Transcript
Phillipa: Hi everyone. It’s Philippa O Wirangi here and we are here for another episode of meet the community. And today I have with me the wonderful Brooke W. March. An unschooling mom of two, who currently resides in Santa Cruz, California, and Brooke is one of the leaders within the Freedom Era. She’s an amazing woman that’s created an amazing community and team of her own of other unschooling and homeschooling moms as well. I’m so excited to have you here, Brooke, to talk about your experience within the Freedom Era and I know with you being an unschooling mom, freedom is definitely one of your biggest values. I’d love to know, just to kick it off, what does freedom mean to you?
Brooke: Hmm, thanks. Yeah, I’m excited to be here. Freedom. Oh gosh. Freedom to do what I want, freedom to be with my kids when I want, freedom to not be with my kids when I don’t want to be. Freedom to travel, world schooling was always a big thing for me and I really wanted to find a way that I could create that, where we could just live life on our own terms. The baseline is that. And also, we were in such a struggle for so many years. There were all kinds of things that I wanted to say yes to with my kids and we were not a yes family. We were ah, not right now family, maybe later, family. Luckily I never told them we couldn’t afford it because I knew the power of my words, but I was always saying, “Not right now, you guys. No. Let’s do something else. Let’s make another choice.” And I just wanted to be a yes. I wanted to turn us into a yes family.
Phillipa: Yeah, and it’s so heartbreaking when you’re having to say that, “Not right now,” because what you know is that you just don’t have the money for it right now. And so to be able to say yes, how does that feel for you now?
Brooke: Oh my gosh. It’s so huge. It’s so huge because literally for us, it was a good eight years, really eight solid years of a lot of struggle. And to be able to, even for myself… We’re in the middle of the freacking Coronavirus and suddenly there’s a dance weekend retreat that opened up and all these… Because I live in Santa Cruz, we have so much personal development and really fun, amazing, conscious things to do. And every time these weekends away would come up, I’d be like, “Ooh, ah” I could never do it. I could never say yes to it because I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the time. And I didn’t have somebody to take care of my kids, all of it. But really it came down to money and I remember saying no for eight years. No, no, no, no, no.
And now, last week suddenly it opened and they were doing this weekend away and I didn’t even blink and I’m just booking it. “Yes, yes.” You can just be spontaneous with your yeses. And that is such an incredible feeling to have. And even going into the grocery store, “Oh, can I afford the organic blueberries versus the nonorganic blueberries? Which am I going to choose?” I really lived like that for so many years that to be on the other side of it and the ability to just really tune into my heart and soul on what I’m wanting and not make decisions based on money, it’s a complete paradigm shift. It feels so, so good. And it’s so much more fun and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Not for a minute.
My son, a couple days ago, he’s like, “Mom, I want…” And we’re not big consumers either. I teach my kids about conscious consuming. Right. But in this time where they can’t leave the house and all their programs are canceled and stuff, he’s like, “Can I please get these shoes?” They’re those shoes that have the wheels on the bottom, those Heely shoes, or wheelies, I think they’re called. I don’t know. Something like that. Anyway, it was instant. As soon as he said, I was like, “Yes,” whereas my whole life before, I was always like, “Well, let me think about it. Let’s see. Got to check things, got to look at what the cost is.” And now I just get to say yes and it feels so freeing and it keeps me in a high vibing place all the time because there’s nothing worse than just having that feeling like I’m in a cage around money.
Phillipa: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s go back now to before you got started within the community, within the business and before you said yes to the business, what was life like for you before the Freedom Era, before you got started in the freedom era and what was that breaking point moment for you where you saw this opportunity and you just felt like you had to do it?
Brooke: Yeah. That’s such a great question. Well, I talk a lot about being in a motherhood slumber because when you’re a full time mom and being an unschooling mom on top of it… For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means my kids don’t go to school. So, they don’t go somewhere for 30, 40 hours a week. They were with me and there’s a lot of perks to it, but in my situation and the way we had it set up, it was definitely led to this motherhood slumber, where we’re just getting by day to day, day to day and just getting up and doing the same thing.
And while I was super grateful for the opportunity to be with my kids and to make the choices that we were making, there were elements of it, of course, that I loved and I wouldn’t trade for anything. But the piece that I was missing was my own self activation, my own dreams, my own goals. I put everything on hold really for my kids. And because of the money scenario, it was just like I was living in this place where I just thought, “Well, this is just what I have to do. This is just how it goes. I’m just going to have to wait till they get older until I can get back to myself and my dreams and what I’m really wanting.” And there was just this kind of complacency that set in and I was settling and tolerating and just really getting by. That was the feeling.
And I’ll never forget it because I ended up watching the webinar at midnight in bed when I was so tired. And I was like, “I should just be sleeping. What am I doing? What am I watching this ridiculous thing for?” And I was rolling my eyes at it. And I’m like, “This is another one of those things. And rah- rah-rah-rah-rah.” I had all that stuff, but there was something bigger and I’m so grateful that there was something bigger. And I truly felt the universe had a megaphone that was going, “Listen up, pay attention.” And I was like, “Really this?” Yeah. That’s how I felt. Even though I was falling asleep, I was literally falling asleep in the webinar, I was like, “Okay, keep my eyes open.” But my body was vibrating and I’ve just learned to listen to those messages over the years. I had a near death experience when I was 24 and so when I get a message from spirit, however that looks, spirit God, whatever you want to call it, when I get that intuition, that gut feeling, I just listen to it.
