Interview with Trez Ibrahim
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- Embracing Feminine Archetypes
- Balancing Self-Care and Success
- Connecting with Inner Strengths
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 42: Embrace your inner Sexy, Mother, Badass, Queen! Transformational Life Coach~Trez Ibrahim
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:40)
Welcome, welcome, my fabulous fempreneurs! Here today I have an exciting moment with my new guest, who’s going to talk to us about self-love, entrepreneurship journey, and so many topics that involve what it means to be a woman. And she is also an expert in manifestation. So you want to sit down, get ready to take some notes, and listen carefully as I welcome our guest today, Trez Ibrahim. Welcome, Trez.
Trez Ibrahim: (01:22)
Thank you! Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s such a pleasure to be here and chat with you. So excited. Thank you.
Odiva Vasell: (01:29)
Yes, you’re very welcome. And I know you have a wealth of experience to share with us today. So let’s start a little bit by looking at your story. Where did you begin before you became an entrepreneur?
Embracing Feminine Archetypes
Trez Ibrahim: (01:49)
Oh, gosh. I tend to say I was a daughter of the whole feminist movement. It’s where we were promised equality, and I found that what we got was not equality. We just got to work, and we got a lot of extra stuff to do, and so we got a whole lot of work on top of the ability to go out into the workforce, start a business, provide for our family, and it didn’t work for me. My mother was the first generation that actually got to work, so her grandmother wasn’t allowed to work.
Odiva Vasell: (02:34)
Okay.
Trez Ibrahim: (00:35)
She was told by her father that, no, your job is to stay at home and take care of your husband, take care of the kids. And my mom got to work. And what I found was when she came home after her nine-to-five job, just like my dad came home, my dad got to sit on the sofa and watch TV. And now my mom’s second job started. She would cook and clean and take care of the animals and do laundry and do the dishes and take care of the kids and help us with the homework and all of that stuff, and it was just so exhausting. And as I matured and I got married, I had a business with my husband. And I remember coming home from our honeymoon and the dishes started to pile up in the kitchen. And in my mind, I’m thinking, oh, heck, no, I am not turning into my mom. I work, I’m successful, I run a business. I’m not going to be the little housewife as well. And of course, being a man, he wasn’t going to do the dishes. And so that was kind of our first big fight. And I found soon after that I was divorced, taking care of an infant son on my own. I was burnt out, I was depleted. I was working my bottom off because I so wanted to be that modern, successful woman. I’d gained 100 pounds. I had really fallen into a depression and nothing in my life was working. Nothing in my life was working. And so what I found is I had to incorporate the feminine aspects of who I was back into my life because I completely denied the feminine in search of the success and all the benefits men got by being in power and by running a business. And so really my work is about incorporating all of that, incorporating how do we become a modern woman where we can have it all? I could still be successful, I could still be independent. I don’t have to rely on anybody that could possibly control me or oppress me but still be feminine, still be sexy and in touch with my sensuality. Still be connected to spirit, where I can allow the universe to gift to me. I don’t have to grind and work so hard at everything. I can be a magnet to all the good and I can be taken care of. I can receive from a man and allow a man to take care of me and treat me like the girl that we all want to be at times. Right? So that was really my journey, is I found myself homeless, broke, 100 pounds, overweight taking care of an infant son. And I knew there was a better way. I knew there was a different way. And I had physical issues and again, the exhaustion, the depletion, the burnout I had to find a different way. And that’s when I dove into, again, these different archetypes and again, balancing my masculine and feminine energies.
Odiva Vasell: (05:56)
Okay, that is exciting because I’ve been listening to a lot of talk about masculine and feminine energies, but we haven’t had that discussion here on Fempreneur International yet. So that’s going to be an interesting point. I also want to go back and listen to your story where you were this woman who had health issues, everything had broken down, your marriage, physical, your work, and you had this infant son to take care of. Where did you begin?
