the day, so it’s not like completely unplanned.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah. Yeah, well, and I find for myself having an idea of the theme of the day is really all I need at this point. It’s like, “Okay,” you know, and then, that theme typically resonates like it typically is spot on, but sometimes it’s like that theme got me to think of this exercise that then took us in a totally different direction, which is what needed to happen.
Tamara Arnold: Yeah, yes.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah, so control freaks need to relax a little, and let go. So you talked about developing your intuition and this time period where you added the energy part, when you were separate from your son for a time being, and this started coming in. And I want to hear more about that, and I’m thinking specifically … Like for me, I’m an engineer by training, so I got the math part, right?
And I have had to learn to let go and be in my intuition, and that’s why that’s a huge part of my mission, is because I find it so much more freeing and accurate, and less work to be in intuition, like you have illustrated. But I kind of learned it through retreats, actually. Right?
So my first retreat, I had like a big binder and all these PowerPoint slides, and exercises, and kind of what I had seen other people do, that’s what I did. And then, over the years, spirit just shows up in such obvious ways that it’s like, “Okay, well I guess we’re going that way.” And then eventually I’m like, “Okay, I got to let go of my binder. Okay, now we’re going to get out in nature more, and now we’re going to do this thing.”
And that has helped me trust my intuition, because the crazy things that have shown up, it’s like are undeniable.
Tamara Arnold: Yes.
Darla LeDoux: So some people might be listening, who are in that place of kind of figuring out their intuition, some people might be like … They had guides like eating breakfast next to them when they were four and didn’t know what to do with it. What’s been your journey to connecting with energy and connecting with your intuition? Can you take us back to that time?
Tamara Arnold: Yeah, I can take you back, back, so because I grew up around mental illness, I was really young when I was totally taking in as an empath my mom’s sadness, my family’s sadness, like the people in my life’s sadness, and so I … As an empath, we tend to become slightly codependent at a young age, and I’m like, “I’m going to fix everybody. I’m going to make everybody feel better.”
So there was a big chunk of my life where from my early, like 10 years old, kind of like becoming the person, giving up my childhood in a way, to really devote making everyone in my life better. I would spend my … Just to give you the extreme, is like I would get Christmas money or birthday money and I’d want to spend it on gifts for them, to help them, make them feel better. Right?
Every ounce of my energy went into that. And by high school though, it was intense, taking in other people’s emotions and feelings and not knowing that you can do it. We had talked about that book you were reading, right? And I’d watched a TEDx talk where he was talking about how we went into different tribes and clans, and all over the world, and the elder, or the mystic, or the seer, or the shaman.
That when they discovered their gift, there would be a mentor there that would say, “Oh, you have awakened,” and guide them through the process of their awakening, and being able to use their gift, where here, it is not that way at all. So I was an awakened child with nobody to help guide me. I was surrounded with people who were medicating instead of leaning into their spiritual gifts.
And so, I was like lost in this way of trying to work with it, and so by the time I got to high school, I thought everybody hated me. I would walk down the halls, eyes on the ground, and I would just feel waves of anger, and they weren’t mine, I get that now. Nobody hated me, but teenagers are angry, and so as they were angry with their loved ones, or their girlfriends and boyfriends or their friends, I was absorbing all that.
And that did lead me to drinking and drugs, like smoking pot, at a really young age. By the time I was 17, I was engaging in that, because when I would do it, I couldn’t feel anything. All of a sudden it was like, “Peace.” Right? And so, that kind of was like in and out of my life, especially because my son had mental illness. So when things were good, I wouldn’t drink, and I was working in the gym by my early 20s to really like top up new …
I used to say things like, “I’m a sponge for other people’s emotions,” it’s like I knew things without knowing things, right? Where I worked at the gym, they would say, “Tamara, when you’re in a good mood, the gym’s in a good mood. When you’re in a bad mood, the gym’s in a bad mood.” And I’d be like, “That’s a lot of responsibility.”
But at the same time, that’s what an empath can do. We can actually shift the energy in the spaces around us, and so no idea what was going on, until Ethan and I broke up, and I went into my darkness, but I started to ask myself this question every day, and it was simply, “What can I do today to feel a little better than yesterday?” And I would always get this one answer.
And whatever that one answer was, I would do it, and it could be like have a bath, make a therapy appointment, get your hair done, go for a walk, like something small and if I achieved that one thing I was like, “I did great today.” I could roll off my like … I called it my depression chair, go and train a client, come in, curl back in my fetal position.