And so from there, it was quick. I saw the webinar. I had a conversation with my sponsor the next day. And then the next day I did my call and what it came down to for me is that I was seeing all these other people that were thriving, and in particular moms. There’s lots of amazing men here too. But for me it was the mothers. Right. And I was seeing all these moms. I was seeing them traveling the world. I was seeing them lit up. I was seeing them happy. I was seeing them in beautiful clothes. Right. Instead of wearing all my motherhood milk stained bras and clothes that didn’t fit anymore and all that stuff. The saggy underwear. Right. I know you moms know what I’m talking about. We put our own needs last and bras and underwear that fit and look good and feel good are at the bottom of the money chart.
But I was seeing all these women and I thought, “Yes, they’re amazing.” But, but really deep down I thought, “They’re no more amazing than me. There’s no reason that I couldn’t do this. If they can do this, I could do this.” I just really saw that there was a part of myself that if I could go back to who I was before I had kids, it was very alive and very fun and vibrant and joyful and full of possibilities and all this stuff. And I thought, “There’s no reason why I can’t do this if all these people are doing it.” Even though I was so scared of the techie side and the internet and social media and I have so many blocks that I had to work through around that.
I still at the base, base, base I thought, “Surely none of these women have crazy techie skills. Surely they have to be like me.” I just thought, “They have to be like me and if they can do this, then I can learn this and there’s nothing that I can’t learn.” And I was just so determined to change things. And that was the line in the sand moment where I’m like, “I just have to.” I was more afraid of going through another year, the way that I was, than I was about leaping forwards and diving in.
Phillipa: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And so looking forward now, what’s your vision? What do you really, really want to create for your own life or for other people? What does that look like?
Brooke: Oh, gosh, my vision for my vision for 2021 and I’m future pacing a little bit, but 2021 is a million mother’s empowered and lit up and excited and turned on in all the ways that we want to be turned on in our life, because the truth is a happy wife makes a happy family. A happy mom is a happy family. And I’ll never forget, we’d never taken a family vacation, not ever in nine years, other than camping trips. Those were our vacations. Not quite the same, still lovely, but not quite the same. And for my anniversary year, I took us on this big, fancy, five star resort thing, to celebrate. We went all out. My husband booked it all and we went all out. It was super fun. And we had never done anything like that before. So having my kids being like, “Whoa.” Seeing this whole new experience was so fun.
And when we went out for dinner, one of the evenings, and we were really celebrating, I said, “Let’s reflect a little bit on what this last year has been like.” And they both, my kids were nine and six at the time, and this was only six or seven months ago, but I remember them both saying the same thing. They said, “Well, you’re way happier, mom. You’re just way happier,” both of them. They’re like, “Yeah, you’re way happier,” then they ran off and played. And I’m like, “Okay.” And my husband too, he said, “There’s just nothing more important than our kids seeing a lit up mom. Regardless of the money, regardless of the financial peace, there’s nothing more incredible for them to witness, Brooke, than you being passionate and on purpose in your life.” And that was so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful message and acknowledgement. I feel the money is a beautiful perk that comes when we really get in alignment in our life. But I wanted to show my kids what’s possible and really create a new paradigm for them and I have now. And that feels amazing.
Phillipa: Yeah. I love that for you so much. I can really feel that. And I feel that for you, I feel it for myself and I feel it for all of the other mothers that have said yes to this, said yes to the Freedom Era. A lot of people feel it’s just a business opportunity type of thing, but it’s a life changing type of thing as well. So I’d love to know from you, just to wrap us up, what’s a bit of advice that you would love to give to people that are watching this right now?
Brooke: Hmm. I would say that the single most important thing that you can do is make an investment in yourself. The single most important thing. And the fact that we can do that here in the freedom era for $99 a month is insane. It’s insane. It should be hundreds and hundreds, if not a thousand dollars a month for the value that we get here.
So the fact that any parent or any person that is feeling they can’t afford a hundred dollars for themselves, I’m like, “You can’t afford not to invest in yourself,” because it’s the only way your life is going to change. It’s the only way. And you get to have this beautiful ripple effect on your community, on your family, on your children, on everybody that knows you. I feel it’s an investment for the whole family, really? Because once you get knowledge and once you learn what is in here, nobody can ever take that away from you. You can’t put a price on expanding your mind and your vibration and feeling better in your life. So, that’s the single best thing I could say is, “Just frigging get the knowledge and keep growing and be willing to see that you can change things because anybody can.”
Phillipa: Hmm. Yes. Amazing. Oh, so awesome. Thank you so much for being here with me today, Brooke. I know you’re going away for the weekend with your family as well, so you have an amazing weekend. And if you’re watching this, please drop down below, what have you received from this conversation? What has really land dropped in for you, from what Brooke has shared with us today? Thank you so much.
Brooke: Awesome. Thanks Philippa. Bye everybody.