Trez Ibrahim: (06:43)
When you’re at the bottom, there’s not much more to go. You just got to start searching it for answers. So where did I begin? I just became voracious for information, help, support, resources. That’s when I dove into the personal development. I read all the books, I went to all the workshops. I particularly dove into Carl Jung’s work on archetypes. Joseph Campbell expanded on that and really started to look at, okay, what are the different aspects of myself that I’ve been denying? What are the ones where I’ve been maybe swinging the pendulum too far to the other side, to the point where it was hurting me? How do I start to take control of my life and also harness the abilities that are inherent in me? We talked about my book, and when I talk about the two feminine and the two masculine archetypes, I talk about the sweet, sexy, badass queen. And so the sweet is the mother part of us. This is the part of us that’s nurturing, that’s connecting, that knows a person’s needs even before they do. She can intuit her husband’s needs and her child’s needs. She’s so connected to what they desire, what’s important for them, what will heal them. And it’s such a beautiful thing to be so in tune with other people’s needs. But you could see the danger in that is, a woman is so in tune that she loses connection to her own needs, her own self, her own desires. Or she can be so focused on giving to other people that she becomes a martyr. She loses herself. And so the mother is the one that raises the kids, and she gets to a point in her life where that emptiness syndrome where she doesn’t even know who she is. One of the first questions I ask my clients when I work with them, with women clients is, “What do you love? What sounds fun?” And it’s really heartbreaking when I ask women that and they have no clue. They don’t know what’s fun for them anymore because they’ve lost touch with themselves. And so “The Mother” is a beautiful archetype, and we want to embody that because that’s our female nature, right? We want to give and connect and love people and nurture people. So that’s balanced with “The Badass”. That’s The CEO. This is the part of a woman that sets boundaries. She’s the one that says, okay, mother, you’ve given enough at this point. This person’s walking all over you. You’re becoming a doormat or you’re getting taken advantage of. Now you need to step back and take care of yourself. She’s the woman that says, oh, no, you can’t treat me that way. She’s a woman that is successful, that is never under someone else’s control. One of the things about being dependent on a person, on a man in particular, 100 years ago, is they kind of controlled you. You couldn’t leave if you were in an abusive relationship. You couldn’t leave if you were in an abusive. If you don’t have that ability to take care of yourself, you may be stuck in a job with an abusive boss or a negative work environment. And so the CEO, the badass, is a part of a woman that can make things happen. She’s in charge of her money. She can make money. She can earn money. She sets goals. She achieves goals. She can run a business. She can run a household. She’s very independent and powerful. Now, too much of that is this great word that rhymes with witch. We know women that are just badasses. They’re just in charge. And so we balance that with “The Sexy Playmate.” That’s a woman that could have fun. She’s the one that’s in touch with her sensuality. She enjoys intimacy. She enjoys sex. A woman that’s too much of a mother is so focused on the kids that maybe she stops being intimate with her husband, she stops dressing up, she stops feeling beautiful in her skin because she doesn’t fix her hair or that was me. I mean, for a couple of years, I was just sitting around my pajamas all day, and that didn’t do much for my psyche, because as women, we love beauty. And so when we look in the mirror and we don’t see beauty, it does something to our soul. It really diminishes us. And so in having fun, laughing out loud, being that girl, the joie de vivre, all of that stuff. And so being in touch with that sexy playmate again allows her to, even as a mother, to take care of herself and dance and have fun as a CEO, to lighten up and all that, it’s balanced with “The Queen”. This is a high priestess. This is a woman that is connected to something that’s more powerful than what is on the physical surface. So it’s that connection to God, universe, spirit, whatever it is you want to call it. She knows who she is without having to prove anything because of that connection. She’s a woman that walks in the room, and she lights up the room, and she doesn’t have to say a word. It’s just her aura. She’s very much a lady. She has manners. She doesn’t gossip. She doesn’t speak ill of people. She holds people to really high standards. She’s the part of a woman maybe that makes her mysterious little bit untouchable. It’s that woman that you can’t quite get in there because there’s such a strong aura and power around her. And again, she doesn’t have to fight for anything. She just is. And she’s a magnet to all the good. And so all of these archetypes, really, what I teach women to do is if you embody them and you can dance between them and know how to step more into, let’s say I’m being too much of a martyr. I’m like, okay, I need to bring the badass here and say no. Or maybe things are too serious with me and my kid. I’m bumping head, we’re butting heads. He’s not listening to me. Let me bring some more of the playmate and just have fun. Work is. Things are starting to be off. Let me come back to my vision, the queen. Let me lead with my vision and lead with the standards and lead with our mission, what’s important to us as a company. So it allows me a framework for saying, I need to bring a little sexy in. I need to get my sexy back. Right? That was a great song. Let’s get my sexy back. I need to be a little more nurturing here. Let me bring my mother in. And it really allows us to be successful and be connected and attract love. Most successful women, unfortunately, have a series of failed relationships because they don’t know how to navigate both. And that’s what this teaches them as well.
Odiva Vasell: (13:49)
Excellent, excellent. I love what you’re saying because it resonates so much with me, and I’m sure some of the listeners, it’s going to resonate with them as well. You see, because as we get into February, what I’m calling now The Season of Love, I feel that a lot of women and a lot of society tell us to look for that love outside of ourselves. When you’re looking for love outside of yourself, you’re going to be chasing something that’s going to be running away from you. But what you’re talking about manifesting and maneuvering this love life, these archetypes, knowing when you need to step into each one of them to create a balance, it sounds to me like this is the key to self-love.
