How to Have a Magical Life: With SaraEllen Hutchison

Erin Aquin  1:16  
I'm so excited to have you here today, SaraEllen, because, you know, one of the things that we've been unpacking a lot of lately is how we do business differently. And I think this really touches on the topic of your book for professionals and the the magic of creating something long before anybody will ever see it, read it, feel its energy, and just like what it takes to create that. Because I think that that is also something that we as business owners, as professionals, you know, we have to kind of invest a lot to gain that momentum. And I sometimes feel like people think you just like snap your fingers and start a business or you snap your fingers and like, Oh, I'm a lawyer now. That's not exactly how it is. But it doesn't mean that we did Yeah, exactly like it. But it doesn't mean that we have to do things through the lens of the old paradigm. And that's why I'm very excited to have you here today. So welcome.

SaraEllen Hutchison  2:18  
Thank you, Erin, I am really excited to be here when you invited me on. And you asked me, you know what I talk about how to have a magical life. It allowed me to really reflect on how much this year has been magical.

Erin Aquin  2:39  
Will you share a little bit of the story? Yeah,

SaraEllen Hutchison  2:42  
I I have been an attorney since 2005. And throughout my career, I have made every effort to not just completely sell out to the professional culture of work yourself to the bone and no pain, no gain, and push yourself to the point of burnout. I just I had a little burnout episode early in my career, and realize that the only way the law was going to be sustainable for me was if I maintained my creative and spiritual sides. And actually, they're not really sides. They are me. And the law is just a thing that I do. And it's part of me and yeah, it's definitely part of my identity. But I didn't let the identity of the law become this, like, mono culture crop in my psyche, right. And so reflecting on this year, like how to create a magical life and the magical things that happened for me this year, I got engaged and then married. And then we bought our, our dream house. And our idea of a dream house is living in the city. But having all the charm of like an old craftsman, you know, going on inside, and then not much of a yard and like the house, the house needs some work, but it's really beautiful and historical and all of those things. And I wrote a book too. I had a $1.2 million trial verdict that I obtained obviously with a team wasn't just me, I was kind of a late add in the case. But that yeah, that's a lot of it's a lot of magic. And there's a lot of chopping wood and carrying water when it comes to making your life magical. But it isn't all hustle. That's where the magic is. It's not all hustle.

Erin Aquin  4:49  
I'm so glad you're you're bringing this distinction forward because I think that that is kind of the thing that people miss they think that hustle and effort are the same thing. And I mean, even the topic of your book, feminine energy feminist, you're really talking about how to effort on one's own terms, rather than succumb to the cultural narrative that like, the harder you work, the better it's going to be, and the more burnouts great, it's my badge of honor. Sadly, most of us who have our own businesses or are in like a high level professional profession, like law, do have a burnout story. But I see the way that folks that IQ, are helping us kind of change that narrative and, and carve out a different way of doing things.

SaraEllen Hutchison  5:43  
Yeah, in addition to practicing law, I also coach and mentor. And that's how we know each other part of a very, very special select group of deep dive coaches, which is itself its own kind of magic. But that's what people come to me for, you know, whether they're coming to me for advice, just because I know them in the legal community, or they're coming to me, you know, through through the channel of my coaching practice. That's everybody's concerned, they're like, I've checked all the boxes, I've done all the things that my parents wanted me to do that society says you should do, that the educational system says, you know, are the markers of a successful and subconsciously for a lot of us, and therefore a good person. And often the people who are the biggest high achievers who like have their life dialed in on paper, their CV is impressive, right? are the ones who struggle the most, to stop hustling enough to actually let things occur for them. It's like all high achieving, and then that just sort of crowds out their own magnetism and their own feminine energy, whether, you know, whatever gender you are, whatever orientation you are, we all have the masculine and the feminine energies in us. And what I see is kind of the cultural problem is too much of the kind of crappy huskily, toxic masculinity in everybody. And not enough of that, you know, wise mature masculinity and then that wise, mature, feminine energy as well. And people who are high achievers, they're, you know, they've, they've been really good at getting into the good school, and like getting the good job, knowing what's going to be on the test, and giving the professor exactly what they want, like, I can do this, they're the ones who are the most frustrated, when they can't get their secret desire met, whether that is a longing to have a family, or a longing for love, or just a full night of sleep and eating right for once, whatever that is, like, oftentimes, they're the most frustrated, because they're like, I'm so good at going out and getting everything, but it's not just about going out. And getting.

