Find Your Passion Archetype with Marie-Elizabeth Mali

A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome back to another soul-stirring episode of the Stellar Life Podcast! 🌟 I’m so thrilled to connect with you. My guest today, Marie-Elizabeth Mali, is a brilliant light emanating wisdom, passion, and presence.

In this conversation, we dive deep into what it means to fully inhabit each moment, savor pleasure, and let your inner radiance shine through. Marie-Elizabeth shares touching stories of her profound encounters with whales and how they exemplify being fully present with another conscious being.

You’ll learn her framework of archetypes to provide self-knowledge, avoid perfectionist pitfalls, and live aligned with your core motivations. She also provides simple, tangible tips on self-care and nervous system regulation that can help you to transform your life.

I hope this episode leaves you feeling seen, held, and inspired. When we allow our inner light to guide us, anything is possible. Don’t forget to visit yourpowerquiz.com after the episode for an exclusive quiz to help you revolutionize the way you see yourself. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

[00:47] – Orion interviews Marie-Elizabeth Mali, a TEDx speaker and wellness expert, discussing female archetypes, aging, and embodiment.
[04:03] – Marie-Elizabeth shares her passion for whales and underwater photography, describing an experience of swimming with a whale in Tonga.
[10:01] – Marie-Elizabeth discusses how women lose their identity and passion and how they can rediscover their sense of self.
[14:53] – Orion talks about how she tends to overgive and neglect her own needs, prompting Marie-Elizabeth to value taking care of herself guilt-free to recharge and avoid burnout.
[20:06] – Marie-Elizabeth explains archetypes, emphasizing that women fall into five categories: mystic priestess, survivor savior, truth warrior, dragon woman, and heart weaver.
[36:00] – Marie-Elizabeth and Orion encourage women to find their inner passion and radiance as they age rather than conform to societal expectations.
[42:32] – Marie-Elizabeth describes the transition from the “PrettyBody” to the “RadiantBody” as we age and the possibility of awakening to our inner power and potential.
[46:55] – Marie-Elizabeth elaborates on her top three stellar life tips.

Jump to Links and Resources

Hi, Marie-Elizabeth. Thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Orion. I’m really happy to be here.

Yeah, I’m happy to be hanging out with you. We met a week and a half ago.

Yeah, it was pretty recent.

Yeah, in a very cool mastermind. It was super amazing having conversations with you and getting to know you, so I’m excited about today. Before we begin, please share a little about yourself and your passion.

You bet. I’ve been in the healing space for over 30 years. I’m from New York originally, but I’ve lived a lot in California. Right now, I live in Mexico. I’ve been working with clients on their health, personal development, and healing. Lately, I’m focusing very much on midlife women and really helping them. I’m passionate about helping women reframe what it is to grow older and what it is to live a turned-on, lit-up, and aligned life.

I’ve developed a whole new body of work around that, but another part of my passion is underwater photography. I took this photo of a mama and a baby whale in Tonga. I love having that in the frame because every time I look at them, I just get happy. I love whales a lot. That’s another aspect of my passion.

I love going to conferences and meeting amazing people like you. I also really enjoyed our conversation.

Whales and dolphins are very close to me as totem animals.

They’re very special. To look directly into a whale’s eye is an incredible experience. They can feel exactly where you are in the water. I would love to take you diving. I dive. Part of why we moved to Mexico was to be closer and able to dive into the areas near Los Cabos, where we live.

What is it like being near a whale?

It’s very still and present. I don’t think this is going to sound woo woo for you, but it’s like you can feel the consciousness. It’s this expansive, still-watching, very present experience. One of my favorite moments was in Tonga, not this particular whale, a different one.

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Where is Tonga?

Tonga is near Fiji. You typically have to go through New Zealand. It’s in the South Pacific, and they migrate there. You can swim with humpback whales in Tonga, and you can swim with them in the Dominican Republic because the ones that live up in Massachusetts to Maine in the summer migrate down between the Dominican Republic, and the Turks and Caicos in the winter. You can swim with them there, or you can swim with them in Tonga.

This whale, I was getting pushed into her by the current. I was trying to backpedal away from her because you don’t want to get too close. You don’t want to bang into a whale. It’s not a good look. I was furiously finning backward to get out of her way, and she took her pectoral fin, which is this big fin sticking off her body. She took it, and, as she was moving, she went over my head and my camera and back down the other side so that she wouldn’t hit me.

