Learn How To Navigate Change And Accept Transformation In Order To Achieve Your Desired Results With Wendy Darling

 

Have you ever had a moment where you thought you needed a transformation to have a greater impact? Adam Markel sits down with Wendy Darling, a transformational results expert, keynote speaker, and founder of the Miraculous Living Institute, to share how her methodology helps people navigate change to achieve their desired results. She has over 35 years of experience in business and life transformation and she talks to Adam about the specific avenues she’s working on and how people can learn to reposition themselves so that they can begin to replenish their life the way they want it.  

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Learn How To Navigate Change And Accept Transformation In Order To Achieve Your Desired Results With Wendy Darling 

Conscious Pivot fans, I’m re-releasing an incredible show I did with a dear friend. Her name is Wendy Darling. She is the author of an amazing book about how to create a miraculous life. Amid everything that the world is going through, so many changes and transitions that each of us is also experiencing, this conversation couldn’t be a better time to revisit. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a show that I love with the person I adore and I know you will as well. Enjoy. 

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I am feeling very shiny because I get to talk with a dear friend, somebody that I adore. A new friend, somebody I haven’t known for many years but I appreciate this woman. I will share a little bit about her. Her name is Wendy Darling. She is a Transformational Results Expert, a speaker and an author. Before we go there, I want to ground myself and all of us with a breath of gratitude because how lucky are we that we get to be here in this moment? Wherever you are, what a great fortune that is for you and us. It’s a fact that as we continue to breathe more consciously at this moment, we can also be in recognition of the fact that people are taking their very last breath right this moment. 

How blessed are we to be here and to be doing what we are doing, whatever it is. Maybe you are walking in the gym, on the treadmill, outside, you are in front of your computer or driving in the car, we are all in different places but we are connected. That is the most important thing that we can recognize through our breath. We have connected to one something, whatever you want to call that something, we are connected. That is divine, perfect and beautiful. Without further ado, I want to introduce our guest. I will say a little bit about her, and then we are going to get right into her pivot story. 

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Wendy Darling is the Founder of the Miraculous Living Institute, a personal and professional growth organization offering presentations, seminars, retreats and private coaching. She is a recognized expert on navigating change and achieving your desired results. Her transformational system, The Miraculous Living Method provides the vehicle for achieving those results with greater ease and speed. Wendy has many years of experience as a business and life transformation expert, master healing practitioner, management and organizational development consultant, manager and executive, entrepreneur, radio show personality and keynote speaker. 

Wendy has done this work for quite a bit of time. Her seminars and presentation topics have touched the lives of more than 200,000 people across the United States and throughout the world. Wendy, I will stop right there. Your bio and CV are quite long and extensive. I know that our community is familiar with me not doing long, elaborate introductions. They will learn so much from just reading this and from your experience. Fill in any gaps. Is there any place where you would like to fill in the intro? Also, share with us what you are doing and what you are passionate about. 

The only thing I will add to what you were saying and it’s great being here is I’m starting to feel older because of all of that, even a little tired. It has been a wonderful journey. Even though this is the beginning of my many years of having my own business, which is amazing to me, I feel like I’m getting started in a lot of ways. That’s exciting too that it still feels fresh and to be continued. In the second part, what I’m focused on are two specific avenues primarily. There are always more than that. 

First of all, I started training and certifying coaches and practitioners in my methodology. I’m excited about that and that’s going to be a primary focus. The other is my consulting work. I have an arm of my business called RQ Consultants. RQ stands for your Relationship Quotient. I work with organizations to help empower the team to be more productive and profitable. I choose to focus on the healthcare industry. Those are two of the major things. We will see what else unfolds as the year progresses, which is the fun part. 

What’s the transition into the healthcare focus? 

First, it’s a natural alignment for me. Based on my past and having to be involved in hospitals, I have a real soft spot in my heart for people who work with people with health issues. Wellness has always been something of great importance. Quite honestly, it’s a thriving business industry that has a lot of need. As things grow and change, that what I call the Rubik’s Cube of the organization can sometimes get out of alignment. Working to massage that to be able to go easier with what needs to happen in the effort to get maybe different results is so important. 