But I always did this one thing, eventually it led to meditation, which I had never done before, and magically, a 30-day Meditate with the Angels came up on the Facebook that seems to know exactly what you need when you need it. I logged into that, I slept through 30 days of meditation. Something seemed to be working, because I was feeling a bit better. Kept meditating, started to hear voices in my meditations.
The minute I knew that they were real, like I’d get this from grandparents or different people, or I’d get something in the meditation, then I’d start to listen and believe it, then I started to hear things out of meditation. Then, I booked a therapy appointment, because I was like, “I’m hearing things, so something must be wrong with me.
And this is the moment, when I went to a therapist I’ve been seeing for 20 years, and I said, “Listen, this is what’s happening to me. I’ll be driving and my ex’s grandfather will talk to me, or I will be driving or I’ll be somewhere and I’ll hear this message.” And after 20 years, she said, “Tamara, now it’s time.”
And I was like, “Time for what?” And she said, “It’s time for a course in miracles.” And this was a woman that I’d known for many, many years, like almost 20 years, and this is where my guidance and my mentor showed up to help me in my ways. That’s when I started to learn about what my gift was and how to use it, was sitting in this space with these other women.
Darla LeDoux: So your therapist led a group on course and miracles?
Tamara Arnold: Yeah.
Darla LeDoux: And she just invited you, like you were ready.
Tamara Arnold: Yeah. She’d been doing it for I don’t know how many times, like I sat across from her for years and years and years, you never … I didn’t even know what a course in miracle was, I didn’t know that she taught it, nothing until that one day. And so, when I started to lean into it, because now I was accepted, now I wasn’t crazy, now … because I always say like to me, going through my life, mental health and spiritual gifts are two sides of the same coin.
I truly, truly feel that way and know that way, because I think that my family … I’m a descendant of a line of empaths, but when you take in that emotion, you oftentimes … It’s overwhelming. Right? Whereas, if we all had the guidance that we require when we’re going through the awakening, and having this intuition and hearing these voices, and being able to understand them fully, then it shifts the way that we show up and use them.
It shifts how we band into them and allow them to be part of our process in a different way. And so, once I had that, it was like … Now, now I started to receive things differently.
Darla LeDoux: Wow. I love that idea of just one thing, because that’s so manageable, right? And people don’t have to … I don’t know, be on top of their game, or need to meditate for 10 hours. So I know you help people open up to hearing their guides through the work with the chakras. Can you talk a little bit about that? And how do you do that with your clients one-on-one, and then how does it work in retreat?
Tamara Arnold: Again, literally you guys, this is how it rolls for me, just to give you a synopsis into the life of Tamara. So I’m leaving my bathroom one day, and I hear the message that’s, “You can read chakras.” And I’m like, “Pardon?” And they were like, “You can read chakras.” This was February of 2017, and I was like, “But I don’t know anything about chakras. I think you’ve got the wrong human.” Like, “Why me?” Right? And they were like, “We’ll guide you.”
And because … I’m not kidding when I say I take action on everything that I hear, I went to the computer and I was like, “Apparently, I can read chakras. Anybody that’d let me practice on them?” And four people said yes, and I was like, “Oh my god. What am I going to do? I don’t know what I’m doing, I’d never done this. I don’t even know the colors or the symbols of chakras. Who am I to think I can do this?” There’s the ego, right?
But I went into each of those four readings just full trust, and I just kind of laid back, this was before I felt comfortable on Zoom, and so I’d sit there with my phone on my chest, using Facebook calling, because these were people from all over the world, and I just let go. I just let go, I got Tamara out of the way, so that I could be the vessel, the receive.
And that became something so powerful, because those four readings started the process of what I truly believe, is that when we have a gift, spirits are guiding the gift for use to use with our clients. I don’t think we’re all the same. And so, I was given, shown, like I was just going in and receiving the messages on what I was supposed to be reading.
So I got hooked, because these were … Everybody was like, “Wow. How did you know that? How could you see that? How could you feel that?” And people were surprised because they were spot on. I was surprised they were spot on, to tell you the truth. Right? But I just kept going, like, “I need to do more. I need to do more, I need to practice.”
And I started to go into as many chakras as I possibly could to start to see the patterns, right, and the behaviors, and like I would start to receive more and more information. I started to learn what we’re doing and how it manifests in the body, and so like I know how each chakra holds resistance. Right? And so the way that I define it is that before we do any physical clearing on our body, and I’d love a mindset work, but even to me that is only on one floor.