Now, for perspective, I’m like a buoy in the water, like one of those round buoys in the water next to an ocean liner. That’s the kind of size perspective we’re talking about, and she knew exactly where I was and lifted her fin not to hurt me. Then, when she got past me, I saw she had also turned her tail away from me until she got past me, and then she turned it back straight, again, not wanting to hit me with her tail. This is the level of presence, care, and sentience, like feeling, they have.

When you look at the eye of a whale, what do you feel? What do you see?

Time stops for me. I just feel like I’m meeting another present being fully. Once the eye is near, I’ll typically take my camera down. If there’s an opportunity to look at each other, I’ll often not keep shooting. I’ll put my camera down so we can meet. It always felt very friendly, still, present, and aware, like there’s an awareness. That’s quite beautiful to be around. Would humans have that kind of awareness? More often.

This is just another way of experiencing the presence of passion because passion is all about being present.

100%.

And learning that from a whale, that whale knew exactly where she was in space.

And she knew where I was in space—this tiny thing.

She was aware of her body. That’s a mama whale, right?

A 100% mama whale. She had a baby on the other side of her.

She was protecting you as if you were her baby.

She was. She was protective of me, it made me cry to realize she was protecting me like that. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect that or that I thought whales were somehow not conscious, but directly to experience how conscious, wow.

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This could go in an interesting direction for the conversation because consciousness might be in front of us, but we can miss it if we’re not present. Part of the meeting is my willingness to show up, be present and invite a connection.

This is a lot of what I teach women. For the past eight years until this year, I was coaching women and couples primarily around relationships, and this year, I’ve shifted to working directly with women to step into their wisdom and their passion when they hit that moment in life where it’s like, “What is this life I’m living? It’s not even mine, and I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

When does that happen to women? Does it happen a few times throughout their lives?

I think it can happen a few times. Some of the big moments are if they’re moms, when their kids go to college and all of a sudden there’s room in the house, the kids are no longer home, is a big moment because all of a sudden there’s space. It’s like you’re being liberated from all the ferrying the kids here and there, the social and school things. All of a sudden, there’s space.

I find many women in that moment struggle because they’re like, “I know I should want to do something with my time, but I kind of have forgotten.” Sometimes, women forget their passions because they’re absorbed in the caretaking, or they’re absorbed in the business if they’re an entrepreneur or an executive. They’re so absorbed in making the thing run and saving the kids’ lives well that often there can be this moment where there’s suddenly space, and then they don’t recognize themselves anymore.

I was speaking to a woman just before this recording, and she described when she got divorced, she didn’t know who she was. She had adapted so fully to married life that she didn’t know who she was as a single person anymore. “What do I even like to eat?” Because it had been so family-oriented, and she had done everything like what the family wanted.

It’s time to ignite our passion — the fire within us. Our passion is our life force.

It’s like, “Wow, what colors do I like to wear for me? What foods do I like to eat? What music do I want to listen to?” It’s a huge moment for many women and can happen in our 40s. It can happen for some women, maybe earlier and for some women in their 50s and even later.

There’s typically a moment where we realize, “Oh, there’s more here for me to learn about myself so that I can show up in my life more present and real,” and looking a whale in the eye is one way to access that.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening? For example, I have a four-year-old. We have a very special connection.

He’s amazing.

My life and my identity is like being his mom. I do my podcast and coaching, not as much as before, yet my identity is connected to my child and being a wife. What do you do when one of those identities changes? Is there a preventative medicine?

I’m so glad you’re asking this question. It’s such a beautiful question because it goes against the grain of what we typically do. Typically, we wait for a crisis and then go, “Oh, there’s a crisis. Something’s wrong.” Whereas I think, and maybe this is because of being an alternative medicine practitioner for over 30 years, there’s a lot we can do as prevention. It’s very Western medicine to wait until symptoms get to a crisis and then treat it. You put on the band-aid, and you get the surgery.

Sometimes, many of us miss the opportunity to apply preventive tools earlier so that our situation never has to get to a crisis.

