Edna Castillo

In this episode of Just Call Jenna, Jenna sits down with Edna Castillo, founder and CEO of Reality Dreams Life Coaching and author of Living Your Intuitive Genius. A breast cancer survivor who wrote her book while undergoing treatment, Edna shares how adversity can become a catalyst for purpose and explores what it means to tap into our “intuitive genius.” Together, they discuss the connection between stress, healing, and spiritual awareness, as well as the common barriers that can keep us from hearing and trusting our own inner wisdom.

Watch the episode here

https://youtu.be/YllpMtP1RD8

Listen to the episode here

The conversation also explores how mindset can help us recognize opportunities instead of obstacles, the importance of being gentle with yourself while healing from trauma or illness, and practical ways to strengthen intuition in everyday life. Edna offers insight for anyone feeling overwhelmed or uncertain about their next step, reminding listeners that learning to slow down, listen inward, and trust themselves can open the door to greater clarity, resilience, and purpose.

---

Welcome back. Today I have my friend Edna, who is actually my life coach. She is the founder and CEO of Reality Dreams Life Coaching, the author of Living Your Intuitive Genius, best-selling author, speaker, life coach. breast cancer thriver and passionate about helping people turn adversity into purpose. Yep. Welcome Edna. Thank you so much. I am delighted to be here. I'm so thrilled that you're doing this Because you have so much to share. I appreciate that.

It's funny. We met at a little business seminar and then I went to one of your seminars and we just knew we were connected. I went through your program thinking it would be about relationships and who knew it would turn into a podcast. Yeah. We were just saying before, who knew that we would be here like what, a year and a half ago? Exactly.

Well that's what the universe does. That's right. It puts us in synchronicities and evolves us in who we are to be.

Yeah. It brings the right people right along Yeah. Without us even realizing it. Yeah, if you're open to it, the opportunities come. They don't often look the way we think they will. No. No.

Let me ask you, what to you does intuitive genius really mean? Well, it's the wisdom that we are born with. Mm-hmm. Everyone has that intuition. And we know about intuition, but we don't listen to the intuition. And we don't really nurture it in the way that we can to really be in touch with not only the things around us and who we want to be and where life is leading us. but also to learn how to serve one another. Because that's what we're here to do. We're here to love one another, serve one another, and grow.

In doing all of those things, intuition is what guides you. It's like a GPS

Yeah, I would agree with that. I think a lot of people think of it like a gut feeling, but it's just being willing to listen to yourself in my view when even when there's no reasonable reason why you feel that way, like that gut feeling that says Okay, everybody's going left, but my gut says go right. Then just go right. Exactly. But listening to it, I think, is hard. Like when I read your book, I think to me intuitive genius is There's a genius inside of me and I have to listen to it. Now listening to myself, I'm good at listening to myself tell me all the things I'm wrong with myself, but maybe not what's best for me.

Well that's the thing, that we are our human nature is about fear and it's about telling us a giving us a story, right? The story that's in our head. we're not good enough, we're not worthy. We're whatever we were told when we were little. And that's in our subconscious mind, whether we are aware of it or not, and that's what keeps feeding over and over again. so if you want to get in tune with your intuition It's about learning how to really love yourself more, to stop thinking those thoughts and evolving into Really listening to what's who can I be? How can I become? What am I being called to do?

Listen to your dreams. Listen to your aspirations. Because that's your intuition leading you.

Well interesting, I think is like when you're saying that I can think of when my kids were little, right? When they were, let's say, under seven. It was always Follow your dreams. You can be anything. We encourage them to do that. And then as we grow older, it's like, no, follow your responsibilities, do what society tells you to do. So I think those limiting beliefs, fear causes a lot of this So I was just told myself I'm someone who and for me that allows me a lot of grace to make a mistake. Yeah. Yeah. I think as humans we make mistakes

Well, that's what we're here to do. I mean we're not perfect and we're here to learn how to we are not perfect When we were little, right, we learned how to crawl. Yeah. We learned how to walk. And in each of those, there was an experiment of trying, seeing what worked And we fell down and we fell down and we fell down and we got right back up. And that's the same thing with life. Any situation. We're gonna it's not we're not gonna born to be perfect. We're born to learn how to grow. That's it. There is no perfection.

