Ep.72- Discover Your Support Tribe with Iabeshi

In this episode, Lia is joined by Ilabeshi of Evolve with Ilabeshi Coaching and founder of women’s groups “The Married Women's Corner” and “Girls Talk With Tolu” (GTWT). They discuss how we can make friends as adults, provide safe spaces for each other, honor each other in our struggles, and have conversations around the taboo subjects we’ve grown up fearing. On the outside, we see others as beautiful, and their life seems perfect, and that can be intimidating. We tend to put up a front that we are put together and everything is blissful in our lives. But you never know what someone's going through. So, get curious instead of intimidated. As children, making friends comes easily. Everyone is instantly included at the playground. One thing we shouldn't lose from childhood is putting ourselves out there to get to know new people and learn from them and about them. Listen in to this conversation and connect with Lia and Ilabeshi today.

This episode is sponsored by Lunarherbals.com, where you can find natural wellness products to support your bliss life. -- Use code Lia10 for $10 off your first order.

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Host: Lia Bliss on LinkedIn and Instagram

Guest: Ilabeshi's email is EvolveWithilabashi@gmail.com , website, and Instagram @girlstalkwithtolu and @tolulove4me

Find Lia’s book here: Everything Is Your Fault by Lia Bliss

Podcast Manager: Kimberly Smith

Transcript

You’re listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Join Kiera Masters and Lia Bliss as they dive into the magical, mysterious, and mundane elements of life, helping you to master your purpose and find your bliss.

Lia:

We'll go from here. Recording in progress. It's always fun to explain to people how we start these podcasts. Like, there's no start. It's just Let's just go. So I am here with the beautiful Miss Ilabeshi with Evolve with Ilabeshi Coaching. We have what we have found. We have very similar stories, but opposite. Growing up in a very religious world, growing up being taught all the how did you put it? Grow up right, and grew up with all those.

Ilabeshi:

Right. That was brought up in the right way. Very religious.

Lia:

Yes.

Ilabeshi:

Everything was right, except me.

Lia:

That's just that's what the right way. And and that's you you brought up the right way and with the right parents in the right neighborhood, with the right religion, with the right value systems, and then you go off and end up all wrong. All wrong, and things get wild. I, for the listeners here, don't know if I've ever talked about this before about I was married or I got married when I was nineteen, and I didn't know anything about anything. Nobody knows – I mean, does anyone know anything when you're nineteen? Right?

Ilabeshi:

No. No.

Lia:

No. But Elobessa, you've started 2 groups. One of them is "The Married Women's Corner." And the other one what was the name of the other one?

Ilabeshi:

“Girls Talk With Tolu” (GTWT).

Lia:

GTWT, girls talk. I love it. For the sole purpose of allowing women to come together to talk about things that may have been taboo, or not correct, not right, to talk about growing up. I know you said something earlier about not having a woman to go to, in those early days. And how true that for the girls and the women. So for the the single girls and the married women, is that kind of what has drawn everyone into this beautiful circle that you’ve created, or what's the… talk to me about this whole process and what you've observed from these women.

Ilabeshi:

From starting these two groups, I was able to find out that we women need someone to talk to. But there's this fear of if I open up to you, you're gonna make fun of me. you're gonna use it against me, but in this two group, we have our values, which is safety. Every woman that comes into this group knows that she's safe here. My value for the married women group is that, one of our missions is to let the woman know that there is a sister here that sees and hears you. It doesn't matter where you are in your walk of life, you might be a CEO or you might be a cleaner, whatever you are, that you are married, you are one of us. Same thing too for the singles. Right? It doesn't matter where you are. We are all sisters, and we have each other's back.

Lia:

Isn't that, I mean, I feel like we've come full circle from, I mean, tribal living being in… It's all about the community. Right? And we know that women historically, traditionally, biologically, gained value and just the ability to survive. Through that tribal women's group, the sense of women coming together, women supporting each other, women knowing that there’s safety. But you you brought up a a great point. So often these days, it's like, oof. I don't wanna I don't wanna tell other women that I'm having a struggle in my marriage because they may judge me or they may see me differently. And I don't wanna be seen talking bad about my husband. But having been through that, having been in a place of complete isolation where your husband's your only person you talk to.