I’ve had surgery. I’m not down on surgery. I’m all about the right tool for the right time. But I think sometimes many of us miss the opportunity to apply tools earlier so that it never has to get to a crisis.

Preventative is exactly what you’re doing. If the podcast lights you up, and you’re doing it for yourself, and it feels like part of your being, great.

I get to talk to people like you. This is amazing.

It’s awesome that you have this. We all have multiple aspects of ourselves that want to be fed. I don’t think that we’re monolithic. People are complex. We have many different aspects, and it’s good to feed them, the ones we want to feed, as long as you’re also feeding aspects of yourself that are yours.

What the trouble that I see women hit is when they fill those aspects to the exclusion of filling themselves up for themselves, with themselves. When they forget to do that piece, that’s where we run into trouble because resentment builds up all of a sudden. It’s like, “Oh my god, I’m doing all this stuff for everybody else.”

That’s damaging to any relationship.

It hurts the relationship. That’s the thing.

With a child, a spouse, or both. I’m that type where I overgive. I overgive to the point where I give gifts to people, and they’re like, “Do you remember when you gave me this?” I’m like, “When?” Or I’ll go out of my way, and it doesn’t matter if I’m tired, I’ll do this, and I’ll do that, and I’ll be a good girl, daughter, and mom.

Then, all of a sudden, I have this resentment bubbling. “What about me? I want to be free.”

That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

I feel so blessed with everything I have, yet I see the incredible value of guiltlessly taking my time.

I’m so glad you added that word because I see that many moms struggle with guilt when they do take time. Entrepreneurs can also get so wrapped up in our businesses that if we step away from them and don’t answer the client for half a day because we’re at the spa getting a massage, we can feel guilty.

When we give from an empty cup, the resentment starts—we’re giving our own life force. But when we take time to fill ourselves up, we can give from the extra.

We can guilt ourselves about stuff like that. You said it right. It’s important to take that time guilt-free, recognizing that by doing that, we come back to the important relationships in our lives with more to give. When we give from an empty cup, the resentment starts—we’re giving our own life force. But when we take time to fill ourselves up, we can give from the extra.

We need to take the time to stare into the eye of a whale. Whatever this whale is for you, whether it’s an art class that will elevate your sense of consciousness, a walk on the beach, , or hug a tree. Whatever it is for you.

Dance.

Do a news diet.

Yeah, that can cause guilt.

Like for me right now, with the war in Israel. The illusion was If I’m not going to consume all this very sad, horrific, atrocious content, I’m not a part of it. It’s almost like survivor guilt. But it doesn’t serve anyone if I don’t take care of myself. Every woman who is not a mom, in a relationship, or is all into her business and doesn’t take any time for herself needs to take a little break, think about it, and listen to what you’re saying. When women come to you, what’s the problem? What’s the crisis?

The crisis is usually something like, and it’s what you said, “I feel blessed. I have this great life. So much in my life is going super well. Why do I like hating it? What’s wrong with me? Something has to be wrong with me. I’m resenting my husband. I want to quit the business.” Or whatever the problem is, that’s showing up.

It’s always a question, like, “Okay, hang on. Let’s not do anything rash. Let’s not take action too quickly because when we take action out of that, something has to change. I have to change something.” When we take action out of that desperate place, it’s not necessarily the right action because it hasn’t really come from the depths. It’s coming from up here, from the panic. You don’t typically want to make big life decisions from a position of panic.

It’s reactive, not proactive.

It’s reactive, not proactive, beautifully said. My invitation is always to go deeper and excavate who I am, what I want now, what is working, and what isn’t working. I’ve created this work that I call activating the PassionBody.

The PassionBody is your inner compass.

The PassionBody is your deepest energy and motivation. It’s very close to the soul and a lot like an inner compass. I specifically call it the PassionBody because, as women, we have been taught in many cultures worldwide that our passion and desire need to be controlled and tempered because they’re too volatile and dangerous. This is the message that many of us have gotten.

And by the way, sometimes it’s not even from society. Sometimes, you get it from your loved ones. Sometimes, I even get it from my husband when I’m over the top.

Exactly. We get that. The thing is that our passion and desire in themselves are not too much. What happens is that when we don’t know how to direct them clearly and healthily, sometimes they come out sideways and create wreckage. That happens. It’s a fire.

It can be good or bad, depending on how you channel it.