Let’s back up the clock to a different time in your life when you had experienced some challenges. One thing that’s a constant is the fact that things change. One of those beautiful paradoxes of life that constant is change. People meet change differently. More often than not, they meet it with fear or trepidation and all that white-knuckling the experience of change. What was it like for you a time ago when you were white-knuckling change and the pivot that was upon you and how you showed up in that time? What did you learn? 

To preface that a tiny bit, I was a fearless person. I thought, “If I wanted a job, I’ve got it.” I was Dean of Students for a semester at age 28. As we were pulling out from San Francisco Bay, I was going, “What have I done?” I’ve got involved in training, development and consulting when it was in infancy. I started my own business in 1981 and this was in 1990. I was working with a Fortune 100 company. I was flying all over the United States providing training for them. I was then flying from Texas, where I was living at that time, to Los Angeles. I was a type–A kind of girl. It was like, “The show must go on,” but I was sick as a dog. 

I went outside the Dallas Airport to get some fresh air. I passed out and fell over a ledge of 25 feet. That alone was extremely traumatic. Not to give tons of detail but the good news is I landed on my right leg. It was shattered and my back was broken. I was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. I had multiple surgeries. I didn’t know if I would walk again for about eleven months and I do. All of this has a happy ending but this was a white-knuckle moment because I had never physically been challenged before. 

Around the fourth week I was in the hospital, my former husband came with suitcases packed, stating he didn’t want to be married any longer. In all fairness, we had issues and I take responsibility. The timing wasn’t great. The real blow came when we went to court. Unfortunately, he’s an attorney. He was awarded full custody of our son, who was only 4.5. That was when I broke into a lot of pieces. Even at the time of my accident, I was starting to wake up more to, “Who am I?” There was more of this sense of a spiritual awakening. This was my big wake-up call. 

When I was sick, lying in the hospital all those years ago, first of all, I didn’t believe in accidents and I had a doozy of one. I was asking the questions, “What choices and decisions have I been making that got me to where I was at that moment? What choices and decisions were I now going to have to make to dig myself out of this hole because it was a big one?” I happen to say sometimes, “If life takes you to your knees, start praying.” I was so out of anything that I had experienced before. I was living in whiteboard territory. There was nothing to hook my identity on. 

 

Now, I consider it one of my greatest gifts because I had to look at, “Who am I? What am I here for? How can I best serve? How am I going to dig myself out of this hole?” My prayer to God at that time was, “If you help me dig out of this hole, I promise I will pay it forward. If you could make it easier and faster, it would be nice because nobody should have to suffer like this.” I have to say it and it took a while but I’ve got my wish granted. 

When you say you’ve got your wish granted, do you mean that the suffering ended? What was it that accounted for the wish being granted? 

It took a while to recover physically and emotionally. I mentioned I was also diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. That may have been the greatest gift because I don’t know how this happened but because of the trauma, my mom, of all people, suggested I might want to learn how to meditate. At that time, quieting my mind was such an oxymoron. I was like, “Really?” Especially after my former husband was awarded custody of my son, something snapped inside of me. I could feel the wheels turning inside, trying to find a folder or a compartment to land how this beautiful being that I’ve got to birth and love unconditionally like nothing ever before was suddenly somebody that I never met before called by the judge. He said, “Sorry, we are changing things up a little bit.” It was traumatic. I went to somebody who was teaching me how to meditate. Every time, I almost felt like my mind was going to relax. I had this urge to sing. I told him this and he said, “Sing.” I said, “You don’t understand. I have people in my life that request I not do that.” 

Am I correct in saying that you would not be asked by people to sing? As part of a stress management program, they would not ask you to sing? 

That would be correct. I love to sing. My son is more diplomatic now but there was a time where I would be singing in the car and he would be like, “Mom, do you have to do that?” I looked at him and went, “Yes, I do. Adjust.” My instructor said, “Sing.” In those desperate times, I’ve got into that space. Something started to come through me and I started to sing. For the first time in such a long time, my mind and body started to calm. It was such a relief. I was living in Dallas, Texas at that time, as some of you may know, Texas has a reputation for having big things. I had this ginormous walk-in closet. I would go into my closet and do my meditation in singing because the acoustics in the closet was so delicious. Little by little, I started realizing that there was maybe more to this than I realized. 