So reminding ourselves that yeah, perfection doesn't exist. We are letting go all the time of the things that we're thinking should be happening. And we're partnering with the universe, God, source, whatever your name is for that higher self, yeah, to create the life that we're here to do. Yeah. Yeah. I think I woke up and I realized I had to create a different life and I accepted a lot of things. And I think there's a big piece to that of imperfections, if you will. It's It's almost like a radical acceptance. You just have to accept it. May not look the way you want. It may not feel the way you want. But yeah, it's just accepting it to be what it is. I think that helps me with the imperfection or letting go and giving myself grace.

I have a hard time with allowing myself to make mistakes and not be perfect just because of what I grew up with. I was a massive overachiever. And I just keep telling myself, can I just underachieve for a while? Well, we're accustomed to being a certain way because of our chemistry, right? Our thoughts create chemistry Chemistry goes through our body, our body gets used to that chemistry, and that's who we become. We become these. So our body is actually asking us to be that person again. And that's what makes it a habit. Yeah.

If you think about it, our brain is saying, do something different, do something different. But your body's like, no. I'm used to this, therefore I'm gonna do this. Most of the body is controlled in the subconscious as I learned with all the neuroscience in the brain, because I nerded out on the brain But if you want to change how things go and get your body to respond, you have to change your thoughts first because it's gonna tell your body what to do. Like I know I should know, but my brain just goes blank

Up until now. Okay, up until now. I like that. Well, the up until now, since we're brought we brought it up again, is the thing of us speaking to our brain Yeah. Up until now means we're telling our brain that's who I was then, this is who I am now. Yeah. You know, memory has been a a challenge. in some areas up until now, but we don't want it to be continue. Yeah, no. And therefore it's up until now that's the way it was. Now it's gonna be different. That's the piece. It's like a breaking point. It's like a line in the sand that we're saying no more.

We have all this intelligence. We do. And we're not using it to well, we're not aware. You know, I had to go through what I went through to realize how much power we really have in our lives, not only in healing, but throughout everything that we do. Yeah, I agree with that. I think healing is a thing that we really misunderstand. Like going through a a health journey is something and everybody's gonna have their own, but I think there's this combination of the shamanistic holistic practices that there is value in those But also the Western medicine and I think what they do here, they call it practice. Like I love my doctor, don't get me wrong. I've had the same doctor since 2009. Wouldn't change her But I'm also aware that she can only do so much. I have to do the work.

It's kind of like when I talked about the stroke journey of just being aware that I had to tune in. everything out but focusing on what I had to do. My job, because I had so little focus ability left in my brain at that time, it was my chance and I was aware that I could not get distracted from that. I had this little sliver of focus. And that was all I had all day. And I my job was to expand that focus.

In the beginning, I can remember sort of like I would wake up in the morning I would have to go back to sleep at like 10, 2, and 4 because I was so tired. I my body needed that sleep. And then we got to a place of where there was just an afternoon nap around like two. And now I don't nap anymore, but I can remember in healing the physical therapist that was coming to my house would be like, okay, I you can't shower if you have physical therapy. Your body can't do both. My body was so broken that If I took a shower, I didn't have the energy or stamina to go through that.