A 100%. Fire can keep us alive because it keeps us warm at night, but can also burn down our house. This fire is really at the core of us. I’m very committed to helping women free that fire in a direct and healthy way, not burn the whole thing down.

What has to happen first is really to go inside, remember, and connect with “What lights me up? What am I really about? What do I care about? What do I want?? A lot of the work I end up doing.

I have this quiz where I show people their PassionBody archetype. I have these five archetypes that women tend to fall into. We all have some aspect of them, but there’s typically a dominant one. Like any archetypal image, there are light and shadow sides. There’s the strength we get from that archetype, and then there’s the shadow or the pitfall. Do you want to hear what the archetypes are?

Yeah, I’m very curious. I’m redesigning my website and did a photo shoot in Costa Rica. I look very different in every photo because every outfit represents an archetype.

I love that.

It’s based on the Jungian archetypes.

Cool. I can’t wait to see that.

What did you develop around archetypes?

I developed these five archetypes based on what I mostly see: the types of women who tend to come to me. The first I call the mystic priestess. She’s super connected to the spirit and has deep access to her intuition; the shadow is that she’s not always so great at functioning on the planet. Sometimes, there’s difficulty with money or having really good sex because she’s not willing to be in her lower chakras.

When I lived in LA, I did Naam yoga, and we did a lot of breathwork. I was not grounded at all. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t really focus.

We can get a little state addicted to that because it’s an amazing feeling.

We are physical beings having human experience. While you are in this body, which is a gift, and your soul came to this earth to experience this body, you want to experience everything. All your emotions—the good and the bad—and be here in your body feeling all of it.

A 100%. That’s really what the mystic priestess needs to do. She needs to embody. She needs to come and not give anything up on her connection. It’s also an expansion of her ability to be in the 3D world.

The second archetype I call the survivor savior. This is the person who’s come through really difficult stuff, typically in childhood, like very painful, difficult things, and she’s developed the capacity to sit with other people and be with other people in a deep way who are suffering.

She might be somebody who works with people with an addiction, with the homeless, or with elderly people who are dying. She might be a death doula. It’s the kind of person with the strength to go into places other people fear. However, the shadow or the danger for her is that she can stay so identified with her identity as a survivor that it prevents her from actually expanding and thriving in her own life.

It creates victimhood.

Exactly. She was stuck there.

When we take action out of a desperate place, it’s not necessarily the right action. It’s coming from panic, and you don’t typically want to make big life decisions from a position of panic.

I spoke with many people in the last eight years on this podcast. The people who thrive are those who take responsibility for where they are, for everything they experience, the good and the bad, that can own whatever happens. I had some people who have been through really terrible things, yet they own it. They forgave, took charge, and they were able to rise. “I identify that I am a survivor. I survive. I’m able to thrive.” Expand that identity. The shadow does not control it, right?

That’s exactly what the survivor savior needs to do; she can be anywhere. When she takes the quiz, she could be anywhere on that spectrum, but that’s the work she needs to do.

The third one I call the truth warrior. She has a real depth of insight and a sharp blade. This is the kind of person who can cut through the bullshit and see the truth. I’m a truth warrior.

You’re also a New Yorker. That’s a part of it.

Good point. I’m a New Yorker. We tell it like it is. I don’t f*** around.

You don’t have an accent.

No, I don’t. My family is mostly not from the US, so I have a mixed-up accent. The danger for or the shadow side of the truth warrior is that she can get, gain, and derive such an identity from being the person who sees the most truth in the room. She doesn’t always remember to get consent or even find out if people want to hear her truth. There can be a tendency to smack people with stuff they’re not ready for or haven’t invited you to share. It can shock people, so she needs to learn what I call calibration.

In Kabbalah, they say truth without mercy is not good. You have to have mercy. You have to calibrate. Truth, with all that judgment, just can hurt people. It doesn’t create the change you want in the world if people feel bad around you because you speak the truth.

You are nailing it. That’s exactly right. It does not. This is one of the things I always say to my clients; whenever I speak, nothing changes in an atmosphere of shame. The truth warrior has to learn to get consent and find out what and how much someone is willing to hear or wants to hear before you start sharing your brilliance.

I love that the Kabbalah says truth with mercy. That’s the thing. Truth with kindness. Truth with care.