That’s your sixth floor, that’s across your third eye, right? There’s six other floors of storage that we hold, and emotions and the physical body are just as important in terms of creating space for more, and so to me the first phase of this is getting into … I always think of it of like Home and Garden Television, this is … Your body is your physical house, and on each floor we become hoarders over time of … If we’ve never done any work, right?
And we start to store boxes, and boxes, and boxes of emotions-
Darla LeDoux: I love that idea of hoarders.
Tamara Arnold: Right? And it’s true. So when we’re getting into something as really beautiful as the Chakra Business Academy, and we’re doing this work, it’s really about creating enough space, because if we’re not receiving, like if we’re not even taking compliments in, if we’re not even bringing any … like allowing ourselves any good to come in, then how do we expect abundance, clients, leads, retreat ideas, anything, to make it in? Right?
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: And then if you spend days and hours creating illusionary thoughts of all the things that could go wrong, so you actually paralyze yourself before you even get started because you think of all the ways it’s going to go wrong, or what so and so is going to say, and you do the domino effect. That’s like blocking your third eye, right?
And I could go, “Damn,” but the whole idea and the work that I do is creating enough space on each floor that the direct download or the direct receive from the universe has a path to make it all the way down the seven floors of your energetic body to your root chakra, where you’re grounded into who you are and who you serve. And like a reflection mirror, it goes right back up into the universe, and I call that your Bat Signal.
So that wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, if somebody has the problem that you solve, they will feel you, because you’re emitting this frequency up into the universe that says, “I’m here for you. This is what I do, and we can do this together.” And that’s the work I do.
Darla LeDoux: That’s so awesome. I love it. They will feel you. Now, you can’t just hide, you got to have some way for them to know to find you, but it comes in miraculous ways when you’re really aligned.
Tamara Arnold: It’s so interesting, like even this morning. When you’re really aligned, and I mean, guys, I have played the entrepreneurship game for years now, but truly of stepping into being a life coach fully was at the end of 2016 and then downloading that I can read chakras in 2017.
But I just came back into doing what it is that I love, which is the chakra readings. Right? Getting into that space and really solving this problem with people. And so, I kind of went back, because I started to do my weekly energy reading, card readings again for like what to expect. And a few weeks ago we got to this place, which was remembering, and it was like you know, who we were and what we were doing when we were at our highest vibration.
And going back and doing the chakra readings for people. I woke up this morning and there was a chakra reading booked, and you know … Somebody from somewhere is booking on my website for a chakra reading, and it’s just like that’s … because they know. Somehow, in some way that … We’re like radios. And when you’re emitting the right station, it can be heard, it can be felt, it can be seen all over the world.
Darla LeDoux: Amazing. You talked about your passion for the body, right? And how the body works, and going from personal training to nutrition, to the energy, and then adding retreats. If someone’s listening and they do physical work with people, one-on-one, and they want to transition into retreats, how … There’s a lot I know you could say about that, but what’s one piece of advice you would give someone who’s considering that?
Tamara Arnold: If you’ve already considered it, then it’s already made manifest somehow, and so there is no other … There’s no reason not to do it. The only reason not to do it is the one you’re making up in your head right now. Right? If we truly got to a place where everything was going to be okay, nothing bad could happen, and all our needs were met, I would run a retreat for two people if that’s all that came.
That’s not really happened before, but you know what I mean?
Darla LeDoux: Yeah.
Tamara Arnold: If you could get to your worst-case scenario, right now, that said like, “I’m going to book this and only two people would come. Okay, great.” So if only two people came, what’s the worst thing that would happen from that? Okay, I will lose the money. Could you make that money up, and how could you do it? You could totally go.
Don’t let your worst-case scenario hold you by the scruff of the neck and paralyze you. Get real personal with it, love it, include it, bring it on the journey, and then open up for the experience, because it’s already there. It’s already happened.
Darla LeDoux: And then, if someone were having a hard time imagining, like say they are doing the work individually, how to hold space for a group and do that physical work? Any advice on that?
Tamara Arnold: It’s way more fun, it totally is because I have done one-on-one coaching and I’ve done group fitness classes, and I’ve also taught personal training course, like certified people for personal training and all of that, so I have gone through each gamut of the physical, and if you love the energy that’s created between you and two people, right, then you will … It will blow your mind what kind of energy, especially in fitness, where everybody’s like, “Woo, woo,” and like hardcore, and like …
On that level of energy, that you get to be the catalyst and the witness of, and that kind of experience, it’s just so worth, even if you’re scared trying; because, honestly, once you dip your toe in the pond, you’re going to jump in, every time.
Darla LeDoux: It’s like a drug.
Tamara Arnold: It is.
Darla LeDoux: It’s so much fun-
Tamara Arnold: I remember how scared I was for the first one, and now I’m like on 13 or something on retreats.
Darla LeDoux: Oh, amazing, amazing. And if anyone’s coming from the opposite, kind of more of like where I came from, working in corporate as an engineer, like maybe having intuition but thinking it was craziness, for me, just like when you said, the energy of the group is so awesome. For me, that’s how I discovered my gifts, truly, is through having the energy of the group, and having, whether it’s a knowing of something that it’s like, “Well, how the hell did I know that?”
Or I actually learned … I feel it physically, right? So I might be feeling a stomach ache, and then I would think it’s mine, and then it’s like it … Over time, I would start to ask, like, “Who has a stomach ache? What’s going on?” And I discovered my gifts that way, so the energy of the group can really help further you being who you are in the world, which is amazing.
Tamara Arnold: I always say, one person moving in one direction only goes so fast, but when you bring a bunch of energies together, it’s like it becomes like a rocket, so wherever anybody is, it’s going to like speed up whatever process we’re in because we’re tapping into each other to be part of the actual momentum, of the results. So cool.
Darla LeDoux: Yes, amazing. Okay, so tell people about your book that you’re giving away. I think this is so exciting.
Tamara Arnold: So I’m really excited to offer everybody a copy of my second book, which is called The Magical Business Method, and this is a really powerful book because it’s … When I downloaded that I could read chakras, and I was getting all the information about what we store, what the resistance is, how … what we’re doing in our life, how we hold it and how to clear it, and all of this kind of stuff, I was guided to write this book.
And this is what I want to gift, because what’s really powerful is that, like you had said, I had a … I’m just sharing a … We talked about this before we jumped on, you know? That in meditation something came up on the third chakra, so you went to the book and you were able to pull up the third chakra and read it to see what it is that happens in the third chakra.
So I want to give everybody this information, because I think it’s powerful, because if we have awareness, because awareness is the open book to easy, right? So, if you have an awareness-
Darla LeDoux: Oh, say that again slowly.
Tamara Arnold: Awareness is the open book to easy.
Darla LeDoux: Yes.
Tamara Arnold: Because, we go from subconscious to conscious, which is the awareness, and then it’s that much closer to no longer being part of us, right? And so being able to open the book and saying, “Okay, so I’m so distracted lately. I don’t know why I’m so distracted. Why am I so distracted?” Well, that’s the resistance of the root chakra, right? Because anytime we’re taking away from serving our community and tribe, we’re often caught in fear of judgment, seeking approval, not having clear boundaries.
And people pleasing, which keeps us highly distracted from doing the work that we need to work on in order to actually serve our people. And so, you know what I mean? It’s like the perfect go-to guide to understanding your chakras for business.
Darla LeDoux: That’s awesome. Yeah, and you’re referring to … I had had just all my attention be drawn to the third chakra one day, and then I got your book, and I was like, “Oh, well this is interesting, I’m going to read that.” That you’d sent me, yay. But so what I want people to know is that even if you know about the chakras, you study it, it’s a great guide, because you …
When you’re facing something, your mind is going to choose to ignore the part that you don’t want to think about. Right? So being able to read it in the book is so helpful. And then, if you’re not familiar, it’s a great guide, but also with examples and stories, and fun.
Tamara Arnold: Thank you. Yeah, I’m so excited to gift it to people because I just want this information out into the entire world. I just think that if everybody knows their internal energetic space … You know what I mean? My actual life goal is to shift one human vibration one at a time, because if we all did that, the whole Earth vibration would change.
Darla LeDoux: I’m with you. I’m with you. Awesome, so we will have that link to Tamara’s book, totally free, in the show notes. Go and get it.
Tamara Arnold: So excited, you guys. Let me know what you thought of it.
Darla LeDoux: Yeah, definitely go follow Tamara on social, and get on her list. I assume that they’ll be able to get on your list from the link, as well.
Tamara Arnold: Yeah, yup.
Darla LeDoux: And start to follow you. Beautiful.
Tamara Arnold: 100%, all the magic.
Darla LeDoux: Awesome. Thank you so much. This has been super fun, and I hope to see you in person soon.
Tamara Arnold: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you to everybody who listened today, sending you so much love.
Darla LeDoux: Have an amazing day. Bye.
Tamara Arnold: Bye.
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