Like for example, now when I walk my dog, thank goodness she's older. I can walk like maybe up to a mile, but if I walk too, I'm not gonna make it tomorrow. Well that's the genius in you, right? To realize the capacity that you have in what to do with it. Most of us fight that genius by doing the expectation what we're supposed to be doing. In your healing journey, what I hear is that you heard your body say, every two hours, I'm required to take a nap. Most people would be very frustrated with that. Because they're used to a twelve hour day or eighteen hour day and napping is not part of their norm. But you heard the inside. The the inward person saying in order for me to heal I need to rest in order for me to heal I need to take these breaks

And currently it's yeah, I can enjoy a walk with my dog, but it I can only go so far. Eventually perhaps, but you're working with your own genius and listening to yourself. I love that. And that's because you love yourself. Feel free to keep calling me a genius, but I love that. But I think that's it. It's I to me it's it's awareness, like just being aware and I think one beautiful gift from my stroke was that it gave me this okay to not be like everybody else or it was like a permission slip to not need to fit into the crowd because most people haven't survived a stroke, so it's okay if I do things differently. Yeah, isn't that amazing?

It's so But you have to be open. You do. If you live in the reality that things have to happen the way things are supposed to happen, or what society tells you, your parents tell you, all of that. You're not open to those ideas. But your your brain would never have thought, huh. Yeah. Oh that's a because we're connected. Yeah, sure. We're connected. So oftentimes when we were when her subconscious is picking up. My subconscious would be telling you something that I'm like, where did that come from? Yeah. And then you're like, oh yeah, this, that, and the other. Oh that's why I was supposed to say that. Right?

say things to people sometimes that we're not even planning on saying, but it's the higher self working within us to help that other individual. Just like I said, we're here to serve one another. That's right. I think about that a lot with awareness. Yeah. The piece about awareness is that we have control within the moment as well. Yeah. Sometimes when I'm in the in the grind of things and I'm thinking things are difficult, I often think about, huh, are they really difficult or am I telling my brain they're difficult? Yeah.

And there's a I think I even showed it to you on my desk. I have an easy button. Yeah. Where I press that easy button because it can be easy. And as soon as I do that, it's like, okay, it is easy I agree with that. And when that when my brain hears that, it opens up the opportunities on how to just not make it a grind anymore. Yep, I love the easy, but some things are going to take a hard road for the better rewards. I get that But that's my choice.

Definitely when I was diagnosed, I was holding down a job. Mm-hmm. Right, eight to five. I was starting my coaching business. I was a wife, I was a mother, I was I'm a sandwich generation taking care of my parents. Yes. I was the person in my household that when there was a function, everybody came to the house. So I was the glue of everyone. And I had I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

There was that po point in time when I told my siblings Edna was this way. Edna is no longer. You need to take your part in helping me with my p you know the child the the parents. Yeah. The husband with the children. Everybody needs to take part because Edna needs to concentrate on her healing. Yeah, I get that.

It was interesting when you're talking about that. Like I used to do all the parties, the barbecues and have everybody over. I just was going through this thing of where each day I was cleaning out one cabinet, one drawer, whatever, and I was putting stuff together. In my neighborhood, they do a charity pickup. And so I kind of gather it all in the garage so when they do their pickup. Anyway, I was going through it and all the st serving dishes that I used to collect just for putting food out for everybody. I was shocked that I had ones I hadn't used since before the stroke.

If I have not used it since the stroke, I need to get rid of it, even if it was good then.

And so I just made myself the deal. If I have not used it since the stroke, I need to get rid of it, even if it was good then. And I ended up getting rid of probably $500 worth of like serving dishes from like crate and barrel in those nice places that people gave dishes. I haven't used this in three years. I don't need it. Somebody else can use it. So we spent so much time in the do rather than in the living life.

But I think it's to help others really understand that if you don't heal you're just gonna keep repeating what aren't you that's and how many times do you want to get hurt exactly so sometimes we're acting out things and we're doing things for the facade of things when s really it shouldn't be. It just just should be about what would I love? Yeah. Because nobody really cares.