Our passion and desire in themselves are not too much. What happens is that when we don’t know how to direct them clearly and healthily, sometimes they come out sideways and create wreckage.

I had times when I had a lot of truth without mercy. I am very sharp. I see a lot of things. I see more than I say. Sometimes I say too much. As I’m growing up, I feel like I’m learning to calibrate.

You’ve spoken like a truth warrior. I wonder if you are. I wonder if you took the quiz and if that would be you because that’s exactly the thing.

The fourth one, I call her the dragon woman. She’s the woman who has learned. She’s perfectionistic. Each archetype has an aspect that could get stuck in a kind of perfectionism. I speak to that often because I work with high-achieving, powerful women, and there can be this perfectionist side.

The dragon woman is exciting to me.

She’s a lot of fun. She has learned to source identity from excellence. She’s great at everything she does. She’s usually the most competent woman in any room that she walks into, and she gets shit done. A lot of entrepreneurs are dragon women. It’s funny. Many women join my community of dragon women because they’re entrepreneurs.

I often see a correlation between a woman with that drive to excel, succeed, and make things happen. She’s often a dragon woman.

The downside or danger for her is that when people disappoint her, she tends to withdraw, get cold, and become a bit of an ice queen, shutting people out. She doesn’t have much patience for her imperfection or anyone else’s.

I am number one, two, three, and four.

That’s what I mean. We have aspects of all of them, but when you take the quiz, it’s like you go with the questions you go with. The thing for the dragon woman is actually to allow herself more vulnerability.

Look at the eye of the whale.

Yeah, look in the eye of the whale, feel tender. Let herself feel the tenderness that’s in there somewhere. But the tenderness is not always accessible when she’s relating with other people.

Many times, dragon women perceive tenderness as weakness. They don’t know the difference between strength and tenderness.

Exactly. That’s her work: to learn the difference between tenderness and weakness because they’re not the same thing.

Regardless of your looks, you’re internally beautiful.

I want to share that my acupuncturist’s wife also does acupuncture. They are from China. She did Chinese astrology on me and said I’m a black dragon.

That’s super cool. We get along really well because I’m a fire horse, the most fiery of the horses.

Cool. One of my heart totem animals is a black stallion, and my soul is a deer.

So beautiful. I have a lot of deer. Interesting. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with owls. I have an owl nearby, but it’s not close enough for me to show you.

They’re so wise. They see in the dark, and they can look at all and see in all directions. They can turn their head completely around and perceive things in the dark that others don’t see. That’s very much me these days.

Anyway, the last archetype, I call her the heart weaver. We all know this one. She’s the one that weaves together. She’s like the heart of a community. She weaves people together. It’s the mom that all the kids come there for the sleepovers or go there for the cookies. If she’s a businesswoman, she’s the one organizing the networking. She’s the one that weaves community in and brings people together.

There are five archetypes that women fall into. We all have some aspect of them, but there’s typically a dominant one.

I do that, too.

I believe you do. I’m so curious to see which one shows up as dominant. We all have all these archetypes in us. However, we have a default we tend to go to. What you described earlier is a heart weaver quality. The shadow side is the overgiving. You described how you tend to over-give and then get resentful. That’s a heart weaver thing.

“Come on, step all over me. I will give you my all.”

That’s the heart weaver.

“Why have I done that?”

For her, she derived so much identity from giving. She has to work the muscle to learn how to receive and recognize that she’s as deserving of receiving as everyone else is of her giving. Those are the archetypes. On the quiz, you would see which one is your dominant one.

I’ve also created a podcast that goes deeper into each archetype, the light, the shadow, the challenges they have to work with, etc. I have a five-episode podcast devoted to that work.

For the quiz, what I see is that there’s such a power. You already know this. If you took pictures recognizing different archetypes, you know the power of seeing ourselves.

I’m so excited about the website.

I’m excited to see it.

I’m like, “Yeah, it’s really interesting.” I don’t know if people will get it. I’m channeling different archetypes, but they will say, “Oh, my God, she looks so different.” It’s not only different because I’ll wear a costume. It’s energetic, like really channeling that archetype.

There’s something so powerful when we see ourselves in that. I feel like it unlocks something.

