Hi sister! Welcome back to another episode of a Taylored Adventure to Happiness. If you are new, welcome! If you are a regular, you know I love you!
Okay, ladies, I’ve got an absolutely fucking magical guest today. Her name is Monique Benabou, and she brings so much divine feminine energy and wisdom to everything she does. I know you’re going to find her so incredibly inspiring!
And you better strap in, because Monique and I get into a lot of juicy stuff in this episode. We get into the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic and how it creates a really wonderful opportunity for healing and expansion. We talk about wealth and how money is a by-product of gratitude. And we talk about throat chakra healing, and an awesome tip she has for using your throat chakra to get more in tune with your body and dissipate pain and tension.
Have you been struggling? Are you feeling tension or even pain? Do you find yourself experiencing lack and scarcity, especially right now, when so many of us are unemployed and unsure what to do with our lives? Sister, if that sounds like you, you need to check out this episode!
“The only security that is real is the security that comes from knowing yourself so fucking thoroughly that you can count on you for the choices that you make and for the ability to make something happen that comes from doing work.” – Monique Benabou
Are you ready to develop more security and build self-trust? Then join me on this especially juicy episode to learn about some amazing things you can do to love your life and choose happiness right now!
Who Is Monique Benabou?
Where to start with Monique Benabou? Well, first of all, she was on The Voice. That’s right, we’ve got a real-life mega-superstar on the podcast today. Monique is an amazing singer and a real artist; seriously, I love her voice so much! She puts so much light into her art, and I’m so excited by the amount of energy she is putting out into the world!
And all that singing experience has translated directly into her work as a healer. Monique is an expert in the art of using your throat chakra for healing and for syncing up your body. She believes so fully in the power of using your throat chakra and getting in tune with your own voice to live in alignment with yourself and vibe on the highest frequency (more on that later!).
Monique coaches and teaches a group of amazing clients, and that is definitely a big part of her passion and purpose in this life! I am so inspired every time I talk to this girl because I see the joy and happiness she takes from helping other people learn and grow. She’s even launching a ritual based monthly membership community called Alchemy Alliance, where you’ll be able to participate in New Moon and Full Moon sound bath rituals she’s going to hold digitally. It’s going to be an incredible experience and a beautiful opportunity to connect with yourself and with other people who think like you. So stay tuned, because that’s going to be here soon!
But if you’re just ready to connect with Monique in the meantime (I know you will be!) seriously, follow her on Instagram, @moniquebenabou. And go ahead and DM her—Monique loves to connect with people! She even has what she calls “Mentor by Moe Mondays,” where she offers two free 30-minute sessions to people who DM her just to ask great questions and have an excellent discussion about spirituality and energy.
“I work with people all over the world on activating your voice, supporting them into coming into deeper accessibility and connection with their full expression.” – Monique Benabou
Monique is one special lady, sister. I am so excited to introduce her to all of you today! Her brightness and wisdom are sure to bring some beautiful light into your life today, so let’s get started!
Find Your Security in Yourself
I want to go back to that quote from my interview with Monique that I shared at the beginning of this post because I think it’s so true and so helpful during this time of isolation and uncertainty:
“The only security that is real is the security that comes from knowing yourself so fucking thoroughly that you can count on you for the choices that you make and for the ability to make something happen that comes from doing work.” – Monique Benabou
Monique and I spent a lot of time talking about the pandemic situation, and her take on it was so positive! Yes, a lot of people are dealing with unemployment and uncertainty, and that is so stressful and hard, and it can cause us to experience scarcity and lack. But Monique is here to share that what COVID-19 has really given us is a beautiful opportunity.
Monique explained that so many of us have gotten caught up in our own American Dream. We work our jobs and do our best to take care of our families, but some part of us dies when we do that. Do you feel that? I know I do. But now, when many people are out of work and spending a lot more time at home with their families, people are shifting their thinking.
“This is a serious global shift in not just behavior, but orientation, how we perceive things, how we relate to things … in relation to large systems like finance, money, consumerism, the family unites, ourselves. … There is an equal amount of breakdown as there is breakthrough.” – Monique Benabou
The way we relate to our families and our money is changing, and that is beautiful! So many of us were seeking security in jobs and regular paychecks, but without that, we’re forced to look inward. We’re forced to consider what purposes we have that we’ve been ignoring and to find our security only in ourselves. For the first time, people on a global scale are reconsidering how they’re living their lives and reprioritizing the things that bring them better into alignment and allow for a more harmonious life.
So how can you do that? Monique says we should ask ourselves some hard questions.
“What parts of ourselves did we allow to die? What parts of ourselves did we sell for a regular paycheck?” – Monique Benabou
And from there, take some time to play! Start going after that dream career you’ve had for a while. Enjoy spending time with your kids or your parents or your partner. Use the time you’ve been given to experiment, find security in yourself, and build a life that is more in line with your purpose!
Practice Gratitude
I really want to take some time to talk about how this shift in our global mindset applies to money specifically. It’s such a juicy topic! And, of course, Monique brought her typical genius perspective to it in our discussion!