Well, here's an interesting one that helped me accept how other people feel and things are in our head. There's a study they called the CLEC study. It was this guy, K-L-E-C-K. And so what he did was he grabbed like 50 people. This was back in the 80s And about half of them, they had a makeup artist draw a scar on their face. And they showed them a mirror with themselves, right? And so then they sent all 50 people out to go meet with people And the ones who had the scar came back and described people as cold, constricting, unfriendly, felt scared. They were rude, dismissive. etc.

Now here's the fascinating part. They showed them the mirror after they reported that. Before they walked outside, they put a cream on their scar, wiped the scar off their face. The scar wasn't even there. They just thought it was, so they showed up differently.

there are things that I feel are scars that other people aren't even paying attention to. So it's about how I show up in the world.

That one fascinated me and made me really take an interest in myself that there are things that I feel are scars that other people aren't even paying attention to. So it's about how I show up in the world. But that study fascinated It's about the love. The love that we have for ourselves and how we see ourselves.

It just reminded me it reminds me of that other study about the maids. I don't know if you've heard of it. They took it some maids, it divided two groups. One in they didn't say anything to. The others they said, Did you realize that all of the work that you're doing throughout Your day of you know going up and down the stairs, bringing up towels, cleaning the different rooms in the hotel, all of that That qualifies as enough energy, enough exercise for you to lose weight. That's all they said.

In a couple of months, those maids had lost the weight. So it's a belief system. It's what we believe. They had implanted a thought of I'm doing enough exercise to lose weight, therefore my brain starts working to lose weight. Yeah, it's kind of the placebo effect, but in a thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's it's you know it is about what we're thinking, what we're believing, how we're seeing ourselves All of those things. Not the external part of how others are seeing us or what people are wanting us to do. It's all about us. But I think that's Sort of that motivation, that will, if you will, like what lights that up? And I think if we start listening to our intuition or that higher self, automatically It starts lighting us up and we start getting excited instead of limiting. But we've learned to, in my view, live so external that we keep waiting for something out outside of ourselves to give us the answers, but the answers are right here.

Yeah. You'll start living in the awe. That's what I like to think about when I really am experimenting with my intuition and following what it tells me to do I just start you get so in awe over the things that occur that you would have never thought would have occurred. Yeah. It's one of those things that you start living in a different reality

Because the universe will always give you more than what you think.

Because the universe will always give you more than what you think. Yeah. Because it it knows more than what you know. Yeah, it really does. I actually really enjoyed that part of healing where the control freak in me was like, wait, I control what I think about That part I was like, oh I do have control.

My life felt very out of control after the stroke. Like it felt like everything was so out Outside of what I wanted, my body wasn't cooperating, my brain wasn't cooperating, everything was different. I felt like I was completely out of control. I needed somebody to help me go to the bathroom, I needed help to take a shower And I fought for my independence back because I was like, I want to live life on my terms. I did not come back from something that should have killed me so that I need to depend on everybody else. No. Yeah. That's not happening.

Interesting. I love that because the lack of control led you to realize that you have more control. It's a weird thing, but yeah. It's very strange. Which it's control of certain things, but to have that control, you have to let go of all the other things. It's it's a balance or I don't know if balance is the right word, maybe a routine, because I don't think anything's perfect Yeah. No, I mean we're learning. Yeah.

That's the thing, that we're evolving and learning, and the more we dive into it, the more we learn and the more we evolve So it's just a forever up the spiral of who we are becoming. Yeah, it was a hard one for me to let go of the res responsibility that that was not mine to carry. My mom would tell you I'm a bleeding heart. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I wanted to help everybody and I still do. But the day that I get Elon Musk Money is the day that I'll help the world.

Well and at the same time, not everybody need not not everybody thinks that need to be helped. Not everybody believes what we believe. And it is not my job to help everybody at the detriment of myself. I used to give more than I had to give. And yes, I can give some, but I don't have to give everything.

Well the the other piece is That a friend of mine brought me into that awareness of whenever we are helping someone, sometimes we're stealing their capacity to actually do for themselves. And that might be their lesson. So and that is their lesson. Yeah. Or else you're not gonna do anything about it.

