📋 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

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode, Emily and Marc continue their season on transitions by exploring the word "passage." What begins with train tickets, hallways, and magical doorways becomes a deeper conversation about the passages that mark a life: marriage, graduation, parenthood, moving, grief, aging parents, and adult children launching into their own lives.

They notice how often major transitions do not feel like dramatic reveals. Sometimes, after the wedding, the degree, the move, or the milestone, the honest feeling is simply, "still me." And yet, looking back, those passages have changed them, shaped them, and left markers along the way.

The conversation becomes an invitation to pay attention to the hallway, not just the room we came from or the one we are entering. What are the "piles of rocks" worth remembering? What are the moments of no going back? And what might we notice if we stop rushing through the passage?

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Passage is not the same as being a passenger. It can be an active, meaningful space between one place and another.

• Many major life transitions do not come with a dramatic reveal. Sometimes the marker happens, and we still feel like ourselves.

• Looking back helps us see how much we have changed, even when the change was gradual or hard to notice at the time.

• Rituals, ceremonies, bridges, graduations, and other symbolic markers help us name the "no going back" moments in life.

• Some passages are chosen, and some arrive through grief, aging, parenting, loss, or family change.

• Noticing the details of the passage — the hallway, the baseboards, the exposed wires, the "pile of rocks" — can make transition feel more meaningful and less accidental.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"I think of the passageway into magical worlds. Narnia, hedges, doorways, something that is a passage into another place." – Emily

"It's the purposeful space in between. It connects two places." – Marc

"I wonder if we do that with some of the transitions in our life — where we're coming from and where we're going to occupy our mind." – Marc

"The passage of marriage, of doing life together, is continual. That's a really long doorway." – Emily

"Maybe it could be reassuring that there's not a big makeover or a big reveal." – Marc

"Reveals are staged. Reveals are really edited." – Emily

"I like your noticing that no-going-backness." – Emily

"I think a danger would be to just let things happen instead of observing them or acknowledging them." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Sprouts, Emily's weekly newsletter https://ejpitman.com/about-sprouts/
• The Northwest Passage
• "Time Passages" by Al Stewart
• Passage to India
• Narnia
• "Sunrise, Sunset"
• St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul
• Brownies and Girl Scouts bridging ceremonies
• Driver's Ed walk-around checklists
• Hebrew Scripture practice of marking memory with piles of rocks

👥 Who Should Listen

• People in a season of transition who expected it to feel more dramatic or obvious than it does.

• Parents adjusting to adult children launching into their own lives.

• Couples reflecting on marriage as a long, ongoing passage rather than a single moment.

• Anyone navigating grief, aging parents, end-of-life passages, or family change.

• Listeners who appreciate reflective conversations about rituals, memory, and the meaning hidden in ordinary transitions.

🎺 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

📋 Episode Summary

In this episode of Still Figuring It Out, Marc and Emily continue their season-long conversation about transitions by exploring the word "metamorphosis." Even though the butterfly image can feel overused, Emily names what she still loves about it: the wonder of living in a universe where what you see is not always what you get.

The conversation moves from HGTV reveal scenes and The Princess Diaries to leadership transformation, midwifery, faith, parenting, marriage, conflict, and the long waiting seasons that make change possible. Marc reflects on the kind of transformation where there is no desire to go back, while Emily reminds us that metamorphosis often looks like waiting, watching, stretching, conflict, and becoming.

Together, they sit with the messiness of change: the cocoon, the not-yet, the impatience, the anger, the grace to let others become, and the hope of being ready to "catch and witness" what emerges.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Metamorphosis may be an overused image, but it still holds real wonder: the possibility that what we see now is not the whole story.

• Transformation is rarely instant. It can involve long seasons of waiting, watching, and not knowing what is forming underneath the surface.

• Conflict can be part of becoming. Whether in childhood, young adulthood, marriage, faith, or leadership, tension often reveals that something new is trying to emerge.

• Marc connects metamorphosis to leadership transformation: helping people reach a place so fully their own that going back no longer feels possible or desirable.

• Emily names impatience and anger not as weaknesses to erase, but as part of "the color of the picture."

• One act of grace is choosing to believe that someone's change may be metamorphosis, not avoidance, flippancy, or failure to do the work.

• The process may not be beautiful, but the results can be worth it.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Being in a universe where what you see isn't necessarily what you get." – Emily

"All of us want a reveal moment." – Emily

"The reveal is that you're the princess on your terms." – Emily

"We love helping leaders see that what might look like the end might really be a glorious beginning." – Marc

"A transformation so complete, there's no danger of going back. There's no desire to go back." – Marc

"Metamorphosis isn't a today, tomorrow." – Emily

"It's deciding to stay walking until we figure out how this new pace is going to be." – Emily

"I want to give grace for people to change and to be other." – Marc

"I want to be ready to catch and witness." – Emily

"The process isn't beautiful. But the results are really worth it." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• HGTV reveal scenes
• The Princess Diaries
• Concord Leadership Group manifesto https://concordleadershipgroup.com/manifesto
• Quadrant 3 Leadership
• Midwifery as a metaphor for helping transformation emerge
• St. John of the Cross and the dark night of the soul
• Indigenous cultures, seasons, and life cycles
• Hallmark movies
• Monstera plants

👥 Who Should Listen

• People who are in a long transition and frustrated that change is taking longer than expected.

• Leaders, coaches, and helpers who walk with others through transformation.

• Parents watching children, teens, or adult children become more fully themselves.

• Couples who are learning how conflict can become part of deeper togetherness.

• Listeners who resonate with faith, doubt, curiosity, and the messiness of personal growth.

• Anyone who needs permission to trust that something may be forming even when it only looks like waiting.

🎺 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