Balancing Self-Care and Success
Trez Ibrahim: (14:52)
Absolutely. And when you take care of yourself, when you put yourself first and when you emanate with the energies of these, you attract things that are like that. So when you love yourself, you attract people that love you, that cherish you and honor you. You become that magnetic force, but it absolutely starts with you. We will not allow anything into our life that doesn’t match our level of self-worth and self-love.
Odiva Vasell: (15:21)
Oh, wow. That’s fantastic. And I can speak for myself starting off in that nurturing journey, being the mother type, and then realizing through the wisdom of women like yourself and other sisters that I need to put myself first and then give from a cup that is overflowing. So I’ve come to realize that even more recently that there is a CEO side. And when you talked about that, I smiled because I could like, oh, yeah, that sounds so ’80s. We’re going to be the boss.
Trez Ibrahim: (16:05)
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Odiva Vasell: (16:08)
I remember those times because I’ve been watching some ’80s movies and I was like, yeah, those were my heroes. And then you spoke about. Now, in my awareness journey, the past two or three years has been awakening the goddess, the wisdom, the queen. Who allows herself to just be. Doesn’t have to navigate anyone else’s space where you’re doing things to feed and please other people. She just allows herself to just be. So what I really would like to start out with learning from you is a sexy badass side. As you said when you talked about walking around in your pajamas, I was like, yeah, that was the pandemic days. And then I love high heels. Not everyone loves them, but I do love them. And when it came time to put those back on, I was like, how did I ever walk in these things? but those were part of my sexy badass identity. So I’m just using myself as the example for other women to relate and connect. Tell us more about connecting with our sexy badass.
Trez Ibrahim: (17:36)
Yes, absolutely. Well, I want to mention one thing about high heels, because I actually write about that. High heels are definitely makes us sexy because it gives us that posture, but it’s also part of the queen. Right. Why do queens wear crowns? Because it connects to the heavens. Same thing with the heels. Being a queen, being a high priestess is about standing straight and standing tall and reaching, getting closer to the heavens. So I love that idea. There’s a reason why we wear heels and we should be walking around with crowns and tiaras. But as far as the sexy CEO, is that what you said? The sexy badass? Sexy badass, yes. Okay, so yes, part of stepping into our sexy is dressing up. It’s incorporating something fun every single day. There’s a whole morning exercise that I have my clients do. And one of the things I ask them to do is ask yourself, what would be fun that day? What would you enjoy? And write that down and commit to it. Even if it’s enjoying taking a walk by the ocean, even if it’s enjoying having the wind in your hair, if it’s watching a funny movie that makes you laugh out loud, it’s going out on a date with yourself. In relationships, one of the things to me that’s really mandatory in all relationships is that women be taken out on dates. We have to be given an excuse to dress up and sexy. And men who complain that women are letting them go. Because I have male clients, I’m like, when was the last time you took them out on a date and said, get dressed, put on your sexiest outfit, and be ready by 07:00 and I’m going to pick you up. so all of those things. All of those things. Taking pride in how you look in your appearance, because we dress how we feel, and we feel how we dress. And so it’s about really having those two opportunities to number one, pay attention to, if I’m feeling down, let me just dress up, let me put some makeup on, and then notice how you feel. with the badass, It’s about setting goals, accomplishing something, expressing yourself. That was one of the beautiful things about the feminist movement, is we had an opportunity to express ourselves. Prior to that, we were just stuck in the home, and we were just taking care of everyone. But it’s, what is your level of expression? What are you sending out into the world? What are you creating? And it could be a business, a piece of art piece of furniture, whatever it is. And so having that commitment to doing something.
Odiva Vasell: (20:44)
I’m loving how you’re saying and talking about tapping into your creative side. And I went through that journey. I said to myself, what am I doing for myself, for fun? And I was one of those women that I did not have an answer at first. When you talk about being the sexy badass, I think one of the problems with social media and the representation that we’re getting of a sexy badass is something that maybe somewhat unattainable for most women. It’s unrealistic. It’s this airbrushed women and all of these things. But what you’re talking about is what makes you feel good as an individual. What’s that one thing that you can do? You said, talked about wind blowing through your hair, and I’m a wind person. I’ve talked about this on other podcasts. Just the wind caressing me makes me feel free and excited. Music. Is a big part of one of the things that I love to participate and dancing. And in part of that, with self-love, you do not have to go to a dance and have people watching you or out of your comfort zone. You can just do these things in the comfort of your own home, dancing, or being creative in the form of artistic and creative expression that you love the most. fantastic.