To fast forward it, I started to receive my transformational gifts, healing gifts and the processes that I use now. The reason I said my wish was granted was my suffering did end but what’s so great is the people who I get to serve can get their results easier and faster. I married my world, a very traditional consulting and facilitating with these wonderful gifts. I’m able to see the energy and move it. I can see where things are stuck. My system itself can find the root cause immediately of anything that’s holding you back, interfering and creating a misalignment. We get you in a place where you get to be you and live the life of your dreams. Behind that, I feel my purpose is helping others fulfill what I call their Divine Destiny, that’s what I want to support. 

When you were speaking about your mind, the traumatic brain injury and how that might have been a blessing, I was thinking about that book by Jill Bolte Taylor called My Stroke of Insight. For those of you who have never read that book, it’s a way beautiful, cool and amazing book about her experiences as a Harvard researcher. She’s a brain researcher. She talks about the irony on some level or how things are so divine where we don’t know if she’s appreciating the moment. This brain researcher was having a stroke and was conscious of the fact that she was having an event. At a certain point, she became unconscious of that because the stroke took over and she was no longer herself. That’s what the book is about, her journey in and out of that stroke. It’s a wonderful book. 

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That was a blessing. I remember her not only as a blessing in a bunch of ways including the fact that her book and work have now transformed and assisted people. It helped them to transform their own lives. There were so many people. It must be millions at this point. The other blessing, as she described in the book was the fact that when the center of her brain was no longer active or at least she didn’t have access to it was her left brain. She was living in her right brain, in the child’s mind and the creative side. That side is not judging things and not so critical. It’s not the side that’s often giving us a hard time. While she didn’t have full function in a lot of areas and that was debilitating, she also had access to this side of herself where she was nothing but the present. That was part of what she was describing. It sounds very familiar to how you were describing what you were gaining out of that traumatic brain event. 

I tease now and then, “It sure would have been nice to have had it smoother,” but it was my journey. I am grateful now, even when I was going through the trying times because it was not just, “Let’s get better and get on with life.” There were a lot of challenges along the way. I’m blessed. I’m relatively normal now. I laugh because who knows what normal is? I have always been a sensitive person but it has dialed up now. I think my heart is wonderful. 

In the early days, I decided to have some tests done. I’ve got to see my heart in action and I had never seen that before. It was like, “Look at you, you are doing so great.” It is a blessing. Certain things have dialed up and down in the sense that I’m not that workaholic little girl any longer. I still work and love what I do but you talked about self-care. Making sure that I take care of myself is at the top of my list. In the way, I approach things. I have such trust in faith in life now. Even the times that, “It doesn’t quite look like I thought it was going to look,” I have learned to ride the waves a lot easier than before. 

Isn’t that we ought to be taught when we were in kindergarten or earlier, is the skill of riding the waves of life? 

Yes. As you said, when I had my accident, that was beyond the white-knuckle moment. It was, “How did somebody like me have all of this happen to?” It did. I joked because I imagined sitting in the lap of God as a soul. It was like, “God, I want to experience unconditional love this time like never before.” God holds me, gives me a little peck and goes, “Wish granted.” 

The process of experiencing unconditional love may not look the way we think it’s supposed to look. It may not come to us from the most obvious place. Out of great adversity, getting knocked to your knees, those white-knuckle moments and any number of other ways to describe the challenges we faced in our lives, we gain an understanding of things that we would never have otherwise had. 

I’ve got to see the contrast. As a young child, my mom was the type of person who was overwhelmed, highly critical and quite honestly, abusive. I had such a poor sense of who I was for many years. I didn’t know who I was. That was a pivotal moment of my accident because I recognized, I was living more the life that I thought she and even my dad wanted me to live. On the outside, it looked like I was doing a great job of life. It took this experience to explore, “Who am I? What matters to me?” For myself, I was my first laboratory and then I worked on other people who allowed me to. 

 

You are the self-improvement lab for how to change your life. That’s the way it is for all of us. We are in a laboratory of making changes. Change for life is not something we are necessarily born knowing or learning from the models of experiences of people who are around us. More often than not, what they model is the white–knuckling, resistance, a lot of regret and anger as well along the way. 