So like I’ve been talking about, a lot of us are experiencing a lot of scarcity and lack right now. People are unemployed, and there’s a lot of fear about money and wealth right now. But fear is always a choice, and wealth does not come from fear. I asked Monique for her thoughts on wealth in general, and I just want to share her words with you here:
“Wealth is not a state, while money is so important. And actually, in order to have a fully expressed experience in this world, … wealth is part of that experience. … However, we don’t actually get to wealth or prosperity or being rich by focusing … on money. … It’s not an accolade, it’s not a level, it’s a frequency, it’s a consciousness, a state of mind, … or like a philosophy … that you live your life from. … even when money is not coming in, it’s the belief and mental and physiological cellular orientation that money is coming to you.” – Monique Benabou
So wealth is not just about seeing how much money we can earn. If you’re always thinking about the money you don’t have, the income you aren’t earning, the things you can’t afford to buy, you are living in a mindset of scarcity. But if instead, you choose a mindset of wealth and believe that money is coming to you, you can experience true abundance.
But how can we do that right now, while there’s so much fear around money? Big shock, Monique has the answer for that, too:
“There are parts of fear that lends itself to love. And that crossover is like the fear of experiencing more of what you don’t want to experience. Try something new, look at it a different way, think about it in a different way. You can always go back to the way that you’ve related to things. But if you can try to just look at everything in its breakdown and find one thing that you are grateful for, you will be able to then find a second thing you are grateful for and continue and continue and continue.” – Monique Benabou
So when you’re feeling that scarcity and lack and you find yourself experiencing fear about money, lean into it. Practice gratitude. Look around at your life, and find something to be grateful for. When you allow your fear to lead you into gratitude and love for the things you do have, you experience true abundance and wealth, and that is so important for living a fully expressed life!
Throat Chakra Healing
Okay, now we get to one of the best and juiciest parts of my conversation with Monique. As a singer, Monique has real, practical expertise about how we can use our throat chakras to experience abundance and expansion.
Do you know that experience of feeling a little random pain somewhere? You might even notice this if you stop and pay a little attention to your body right now! You might feel a little pain or tension somewhere in your body. That’s okay! It happens all the time, and it’s just our bodies’ way of telling us we’re not quite in alignment.
But there’s a way we can use our throat chakras to find healing from those little aches and pains. Monique says that “the throat chakra is … a tool,” and that “the easiest way to activate that and to just start a relationship with your voice is to actually hear yourself.” You’ve got to listen to your own voice!
Monique walked me through a very specific way to do this live on the podcast, and ladies, it was so cool. Here’s her awesome tip for using your throat chakra for healing:
“I’m going to pinpoint … that place of tension or pain … And you’re going to ask like, ‘…What would that sound like?’ And yo, it might sound really weird, but that’s okay! … what happens is, if you make that sound that is accurate to like those sensations in your body and … you do it a few times, you will witness an actual like somatic, cathartic release happening, and that pain will dissipate.” – Monique Benabou
By making sounds with our voices, with our throat chakras, we can actually cause healing to happen in our bodies. If you’re feeling any pain or tension right now, go ahead and try it! Try to vocalize what that pain would sound like if it had a sound!
Here’s the thing: When you hear yourself, you ground yourself in your body, and that’s what allows you to come into perfect alignment with yourself and heal. And that’s how you can come to a place of expansion.
“And so if you’re listening to this right now, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I think I’m grasping this power right now to make a sound,’ like you were just like AH, EE, II, like doing resonance, what does that mean? Does it open your heart? … Do you experience contraction or expansion?” – Monique Benabou
Spend some time with your voice. Take a few moments away from your kids or your partner today, and just vocalize out loud. And ask yourself how that made you feel! Did you feel good or bad when you made a certain sound? Did you expand or contract? Start practicing using your throat chakra to experience expansion, and experience the healing and abundance that comes from that!
You Are an Antenna
What an incredible conversation! I am so blessed by this fucking superwoman, and I sincerely hope you are too. She had one last idea she wanted to leave you with:
“There’s one thing I wish for people to grasp from this conversation: It’s that they are an antenna. They are emitting and receiving energy and communications through frequency at all times. … It’s the necessity, the absolute necessity in life to be open. … It’s living from the realm of possibility.” – Monique Benabou
It’s true. There is so much energy, so much positive energy flying around in the world. Our purpose is to receive it and then live and love and create out of that experience and send more positive energy out.
So go out there and practice using your throat chakra! Experiment with your voice today. Remember that wealth is more about choosing gratitude than about the actual amount of money you currently have; trust that money is coming to you. Live a life of abundance, and choose to do it today.
And y’all, choose happiness — because, well, why the fuck not?
I’ll catch ya next time, sister!
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
- What living an abundant life looks like to Monique
- What is present in today’s world
- The time to go inward and surrender
- Wealth mindset vs Money mindset
- Fear is not always bad, experience what you don’t want to experience
- Practice your intuition & self-trust for quantum expansion
- Throat chakra healing through your own voice
- Get “weird” and make sounds