I didn’t touch upon launching that website for months and months after the photoshoot because when I looked at those photos, they were the future in me that I wanted to step into. It scared me so much that I was like, “Okay, great photos. Now we’re doing nothing.” It took me a while to process it and be like, “Okay, I’m stepping into that. The dragon is awakening.”

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That’s so good. You described such a natural process. We all do that. I feel like those of us who pay attention and take a moment to be present and feel what we want. Maybe we are connected to our guides, maybe not. You don’t have to necessarily know that you’re talking to your guides.

Those of us who have an intuition like, “Oh, I want to step into XYZ. I’m expanding in this way.” Very often, that expansion will bump into our current self and our current self is going to go, “Ah!” The subconscious goes like, “No. That’s going to change everything.”

“Do not do it.”

Right. “Stay here. Stay safe.”

“Who do you think you are? You’re not good enough. You don’t belong.”

People will see right through you. It’s another aspect of my work with people, aligning the subconscious mind with conscious desires and goals. To use your example, which you shared so beautifully, there’s the future selves that you embodied in the photoshoot, and then there’s the current self that’s like, “Woah, that’s going to rock my world. Can I even hold that?” And then slows down the process.

It was also, “Can I show up in the world this way? I’m going to be so judged.” I wrote a whole 10-series book about what will happen if I step into my power, which is negative. I’m slowly letting go of that story and connecting to a new one.

Appreciate the good things in life.

You need to allow women to connect this because every time we have two conflicting beliefs in our subconscious mind, we can’t move forward. How do you collapse those two into that desired outcome?

Yeah, I do. It’s a work that I’m certified in. That’s called summit transformation. It specifically does exactly that. In a nutshell, there’s the thing we want to step into, the thing where we’re headed. Typically, it will muscle test weak because we don’t believe it yet. I take people through a series of exercises, then it tests strong. It builds the neural pathway to the new belief. Once you have the neural pathway built, it becomes possible.

We work with the belief that somebody wants to have the act or the thing they want to have happen. I have 10 or 20 clients, whatever the desired thing is.

Through these brain exercises, I help their brain believe that that’s true and align with that thing as if it already exists. And then you start taking the actions, because as we know, anybody who’s into manifesting stuff, you can’t just want a thing, you have to take action in the real world to do the thing. It’s a combination of that. We come up with an action plan that’s aligned with that belief, and then it happens.

For example, last week in my community, one of the two monthly calls was this work to align the brain with what they want and collapse that dissonant belief. For example, there was a woman who wanted to lose five pounds. The last five pounds were stubborn, and she wanted to move more. We aligned for a goal of walking five days a week, and she has been getting out before work each day, taking pictures of the dawn, and having these beautiful—because she lives in a really beautiful place with a view of the sunrise. She’s having this experience of beauty.

When we’re young, we function from the PrettyBody—we try to look attractive. It’s a currency we trade on.

She didn’t anticipate it, but because she’s going out and walking each morning, when she goes to work, she feels better at work because she’s given herself this experience of beauty. Instead of being like, “I have to exercise,” all of a sudden, she’s moving because she wants to move because it brings beauty into her space. She feels better all day because she gave herself that.

We built the pathway to that possibility, and now she’s doing it. Whereas in the past, it was like, “I know I should walk, but I don’t do it.” Is that a good example?

It’s a beautiful example. I think that through this spiritual expansion, the emotional weight is falling off, not through the physical. A lot of times, we hold our weight mentally because it’s emotional. It’s almost like the body’s holding on to something. But for her to experience this expansion every day allows her to let go of what she doesn’t need. She doesn’t need that tension anymore because she experienced beauty every morning. It sounds amazing.

It’s a different perspective than how we typically approach trying to do what we feel we should do or want. Exercise is fraught, like, “Oh, I have to do 10,000 steps.”

Willpower is a finite resource. If you’re trying to make a change in your life through willpower, it’s going to fail. Willpower is not what is going to make change happen. We have to find a deeper spot, and that’s always what I’m interested in. How do we do things that feel good to us, expand and grow us, and have us live the life we want to live from a place of beauty, gratitude, generosity, and love for self and other people?

I’m disciplined, but I was a disciplined person beating myself up all the time to try to be a good girl. That ship has sailed, and that thing died. I can’t do it like that anymore. It just feels terrible.