That’s the other thing, to even give ourselves time outs to explore, take a step back and evaluate. You and I both have had multiple pivots in our lives. Now, I sense when something is wanting to shift. Life also reflects it, that things come to a halt. Those times of reflection are important because we do live in interesting times. We do live in a world that is changing very quickly. We are also a little off-center with our values, actions and a lot of other things. I’m one of those people who typically like a quiet New Year’s Eve, where I honor my year in review and look at the things that were great and maybe not so great and, “How do I want to position myself to enter that new year?” Like many people, I create some intentions. I don’t believe as strongly in specific goals as far as resolutions go. It’s like, “How do I want to be adjusting my trajectory so that I can have greater impact, influence and still have a good time?” 

It is in so many ways finally tuning the way when we were younger. Even younger, the radio was a dial. You had to tune in and recalibrate to the station to get a clear signal and channel. Why should it be any different in our own lives, whether we are making or considering a career change or any of the things that are going on? My story is one of misery in the work I was doing. I was feeling unfulfilled by the work I was doing. That process of exploring of getting present and quiet inside to be able to then make those recalibrations or consider what those things would be like is so important as a process. It sounds to me like your methodology is very process-driven as well. You said something earlier too about growing up with contrast. The word in a way that stuck with me was with Abraham–Hicks, the Esther and Jerry Hicks work where she talked about contrast and how contrast is a catalyst for us knowing what we want. 

There’s an exercise that I will often do with some of the people who participate in our programs. I will say to them, “We have a great guidance system. To know how much more clear than you think you are, create a T-Chart. On the left-hand side of the T-Chart, I want you to write down all the things you can quickly think of that don’t work. ‘It doesn’t work to be in a relationship with somebody who’s abusive. It doesn’t work to be in a relationship too quickly in business, the partnerships that are formed too quickly without knowing somebody. It creates challenges. It doesn’t work to spend more money than you earn.’” On the left-hand side is what you know doesn’t work because when you know what doesn’t work, you know what does work. 

On the right-hand side, it’s all the things that you are clear, that you have complete, crystal clarity about and that does work when you know first what doesn’t work. It’s that contrast between the experience of what doesn’t work, what you don’t want and getting clear on what you do want. That is so wonderful. The work that you are doing is magnificent. I am a student of yours. I feel like the process that you shared with me is beautiful. I have been using it. 

It’s a bit of an irony that you were told not to sing and yet this beautiful song and I don’t even know, whether you would call it a song but the sounds that came from you that you recorded that were called forth are a part of the process that you use. You shared with me the digital audio recording of it and I listened to it. It’s about twenty minutes long. I also do some quiet reflection on some thoughts, things and guidance that you and I have discussed. I do that as I listen and it’s magnificent. It has an incredible impact on me. I want to say thank you for that. 

There’s nothing more that warms my heart to be able to share this with people now. Remember how I said I had meditated in the closet? I was really in the closet with this because it was so different than who I was before my accident. I’m still sometimes a little self-conscious or shy about it. That’s my journey to get over it but I feel a responsibility to share it. First of all, who doesn’t have a gift that they don’t even realize is a gift? Secondly, there are so many of us who are shy about saying, “I love doing this. I’m good at that.” Even though my story is a little extreme and even what I do is a little different, who doesn’t feel different? It’s time for us to celebrate that uniqueness that lives within all of us. 

My former business name was Thumbprints International a while back because I believe like our thumbprint, each of us is born with unique talents, skills and opportunities. Our job in life is, first of all, to discover what that might be, and then cultivate and position ourselves in a way that we make that special mark that we make a difference. That to me is heaven on Earth. That’s how we feel fulfilled. That’s what I feel I help people either discover. I didn’t know for the longest time things that I did well. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that somebody said, “You are a good diagnostician.” I went, “Am I?” 

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We rarely see ourselves as accurately as the world sees us. It’s interesting too, that way. Some people will see us and they project themselves onto us. There’s all the stuff that’s always out there. When we can get quiet, still and check–in, we can learn the real truth about ourselves, how truly divine we are and how deserving of unconditional love we are, regardless of our mistakes, the journey of the past or any of those things. Wendy, what’s one thing that you do as a ritual or a conscious habit that helps you to stay in the right mindset? 