Ilabeshi:

Right.

Lia:

Creating space for abuse and manipulation and all of these things. I tell, I have a boyfriend right now. And I tell him all the time, like, No, I have to have external input.

Ilabeshi:

Mhmm.

Lia:

We can't just have one 1 to 1. – Mhmm – And we can't have this echo chamber of women. And so the diversity and the bringing together of these girls and safe how important is safety in our lives these days? The most?

Ilabeshi:

It is the most. It's 100 120%.

Ilabeshi:

It is. It is. Like you said, it a lot a lot of women are going through. a lot, and then they come out, and you think all is well. – Mhmm – Because of the makeup, because of the Good clothes because of everything. You would not imagine what they're going through. So having this community really, really helps this woman know that there is a support for you.

Lia:

And that's something that it's been hard to find. How what would you say how when you started this, you just said you just reached out to girls in your community. Yes?

Ilabeshi:

Yes. It was it was hard. So, again, you have to build trust. Right? This is not gonna happen on just one meeting day. Right? So when I started these groups, what I did was to set the, ground rules. Listen. Everything that happens in this call stays in this call. We don't wanna hear it on CNN. We don't wanna hear it on social media. We don't wanna hear it anywhere. If we hear it, then we're gonna really call you out or probably not allow you. So this sessions that I have there on Zoom call. – Mhmm – We gotta accept you. So it's not those calls that you just log in and just join. We gotta accept you into the call for you to be able to join in. So it's not like your usual just everybody joins, no. The host has to accept you. So we kind of, like, accept people, and we if we feel like you're not aligning with what we stand for. We can remove you.

Lia:

Boundaries. – Right. – Healthy, healthy boundaries. So we all know that making friends as adults is the hardest thing to do. What advice would you give to someone who and maybe and maybe even even me. We'll call it, you can give me a little mini coaching moment. The struggle to find adult friends is so real. What is your advice to someone who's like, I my my life is I wake up. I go to work. I come home. I go to the gym. I go to bed. Where where do we go to find how do we find friends as women?

Ilabeshi:

I like how you said it. Like, finding friends as adults is tough. Even me, I still struggle with that. But one thing I do is in this kind of community, right? Now, thank goodness for, what's it called now, technology. You don't really have to have friends like, you know, your neighborhood. Like, you are in Utah right now. I'm here in Boston. Right? I know that I can reach out to you. I've connected with you. So if I have anything, I can say, hey, Lia, do you have some minute? I can talk to you. So now we don't really need to, like, stay in that bubble. The wall that's really opened up to us, right where you can reach out to. And this community that I have, it's online. And what we try to do is like try and put people. So if we have two people from Boston. We kind of match them together. 2 people from Utah, match them together, things like that so that you have that community. But you have to be open to making friends too. You can just say, oh, I wake up, go to work, and all of that. When you go to work, do you mingle with people. Do you talk to people? When you go to the store, do you say hi to people in the checkout line?

Lia:

That’s so scary, though.

Ilabeshi:

You go to the library. I know. You go to the library. Right? Your local library. There are people there. Or if you have kids. Your kids have people. They do play dates with. You could, you know, meet up with their parents. You know, the other day, my daughter had, what's it called, her birthday, and I invited one of our classmates. And her mom came. Usually, before now, daughter would always use my phone. I gotta call. I gotta call her. I gotta call. So they've been talking. And now she had the birthday, and I got the chance to meet her mom. And I'm like, well, she's not so bad. You know what? Me and you, we're gonna go out for lunch or something. You know, that's how we, as adults, can be friends. It's harder than kids making friends, though, but we can make it work for us.

Lia:

We yes. It's just that kind of 5 seconds of discomfort. Like, oh, that's so uncomfortable.

Ilabeshi:

Yes.