Erin Aquin  8:27  
Yeah, it's not about going out and getting I think of it as, I mean, you're a musician, so this, this might land for you. But it's it's sort of like you, you study music for decades. And you know the theory and you know, you you know the ins and outs of your particular instrument. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you can get up on stage and just jam with any other musician. Hopefully, all of that will come into play. But if you're not willing to let go of control, if you're a classical musician, and you're determined to play classical music in a jam session with jazz players, it's probably not going to sound very good, either. Or maybe maybe it'll be great fusion fusion experiment. But it's it's an art form and something I definitely identify this as a feminine art form of knowing when to push and when to receive, knowing when to do the efforting and when to allow magic.

SaraEllen Hutchison  9:33  
Exactly. One of the things that I hear so much when I'm coaching really, really smart people is, well I don't know what I want. And I never believe that. I mean, I believe in someone without believing exactly everything they say those are different things. Yes. And when people are like, Oh, I bet I don't know. What I want, I think they do, they're just so afraid to admit it, to say it out loud to speak it into being to give it that much power, because there's some part of them that's like, afraid that if what they want is not exactly the high achievement formula, of here's everything you're supposed to do, they're afraid to admit it to themselves, they have this secret fear, I'm gonna get sent to the principal's office, if I take Friday afternoon off and train for a marathon or, you know, play the violin, or whatever it is they they want to do. Well, feminine energy feminist, I wrote the book, because I felt after talking to lots of women, who have very mixed feelings about their professional choices, and the sacrifices that they've had to make, you know, to do what they were either told to do, or actually genuinely did want to do. And I couldn't necessarily explain it to them. In an hour, I ultimately, just like, you know, I'm going to write a book. And it's basically a gigantic love letter to all of the women who need to hear this, and digest the information on their own. The reason why you're burned out, and you don't have work life balance. And you're telling yourself that you don't even know what you would do with the free time, if you could find it, is because of a couple of things. Throughout my career, I did a really good job of like walking that fine line between giving that system just as much conformity isn't needed on the things that were important so that I could do a good solid job, and, you know, make a good living and rebel against it enough to preserve my soul, and stay healthy. And I think that's how I was, you know, have been able to stay in this for like 17 years. And this is not a conversation that somebody who's like, I have X number of 1000s of billable hours, I'm supposed to finish every year, and I'm not meeting my quota. And it's halfway through the year. And I'm scared. That's not a conversation that we can have in an hour, how we got here, but I wrote the book, because people need to know how we got here, in order to then manage time better in order to then have work life balance. It's not like a thing you can add on you have to actually take things out. You have to expose the lies, you're telling yourself and I say that in the most loving way possible. We are spoon fed certain things about how we're supposed to be from day one.

Erin Aquin  13:00  
I think that's another reason why the book is such a powerful medium to be some maybe someone's introduction, maybe they have some I think I think most people have some awareness of this. But I mean to actually take yourself through a journey in a way that's a little more slow. It's digestible, where it's not embroiled or meshed in the same kind of deadlines and timelines that you might already be beholden to in other areas. I love it. And I'm, I'm curious if you could maybe speak a little bit about who this book is written for, like really like, who is the reader that you had in mind? Because we all we all authors do this, maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong. But I think most of us do this one, we're in the thick of the writing, we do have someone in mind who we know that this is going to help. And it gets us through editing and the back and forth with the publisher and formatting all those things. Usually we have someone in mind. So when you were writing this book, who do you have in mind,

SaraEllen Hutchison  14:14  
maybe if you're listening to this, you're a woman who's been doing something with her professional life, that women 50 or 100 years ago, weren't doing. So you're either in law or you're in medicine, or you have your own business, or you have some position of leadership in some corporation that a lot of women didn't hold 50 or 100 years ago, and you've achieved so much. And you have a lot to be grateful for. And you're really proud of what you've accomplished. But you have these times where you're like if I'm so powerful, and so smart and so accomplished. Why I do I find myself letting my inlaws bossed me around in my own house. Why do I freeze up? When I even think about asking for a raise all of those things, any one of those things, express a deeper, a deeper truth that you might be succeeding in what they used to call a man's world. And it's not anymore. It's everybody's world, but you feel like you haven't, you've had to give up some part of your very spirit as a woman in order to do it. And I'm telling you, you don't have to, and I can show you how