It’s my number one priority. Almost every morning, first and foremost, other than making tea or coffee, I get quiet. I have a practice where I do my methodology. I turn on my audio. Part of my methodology helps to train the mind, which I think is very important and many times, a missing piece in some practices. I spend time in quiet and listen to one of my recordings. I typically sing and do some healing work on myself. I write what I’m grateful for every morning. I usually do it in the evening as well before I go to bed. I write out my intentions for the day and then listen to my guidance. 

I used to get paid a nice little sum of money to create strategic plans for companies. I am so not that person anymore. I listen for my marching orders now and take that step. I was told to make a call to a specific person. I was like, “Wait.” I feel when we live from that place trusting God, the universe or whatever you might call this, I call it the greatest thing on Earth that we get to experience, we’ve got everything. I’m at the tail end of a cold. Between the cold and I was eating a little differently, I couldn’t feel my guidance system as well. I missed it. That also becomes important to taking care of our bodies so that we can not only receive guidance but then be in good health to do what we are being guided to do. I believe every person is here to thrive, prosper and make a very unique and special contribution that will make this world a better place because you are here. 

When you talk about a practice like that, it’s a mindfulness practice in a lot of ways. People talk about meditating and they don’t meditate, don’t like to meditate or can’t meditate. That’s what I hear a lot of times. “I have tried meditating. It doesn’t work for me. My mind won’t be quiet.” Stop calling it meditation for one thing. Think and practice it differently because what you discussed is getting still, being in gratitude and then in that stillness and that gratitude allow for guidance. 

I did a show with Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith and he talked about the assignment. Where you said guidance, he used the word assignment. You said marching orders. He directly asked, “What’s my assignment now?” It was a wonderful way to frame what we are discussing, which is to ask in humility for what it is that you would like to know. Ask regardless of, whether you call it a spirit, God or anything else. You getting quiet and asking for that guidance, marching orders or that assignment is you, asking you. 

It’s the indwelling wisdom, genius and all of that’s inside of you and being quiet enough for a moment or two to hear it. I remember in Pivot, I featured several people who had some practices, including Keith Leon, who’s a dear friend. Keith’s practice also has to do with being still and asking for, “Which direction, which way next kind of thing.” Wendy, this has been a blast. I adore you. I’m happy we’ve got to see each other. Her name suits her well. Her last name is Darling and you are very darling to me. 

Thanks, Adam. I love you, too. We have been blessed that finally, the universe conspired, that we’ve got to be even almost neighbors. That part is lovely. 

Wendy, is there a website that people can go to, to find out more about you? 

It’s very simple, WendyDarling.com. 

There are so many amazing resources there. You can learn more about Wendy and how it is that her work might impact your life. We are all in the process of changing our lives for the better. Hopefully, we are doing it in an elegant, graceful way, not having to white-knuckle it as we said earlier. There are a few other resources that we have that are available that are at no cost. I would love for you to take advantage of that access. 

 

Whether you are in a pivot, not in a pivot, curious, would like to answer some questions to figure it out, whether you are in or not yet in a period of change in your life, you can go to StartMyPivot.com. We’ve got a Kickstart Guide that you can access there. 

Before we depart, I want to remind us all how blessed again it is that we are here together. Tomorrow, my magic wand is waving in the air. The magic wand is that we all get to wake up tomorrow. There’s a ritual. We talked about rituals and practices. I always start my day with the same practice I have for many years. It has three parts. The first part is that I wake up. That is no simple feat because we don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. To wake up spiritually, in my consciousness, in my awareness, physically to a new day is a blessing. 

At that moment I realized I’m awake, the next thing I do is sit in gratitude for something, whether it’s that breath, family, health or the roof over my head. Some people don’t have that. The third part is, if you are inclined to do this, you wake up. You are in gratitude. Put your feet on the floor and declare out loud, “I love my life.” That element of intention-setting for your day, that self-care and self-love, is going to pay dividends big time. We love you. We are so appreciative that you are in this community. Ciao for now. Thank you so much, Wendy. 

Thanks, Adam. 

 

Important links

• Wendy Darling 
• The Miraculous Living Method 
• RQ Consultants 
• My Stroke of Insight 
• Michael Bernard Beckwith – Past Episode 
• Keith Leon - Past Episode 
• StartMyPivot.com 

 

About Wendy Darling