Lia:

But it's the same thing I moved around a ton when I was a kid. I remember I was so awkward. I was always the new kid in elementary school. I was so awkward. I remember one time there was this so there was the coolest girl. The coolest girl. I just thought she was amazing. I still remember her name was Mariah. She was so cool. She was tall, gorgeous. We were in, like, 6th grade. And I was like, oh my gosh. I want friends with her. So I just, like, followed her around. Wouldn't talk to her. Just a weirdo. Still weirdo.

Ilabeshi:

If only you talk to her, maybe. You know? But again, that's, yeah, that's the thing about we, like, as humans, we're always afraid of something. But, again, I'm thinking, like, what's the worst thing that can happen, right, if I reach out to that. Like, you're reaching out to the Maria now. Uh-huh. What she's gonna say is Ida, hey, I don't wanna be your friend, which will really hurt.

Lia:

Which sucks.

Ilabeshi:

6th grader.

Lia:

Yes.

Ilabeshi:

Oh, she'll be like, oh, no. I've always wanted to be your friend too, you know. Because that girl that you think is cool to really have some insecurities too and probably is hiding it by just being, you know, putting that front there.

Lia:

That's the universal truth. It used to be in elementary school, and now it's just on Instagram where we put up this front. And it's like you said, you never know what someone's going through Right? They look put together. I have some girlfriends that on the outside, beautiful, gorgeous their life seems perfect. But I know that they have these untold struggles and to be able to reach out and just be interested in people. So just say, hey. I wanna get to know you. Hey. You you have value to me. Let's talk. Let's learn about each other.

Ilabeshi:

Mhmm.

Lia:

I think staying curious. That's one thing we shouldn't lose from that childhood. Maybe I can get rid of being awkward, but I can I can adopt this idea of, like, let's get curious. Let's stay curious like children.

Ilabeshi:

Yeah. Yeah. That really does work when we stay curious. You learn more about yourself too. You learn about yourself. You also learn about orders, right, things you would think, ah, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. You find out that, oh, I didn't know I could deal that. Right?

Lia:

Right. And just even the the similarities that people have, I know that in your coaching business, you deal a lot with diversity. Right? You're an immigrant. You're a woman. You're a woman of color. There's a lot of of those elements that someone like me, I I can't relate to those off the cuff. And yet we can come in here and find all of these things that we have in common. So in your coaching, what do you I know you do a 4-week coaching program to Live Your Best Life, which aligns with we do living your bliss life.

Ilabeshi:

Life. Alright. That was nice. That's what I said. I was like, woah.

Lia:

Oh, a lot. So it If anyone's interested in a 4 week program with you, tell me what would they learn in living your your best life?

Ilabeshi:

So in leaving so the 4 week that I did, I did that in July. So I have one coming up. the whole month of October, every Sunday. And when when you go into this leaving your best life master class. We're gonna touch and what really is living your best life? to you mean? What does it mean to you? Because what it means to me might be different from what it means to you, right, living my best life might be just chilling somewhere, you know, not working, not doing all of that. To you, might be for you to be traveling everywhere. Right? So we need to identify what it means to us living your best life. And then when we Look at that. We would not look at the fears because I told you every one of us deal with a fear. So we're gonna look at the fears, holding us back from living our best life. It could be like, oh, I really wanna chill there, you know what? I can't do it. I need to find out why I can't do it. I need to find out from you why you can't do it. You say you wanna travel around the world, why can't you travel? That fear, what is holding you back. Another thing again is the boundaries we're talking about, right, Okay. I wanna be able to, say, live… what?... Just chill. But, again, because I have kids, right? My children are coming, mommy, mommy, mommy, I got this, mommy. And so because of that, I can't do that, right? But I need to be able to, like, kids, listen. When it's 5 o’clock do not disturb mommy. Mommy needs a rest. You know, just spreading those boundaries. And for you, you need to be able to, like, figure those things that you need to do that really creates that boundary for you to be able to live your best life. It could be you saying no to this. It could be you saying yes to this. And then from there, we're now gonna take it a step forward you know, building that self confidence. A lot of us, as women, we lack that self confidence, right, to be able to, like, I can't you know, she she can do it, but I can’t do it. Why can't you do it? Right? Just being able to be bold, and audacious, and going for what you want. And saying, you know what? I don't care what that person says. I don't care what this person say I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna be bold about it going for it. And lastly, we're gonna now look at the action plans on how to really put all these things that we think about. Right? We wanna live our best life. What do I need to put in place? What do I need to do? How do I need to go about it? So that is all that is gonna entail in your living best life.

Lia:

I gotcha. Girls, we are doing so in 4 weeks in October. We figure out 5 weeks. Okay.

Ilabeshi:

Yes.

Lia:

We figure out what we want, what our fears are. Mhmm. We figure out how to have the confidence to go after them. And then what's the game plan?

Ilabeshi:

Boundaries.

Lia:

Boundaries. Yes. Boundaries are big.

Ilabeshi:

And you would also in so what I did for the July session. I matched everyone with a partner. You gotta have a partner who's gonna be there to push you forward to tell you, listen, You know what? You can do it, Lia. What is holding you back? We got this. And you both have to really like talk that partner as like, you know, pushing you and you are pulling them. Like, you have that community, that support, to be able to, like, lift yourselves up.

Lia:

Beautiful. So community, purpose, passion --

Ilabeshi:

Mhmm.

Lia:

-- incredible. If I was one of the hot girls walking listening to this podcast right now and I wanted to get a hold of you, how would I do that?

Ilabeshi:

So I have a master a QR code, which I can send out to you, then you can also reach out Evolve with ilabashi@gmail.com, or you can contact me phone number 508-816-5053.

Lia:

Ladies, you heard it here first and incredible. I will make sure that I include a copy of that QR code and the link in the show notes as we wrap up, is there anything else one big takeaway that you would want all women to know. It's like, if you gotta know one thing about yourself, sister, you gotta know this. What is it?

Ilabeshi:

If you gotta know something about yourself, I want you to know that. There is nothing impossible for you to achieve once you put your mind to it. So I take taekwondo. Right? I'm gonna end with this. I do taekwondo. How did I get into taekwondo? I wanted to sign my kids up for taekwondo, and I went to check-in, and I saw and I said, do you have anything for adults? They said yes, but I found out how much it was gonna cost for the kids. 3 of them. I'm like, no, I can’t afford for themm, but I can afford it for myself. And that was how I started taekwondo. It's been 2 years, about high red belt, about 3 belt away from black belt. In my dojean. Oh. In in my dojean, there is this description that says there's nothing impossible to a determine mind. If you are determined, Whatever you are determined about, as long as you put your mind to it, you would get it. You will get it. You wanna be the CEO of that company you are in. If you are determined, you will get there. If you wanna be a millionaire, if you're determined, you would get that. There's nothing impossible. to you as long as you have a determined mind and the right support.

Lia:

I love it. Determined mind, the right support system. That's all it takes ladies. I always I had a coach once tell me. You can have it all. You just can't have it all at the same time. And it really comes down to where are your priorities, where are you working hard, and where are you putting in your effort? Because your mind knows no boundaries. The only boundary is your mind.

Ilabeshi:

Right. The only limit is you. Yep. The only limit is you. And that was one of the things I told the last group of living your best life. The only limit is you. Nobody can hold you back except you hold yourself back.

Lia:

Gosh. That's so empowering, but also scary because it's like, woof. I got work to do. I'm in charge. That means all of my success and all of my failure is my fault. My book, Everything is Your Fault, highlights this idea. Pretty pretty on the nose. Everything is your fault because you are the one that is responsible for your success. And if you're not successful. Perfect. Beautiful. Miss Ilabeshi, you. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Master Your Bliss Live podcast. Hot girls check out these show notes for all the relevant links. We love you so much and see you real soon. Bye.

Ending:

You have been listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Make sure to check out the show notes for any relevant links and follow Kiera and Lia on Instagram and LinkedIn.