Erin Aquin  15:46  
beautiful. So that is this book is for. So I think a lot of us can relate to that. And it's, it's really powerful. So I think something that we all kind of need, which which I believe I believe this part of the work that you are doing, Sara Allen is also separating out what is originally our own desire, our own fire, our own intuition, from what we are taught, told and sold by the world. So definitely check out that book, this, I will put a link to all of this in the show notes. Follow SaraEllen in all of the places, and you're a musician as well. So I'm going to post all your stuff because Oh, fun, thank you, it's like, you know, I think this is something else that I really love about you is that we don't have to be one dimensional, you can be a lawyer and a badass musician, and a coach and an author, and feminist and magical. And we get to be nuanced and complex. And I think that that's part of the beauty of, of who you are and what you bring to the world. So thank you so much. It's, um,

SaraEllen Hutchison  17:03  
it's a, in the social media age, there's so much pressure to like, be about one thing, and be overnight famous for it. And I just say screw that, because nobody is all one thing, live your life.

Erin Aquin  17:19  
And I think that that's something that's easy for people to say, I hear people say that all the time. But you're actually example of someone who's living that beautifully, as like an example to us all. So thank you, I just I love and adore you. And one kind of final thing I'd love to touch on is I want to talk to you about book writing. Because I'm working on a book with Steve right now it's going to be my fourth book. And Steve's first. And I think that there's always something very powerful that makes the process worth I'm going to call the pain, because it can be a pain in the ass sometimes to write a book, you so beautifully illustrated who this is really for and who you had in mind as your reader. But I think that there's a lot of folks out there who maybe have this, this secret desire, maybe it's right, maybe it's to play an instrument to do something that's like slow food. It's like a long term commitment that doesn't maybe yield those immediate, tangible markers that we've been taught from the patriarchy that are like the good measures of living a good life. Like, you know, I could play, I could practice guitar for the next five years and still be really shitty at it. I think book writing is often like the same way you could spend two years of your life writing a book that, you know, you just don't know how it's going to be received. You don't know who's going to read it, you don't know, any of the things you're kind of doing it from an inner vision. And it takes a lot of magic and effort. Without that external validation that I think sometimes in the maybe the more unhelpful masculine energy loves constant validation, whereas this is very much self contained. So I'm curious with that project or any other you've recorded albums, as well, kind of the same thing from the perspective of a feminist, a feminine energy feminist. Is there any resource support that you could suggest for people who are like starting to maybe tap into that inner desire for something that's long term and maybe isn't going to be? We're not going to know the effects of it for many years.

SaraEllen Hutchison  19:53  
The insatiable thirst for validation that a A lot of women feel is not an inborn female trait. It's not an immutable characteristic of being a woman. Yet, a lot of personal development, a lot of therapy out there kind of acts like it is. It's not I call it the Pick Me energy when you feel yourself, like, sort of, to use a sort of a musical theater reference, like the ingenue in some musical theater production, you know, 42nd Street or chorus sign, you know, this desire to be in the show, pick me Oh, discover me, oh, a star's born right? This is the approval seeking behavior that comes from patriarchal indoctrination, it's actually a form of masculine energy. Because you're, you're putting all of your energy out there, wanting someone to validate you and tell you that it's good on their yardstick. And so when you feel yourself worried about how people are going to receive your creation, list out all the reasons why you're doing it for your own damn self, because that is what your mature feminine energy knows, that inner part of you, that is the Queen, and the goddess does not give a damn what other people think. It's literally the dance when you know, like nobody's watching thing, do that. And, of course, like we still live in the world, we still care, it still feels really good when people like our thing, like I got all the warm fuzzies when you talked about how much you like me, of course, like it's human, right? But you have to have your own reason for doing it. Because if you're just doing it, to get an A from something, it's not going to nurture that part of you, that needs to do something where you're not on and you're not being measured by others.

Erin Aquin  22:11  
Love it. Yeah, we're, you know, we are humans, and therefore, as far as we know, we're relational. You know, we do thrive and grow and we've gotten this far because of our relationships to each other. But sometimes that has come for many of us at the at the expense of our relationship with ourselves. So I love that and and you know, personally, I think that I think everyone if you don't, everyone listening doesn't matter who you are. Any, any any and all gender, I've already said I don't give a damn so yeah, and you know, genders. It's, I think, an act of like, self love to cultivate something that really is just for you. And you know, we're talking about like writing books and music and like those things can be out in the world. But, you know, maybe I'll start playing crappy guitar just for myself, maybe I will. And I just will do it. That's one way to just like start investing your time and energy into something that just really lights you up and is for no other. There's something very powerful. We'll link to you and all of the things in the show notes so everyone can find you and get more goodness from us, Arielle, and thank you so much.

SaraEllen Hutchison  23:35  
This was a magical conversation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai