📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc talk with Toya Moore — coach, community advocate, yoga teacher, ICF South Carolina president, mom, and someone very intentionally reimagining this phase of her life.

The conversation moves through rest, parenting adult children, play, community-building, coaching, strengths, and what happens when life strips away some of the things we thought defined us. Toya shares how a serious car accident shifted her understanding of identity, resources, rest, and groundedness.

It's a warm, funny, vulnerable conversation about being in transition without rushing to solve it — about learning to pour into yourself, plant both feet on the ground, and be okay not knowing what tomorrow looks like.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Rest is not the opposite of growth. For Toya, rest is part of preparing for a thoughtful pivot.

• Parenting adult children may require reimagining old patterns rather than simply repeating how we were parented.

• Intentional boundaries — like Do Not Disturb, no late-night calls, and a Sabbath rhythm — can become a practical form of self-care.

• Play does not always have to be elaborate. Sometimes whimsy looks like singing Hall & Oates in the grocery store or reading yourself a bedtime story.

• Strengths can be overused. VIA Strengths gives Toya a way to help people understand what serves them, what needs practice, and what may get in the way.

• Losing "the things" — a car, money, furniture, status, titles, or ease — can reveal deeper questions about character and identity.

• A pivot is not only the action of turning. Sometimes it is the grounded point that makes the turn possible.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I am planted at the intersection of rest and pivoting." – Toya

"I don't need to do all those new things. I need to finish the things that I have been working on for years and years and years." – Toya

"I had my likeness put into a book… I read myself a bedtime story." – Toya

"The hat rack at your house has so many hooks for all the different hats you wear." – Marc

"Who are you without all the things?" – Toya

"The pivot is that I've got my front foot rooted, or my back foot rooted, or my core engaged. That's where the action comes from." – Emily

"I want to normalize being in a space of uncertainty and not knowing which way I'm going and being okay with it." – Toya

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• International Coaching Federation of South Carolina https://icfsc.org/

• VIA Strengths / Values in Action

• Life University positive psychology program

• Veterans Yoga Project

👥 Who Should Listen

• Parents learning how to relate to their adult children in a new way

• Coaches, facilitators, and community leaders navigating a season of transition

• People who are tired of burning the candle at both ends and want rest to become more intentional

• Anyone asking who they are apart from roles, titles, status, money, or possessions

• Leaders who care about strengths-based work, somatics, mindfulness, and community-building

🎺 That Music!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music.
Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar
Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet
Zoe Czarnecki – bass