I want to create a world where, first of all, women are not afraid to age because as we age, we step into our wisdom. We have so much to share, and we have so much to offer. (1) I live in a space where I want to redefine aging for the modern woman. (2) I want us to find those places where we change and grow toward what we want, not because we’re flagellating ourselves or beating ourselves because we don’t like what we have currently. That’s the flip that needs to happen, where we’re moving toward instead of trying to get away from. And a lot of magic happens.

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Yeah. When women age and sometimes start to feel invisible, they don’t get the catcalls, they don’t get the attention from the men they used to get, and then again, they start feeling smaller or invisible. It’s a new identity. All of a sudden, I’m older.

It’s their job to find their inner passion and the radiance in their bodies and ignite that power. You have two choices. You can go with what society is expecting of you, which is something I’ve never done. It never worked for me. I was always a rebel. I’ve done things that people told me, “Never do it. Don’t do it.” I always did it. I fold my heart.

I love that. I knew I liked you for a reason.

At an older age, I’ve done some journeys and retreats with Sheila Kelley. She does fold in and helps women connect to their bodies. We went to some beautiful places. I’ve seen women as old as 72 dancing in beautiful, sexy things that follow their body and make them feel sexy, and have their dances, connecting our body and sensuality. You might not get the cat calls, but it doesn’t mean you want to feel invisible.

Yes, you are singing my song. It’s funny because I’m not even talking about this part of the work yet. But the next stage of the work is when we’re young—I call it functioning from the PrettyBody—we want to be good and get ahead. We care about how we look. We try to look attractive. It’s a currency we trade on.

At some point, the PrettyBody stops working because we’re bored with it, or we no longer turn heads or get catcalls. That’s when it’s time to activate the PassionBody. As you just said, we must activate our passion. That’s the fire. That’s our life force.

We are lucky if we have the good fortune to grow old.

These women will get catcalls.

Yes, it doesn’t matter what you look like.

But they will attract. When you are radiant from within, you attract.

You do. That’s what I was going to say.

If you’re attracted to yourself, you attract.

It doesn’t matter what you look like. You’re beautiful when you’re in that part of yourself. It doesn’t matter what the shell looks like.

The later stage, as we get older, like the woman you’re describing, I call that the transition into the RadiantBody. You use my language for this transition from PrettyBody to PassionBody, to RadiantBody. That’s the possibility that I see for us as we get older if we choose to awaken, if we choose to open to ourselves, to life, to the depth of the power we have inside, if we make that choice.

I love the stories of couples in their 80s who are still having hot sex.

Me too.

Talk dirty to each other. I love hearing those stories. Why not?

I love that, too.

Why stop? Do you expect us to knit sweaters and hike somewhere? No. Life is good.

Absolutely not. Life is good.

Our bodies are beautiful. Pleasure is good.

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Yes. How lucky we are if we do have the good fortune to grow old. It’s a privilege. Not everybody gets to do that, so let’s enjoy it with whatever we have. I spent 10 years there. I had very bad chronic pain in my 40s and couldn’t walk for five years. I had to have both my hips replaced by the age of 50. I’m 56 now.

Even so, I had so many stories. I will use a politically incorrect word, but I’m using it about myself, so I hope your listeners are generous. I had all these stories about who’s going to love this crippled woman. I could not walk a block without crippling pain. I had some of the best sex of my life during that time because I had just learned to navigate it. Let’s do a walk. My hips couldn’t open, but there was one position I could still make it work. And boy, that position felt really good.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t walk. I could still have sex, and I could still dance weirdly. Walking was hard, but I could still dance. I think it was the position of where the bone spurs were scraping. I had bone spurs growing on the heads of my femurs, and that’s why I had to replace them.

Anyway, all that to say, I had the stories about who would want me. I can’t even walk. Plenty of people wanted me, and I met my now husband then. We’ve been together eight years, and we’ve been through two major surgeries and all sorts of my mother’s decline and death. We’ve been through really horrific and difficult circumstances together. The love between us is so deep and strong. He’s 13 years younger than me, and it just works. It just works.

Beautiful.

I’m here to say you can have it.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

When the basics aren’t working, everything else is hard.