Connecting with Inner Strengths
Trez Ibrahim: (22:32)
Yeah. Well, I will tell you, talk about social media, there’s a big push out in social media. These boss babe, and the boss babe is the quintessential playmate CEO. That’s the sexy badass. And what I’m finding with a lot of the narrative out there with the boss babe is they’re denying their mother their nurturing space, and they’re also denying that spiritual space. So really it’s about having it all. These women are the ones that are not having children or that’s not a priority because they’re going to make their millions. they’re attracting men who are weaker they are attracting men who don’t have goals and ambitions and who don’t take care of them. They’re taking care of the men. they’re working and they’re grinding, and they’re so much in the physical realm that they’ve denied their internal world. So that boss babe is wonderful because it’s really given, like you said, an opportunity for us to express ourselves. But we do want to create space for the other two as well. And when you talk about the wind, I actually connect the elements to each of the archetypes. the water is very much an emotional release. Imagine when we go to the ocean and we hear the waves crashing. Just feels good emotionally. And so what I encourage women to do is when they want to connect to their mother, to that sweet part of themselves, and clear out the emotional baggage that they’ve been picking up. Because women are just sponges, right, for everyone else’s energy, it’s take a bath, stand under a warm shower, go to the ocean, go for a swim. So water really helps connect to that part of a woman. the wind is the playmate that’s just feeling the invigorating sense on her face and her body. And so going out on. I mean, I love boats. I’m a love boat. So going out on the boat and just feeling I’m the one. I don’t do the what is it called, the Titanic thing but I stay close. That’s where I feel the wind in my hair and my face. The earth really grounding into that strength and that structure and that power of the ground is really connecting to the badass, to the CEO, because again, it’s the roots that connect to the physical planet. And the physical planet is where we create physical things. Right. The badass really imparts her power on the world, on the physical reality. And then the high priestess is fire. How often do we feel like we’re connecting to spirit just by lighting a candle, sitting in front of a fire, burning up something that is, we’re ready to let go? That’s transmutation. Right. So those four elements really helps us, again, to connect with whichever one that day, maybe we need a little bit more of. So I love that you brought that up because I definitely encourage people to connect with those. And ideally, we’re connecting with all four every day. So we’re taking that bath in the evening, or just a little bit of a longer shower where you’re not just doing the work, right? Shampooing, brushing your teeth, that’s work. But you’re just enjoying the water, feeling that water wash over your body. You’re lighting a candle, you’re sitting in front of a fire, you’re walking on grass outdoors, and you’re allowing the feel of the wind and the air to touch you. Every day. Every day. That’s self-love.
Odiva Vasell: (26:41)
Self-love, yes. And what I love about the connection to the archetypes and the elements is that these are things that we can do every day. This is something that is right near us. And maybe when we take our breaks and get off the computer, take time from being the CEO badass, we can go outside and connect to all of these elements. It’s so easy. But again, awareness of knowing that this is a necessary part of our self-love regime.
Trez Ibrahim: (27:19)
Yes. And what women will find is life gets easier. You stop swimming upstream because we’re working with our nature instead of going against our nature. We’re not having to work so hard. We’re not having to sit in there and wonder, why isn’t anyone taking care of me? Why is it all on my shoulders? Why aren’t my needs getting met? Why am I attracting men who are weak? Why am I not manifesting consistently? So when we really explore those archetypes and live and embody into them all of that goes away. Life just is easier, and it’s so much more joyful.
Odiva Vasell: (28:04)
Oh, that is wonderful. And so I want to bring it back to the season of love, February, Valentine’s Day. For single women or married women who have lost that romantic element. This is a way that we can connect to ourselves again. So this can bring a lot of excitement for women. And I challenge them, my listeners. For the month of February, bring yourself into this place of not only self-awareness, but this place of self-love, where you do these little things for yourself and nurture these archetypes. You nurture the elements. You nurture the queen that stands strong within you and give her that love that she cannot find or need to find outside of herself, but is in her all along. I love that. Thank you so much joining us here today.
Trez Ibrahim: (29:12)
Thank you. Such an honor. Such an honor to talk with you. Beautiful goddess.
Odiva Vasell: (29:18)
Thank you. Thank you for empowering us today.
[music]
Conclusion
In conclusion, Trez Ibrahim’s insights shed light on the transformative journey of self-discovery and empowerment that awaits every woman. By delving into the realms of the sweet, sexy, badass, and regal archetypes, we uncover a profound understanding of our multifaceted nature. This journey empowers us to nurture all aspects of womanhood, leading to greater impact and fulfillment in our lives. Let us embrace our femininity wholeheartedly, unlocking limitless potential as we navigate the world with grace, confidence, and authenticity.