Well and also for the person trying to give How frustrating is that to try to help somebody that doesn't want to help themselves? Right. When they're ready, like when people ask me, I try to do what I can, but yes, it's a big one to just go, is this mine to care?

I have somebody that I would call like an ambivalent friend. We were friends for 20 years. Always no drama, everything was fine. We had a good time, a couple of private jokes that people get, but I started noticing that when I would get home from seeing her, I was like, why did I even go? And what I realized in that is She didn't want to grow. She wanted to stay right where she was at. And she wanted me to stay right where I was at.

So Anything that came from it again, no drama, but she just wanted me to stay right where I was. And as different as I am, you know, I didn't fight with her or whatever. I just kind of stopped returning phone calls, but it's the same idea. Like this is not mine to carry. And at the same time, you're harming me if you're asking me to stay this old version of me that I've evolved from.

It's about the the growth and the releasing of people as well. Yeah. Just like you said, it's the giving away of your things and and downsizing. We also down downsize with people that don't serve us. It you know what's what's serving us in our growth? What's serving us in our service. Yeah. And when we find the answer is no, this isn't serving me, it's time to give it away. It's time to say goodbye to it.

Yeah. I think that's what we're kind of taught to do is just keep filling, but I think my nervous system being regulated is learn to accept space and that void and actually appreciate that void because it means that I don't have to go back into survival when life happens Just because there's an hour in my day doesn't mean I need to fill it. Love it. That was a hard one.

I think the old me was probably more like you describe your dad like an energizer bunny. From the time I woke up till the time I went to bed, it was 150 miles an hour. So I've just learned to live life. I'm not ready for the slow lane. But I've gotten out of the fast lane and I'm in the lane next to it and I'm okay.

One of the things that I teach my clients when they're in that mode of doing, doing, doing, and then they also have the life of parent or you know, a love a husband, wife and then you're like, I don't have enough time. Yeah. Right? I don't have yeah I said we all have the same en the same amount of time. Uh-huh. It's what we value. Right. So why don't you use your calendar, just one calendar, put in the work. And then make sure that in that work day you also have the date with the husband or the time with the kids or the this or whatever is valuable to you because or else you're always gonna be in work mode

I agree with you. And that is so essential for heating when you're also working. I have a client currently that that's what she's doing. She's She has an eight to five and she's healing from cancer. And she has two kids and she has a husband. I know that one also. And it's like she's juggling all of this Can you just imagine I made time for my healing. Yeah. She's making time with yes, my coaching and some of the things that she's adding on, the joy of life

It's like, are you dealing with it or just filling every pocket so that you're staying busy and actually not doing the work? I was more like that. So my new life, one of the things I think about a lot is I imagine my life like a pie chart. One half of it belongs to those adult citizen, you know, type task that I gotta work, I gotta pay bills, I gotta file taxes, all those normal things that we all have to deal with. And the other half of the circle, one quarter belongs to my friends and family, and one quarter is me

I get one quarter of the circle of my life that needs to be focused on me.

I get one quarter of the circle of my life that needs to be focused on me. And I live my life that way now. I had something recently that was terrible to go through in that ruminating brain where it's the last thing on your brain at night and the first thing when you wake up. And no matter how many times logically you tell yourself to stop thinking about it, you don't. But I just went back to that quarter of the circle. Like, what does me really want out of this? Forget what's logical. It makes absolutely no sense what I want. It is against everything I've ever been taught, but how much overwhelm am I willing to take

So I went back to what's that piece of the circle that's me? And what does Jenna really want? Forget what the friends and family want, forget what the adult responsibilities want. The adult responsibility is this half of my life trying to tell me how to live, be, and exist. My friends and family have their opinions, but a valuable lesson I learned from the stroke was

What do I want? And what do I have capacity for?