What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

First, cultivate a connection with yourself and your nervous system. Get to know your nervous system and learn to be gentle and present with yourself. We all get triggered and go cuckoo sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up about it; it just happens. How quickly can you come back to your center of loving self?

Second, do take care of the basics. As I like to say in my typical blunt fashion, sleeping, eating, pooping, fucking, moving, do those things. Make sure you’re sleeping, eating, pooping, moving, and fucking. If any of those things are not happening or working well for you, do something about it. Get some help. That’s number two.

When the basics aren’t working, it makes everything else hard. When the first one isn’t working, you cannot be kind to yourself and loving towards yourself in the ups and downs. That’s where it’s even more important. It makes everything else harder.

The third is to develop a practice of appreciating the good. Especially if you’re a growth-oriented person, there can be such a tendency to focus on where you want to grow, how you want to expand, what you don’t have yet, and where you’re headed that you can forget to appreciate all the good that is available to you right here right now. Even if the circumstances are not how you want them to be, you can still find a few moments. Even if you’re in a bomb shelter, there can be kindness in the eyes of a child. That’s a moment.

You can find a moment to appreciate, a moment of connection, or a moment of, “Wow, this person shared their food with me.” I think the more we learn to appreciate—I have clients write that stuff down because it can be so easy to forget that anything good happened in a day, especially if we’re in a depressive episode because we all tend to go up and we all tend to go down. That would be the third one.

Find a moment to appreciate and connect.

Even in the down, find something to appreciate yourself, the way someone has been with you, the fact that you have a roof over your head. I grew up going to Venezuela. My family on my father’s side is Venezuelan. We didn’t have water much of the day. They would turn the water on in the morning for a few hours and on at night.

Living in the United States, I give thanks. Now I live in Mexico and still give thanks like, “Wow, I opened the tap, and water came out. How cool is that?” Most of us are so entitled that we don’t even think that is cool. But then you travel anywhere in the world, and you realize, “Oh, shit, my life is amazing.” Those would be my top three.

Beautiful. Where can people find you and take the quiz?

Yes. The quiz is available at yourpowerquiz.com. Go there and take the quiz. A link to the podcast that expands on the quiz will be included in the follow-up emails. Do listen to that as well, as there’s just a lot of juicy stuff in the podcast.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing your wisdom. Marie-Elizabeth, you said to connect with yourself and your nervous system to take care of the basics and appreciate the good. Is that right?

That is correct.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I loved our conversation when we met. I just so enjoyed unfolding more here now. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, listeners. Remember, connect with yourself and your nervous system, take care of the basics, appreciate the good, and have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓}Discover your passion. Take the time for inner reflection and explore what truly lights you up. Explore what you care about and what you want.

{✓}Embrace and nurture your whole self. It’s essential to feed each part of your identity through self-care and self-discovery.

{✓}Apply preventative self-care measures to avoid reaching a breaking point. Regularly invest time in activities that replenish your energy and nurture your passions.

{✓}Overcome the guilt you may feel about self-care. By filling your cup, you’ll have more to give to your relationships and responsibilities. Prioritize guilt-free self-care as a way to maintain balance and prevent resentment.

{✓}Explore the five passion archetypes, identify which one resonates with you, and understand their strengths and potential pitfalls.

{✓}Learn to direct your passion and desire in a clear and healthy way to avoid negative consequences.

{✓}Cultivate a deep connection with your nervous system. Practice gentleness toward yourself, especially when you feel triggered.

{✓}Ensure you meet your fundamental needs: sleep, nutrition, digestion, physical activity, and intimacy. If any of these basic needs are unmet, seek help to address them.

{✓}Develop an appreciation for the positive aspects of your life, even in challenging circumstances. Acknowledge and be grateful for even the smallest good moments, including kind gestures from others, connections, and other simple joys.

{✓}Visit yourpowerquiz.com and take the quiz. Don’t forget to check your follow-up emails for a link to the podcast to discover valuable insights and additional information from Marie-Elizabeth Mali.

Links and Resources

Connect with Marie-Elizabeth Mali

About Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Two-time TEDx speaker Marie-Elizabeth Mali helps midlife women get clear on what they want next with her step-by-step PassionBody Activation System that rebirths their passion, purpose and joy. She has a Masters degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and has worked in the wellness space for over 30 years.