What do I want? And what do I have capacity for? And it changed how I'm doing everything, which shocked me. Still does That's a beautiful lesson that just teaches you w because without that piece nothing else I mean it basically you wouldn't be who you are and nothing else everything revolves around you really. If you think about it. Oh I love that. Right? Everything revolves around you. And I know it's it's something that's a But everything else revolves around them too. Nah. You don't like that part. Nah, nah. But that's the thing. That's constricted on you. There's no them Yeah. So you gotta take care of you.

Well and I think that's a different one is that we are not I think women take it more than men, but we are not taught to take care of ourselves. There's no reward for it. Yeah, you do You do. And listening to yourself. Listening about yourself. Listen about what do I want? Yeah. You know. Yes. You gotta do yeah, you gotta do life and that's what we're here to do Yeah. But we have a capacity to do both, not leave ourselves out of the formula and then just serve everything else.

We are the person that's serving everything else. Therefore, we're the primary source. Us and source that feeds us life. Yeah. Right. So it's always starts with us. We always have the answers We always have the capacity to do more. Yeah. But is it really doing the more or is it loving to do the more? Yeah.

Just because I can doesn't mean I should

I use today a lot in my life. Just because I can doesn't mean I should Right. If you were to meet somebody who's not a or maybe even your coaching clients, when you take someone who's in complete, utter overwhelm and they want to make a change but they don't know what to do, what is the first piece of advice you would give them? It's a tough one depending on where they are. Yeah. But I think it's we touched upon it in terms of getting to know their nervous system. Yeah. Right? Going back to your breath. Yeah. Breathing. That's always my first one. Just breathing for four out for six. That's my first bit of work.

Well, and breathing and then seeing that Are you looking at the situation? Is because if you're overwhelmed, that means that you are at max capacity. Yeah, you're in survival mode. Right. So how can we bring it inward And we are more capable of more than we think we are. So let's just do one step at a time. I agree with that. Because that's all we can do anyway. We can't generally we're an overwhelm because we're thinking of the whole pathway. And we're not capable of doing the whole pathway all at once. We only have one step to take at all times

So breathe and ask yourself, what's the next step? Or what would I love? Or what would love do here? And then take that step I agree with that. Mine is always to breathe and I remember going through your program, it was like having the mini goal, the daily goal, and the mega goal, like breaking it down to where You gotta give yourself enough little reward, know what your ultimate goal is, but where can you have achievements along the way that are gonna build your confidence Right. Because you need that sort of, if you talk about it like an experiment, you need that positive result to keep you going.

There is a thing about motivation, but yeah, mine would just be breath. Yeah, recording your wins are is exactly one of the things that we also did. Okay. Recording all the wins that you have, remembering all the great things that happen. I always start everything with gratitude and something that you're grateful for, something that you're proud of. when you get up, when you go to sleep, you then start reward living at a different vibration, different frequency. Yeah.

Because you start acknowledging how wonderful you are, right? All of the things that I did, even if it was just one thing today that I'm grateful for doing and one thing that I'm proud that happened from today. You know, you start acknowledging the good and seeing more good. The ridiculous activating system in in action. Of actually just seeing the good rather than the bad. Yeah, and then one day you end up with a podcast.

Thanks for joining, guys. Remember karma's real, energy is contagious. Check your vibes

So, my book, Living Your Intuitive Genius, How to Tap into Your Soul to Heal Your Mind, Body and Spirit, can be bought at Amazon And also my website, LivingReality Dreams. com. I now have my workbook available for purchase on my website. Justcalljenna.online There's a shop button. You can purchase the workbook that shows you seven days of how to start resetting your stress level. It's downloadable. You're not getting some book. You can just download it and print it on your printer or use it on your phone.

For many of my listeners, I've been getting emails and comments about people asking how to get started without choosing to have coaching or lifelong sessions, if you will, purchase it. It will give you the momentum to get started. And then if you need more support, please reach out to me. All my contact information is on my website.