VBB 302: Aura E. Martinez — Why Curiosity Is Key To Your Happiness!

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast: inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather.

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

Have you ever found yourself saying this? I'll be happy when, you know, happy when I get the job or the position, happy when my relationship settles, happy when I lose a few pounds, happy when I get this thing that's outside of my control. And happiness, when it does come, it's somehow fleeting. It makes me wonder if we are doing this happy thing, that happiness thing all wrong? To help us get a little clarity, we welcome self-discovery and empowerment coach Laura Martinez to Virgin beauty bitch. Welcome.

Aura Martinez [00:00:58]:

Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me here.

Christopher [00:01:01]:

We are so excited to have you. Now, aura, if I were to ask you right now, are you happy, yes or no?

Aura Martinez [00:01:09]:

I am.

Christopher [00:01:10]:

Do you remember a time in your life when the answer to that question was no? What was going on in your life at that time?

Aura Martinez [00:01:19]:

Oh, yes, I can certainly remember that. And ironically, I realized this in Rome. Let me just say this. I honestly believe that in life, we go through stages. And I'm also a flight attendant. And I remember when I reached my fifth year, I felt a restlessness, a sense of frustration. And mind you, I'm traveling to my favorite country, which is Italy, right? You would think, oh, I have it all. I can have a cappuccino or walk here or walk there, right? But ironically, I wasn't happy.

Aura Martinez [00:01:57]:

And one of the biggest mistakes that sometimes we can make is that we could think, oh, is that I'm unhappy with my job. And that wasn't necessarily the case, what it was. And thank God I leaned into that frustration. It was just my essence, my soul calling me for more, right? And so I'm so glad I paid attention to that frustration. I'm so glad that I didn't make any quick judgments regarding it. But because I opened myself up to this path that I am in now as a self-discovery and empowerment coach. So it's very important to lean into that.

Christopher [00:02:34]:

For a lot of people, everyone goes through frustration and bewilderment. What am I to do to find joy? We all go through that. But something new, instead of being a victim to it, you investigated and went further into the question and the frustration. What made you go in that direction and not become a victim of it?

Aura Martinez [00:03:01]:

Well, several things. One is curiosity. I think curiosity is the cure for boredom, the cure to frustration, the cure to stuckness, right? And so I just got curious. I also reminded myself that even though I feel frustrated, I am still very lucky. You know, how many times do we forget how lucky we are to be where we are and to do what we're able to do? So I didn't forget the fact that I'm still very lucky, despite whatever it is that I'm feeling. It's so. It's so easy, I would dare to say, to get caught up in whatever emotion that we're in.

Aura Martinez [00:03:42]:

And I just knew deep down that me getting caught up in that, I'm just gonna dig myself a bigger hole. So the cure. The cure for that, for lack of a better word, is to get curious. I just knew that, right? I just knew. I had to say to myself, wait a minute, I manifested what I wanted. This, that I'm living. I manifested it.

Aura Martinez [00:04:07]:

So what is missing? What is missing? It's so important.

Heather [00:04:13]:

I'm so enjoying that you use the word cure, considering that curious has that word in it. So, the cure for boredom is right in the word. I think it's so well said that you really paid attention to what your body, your mind, your heart, and your soul were saying to you to say this. This. I'm grateful for everything that I have right now, but this isn't it for me. There's a new door that I want to open, and so what was that process like for you? You're in Rome, you're noticing these things. What was that like, that pivotal moment in your life?

Aura Martinez [00:04:55]:

Yeah. So I remember I told a friend of mine, you know what? I'm so frustrated. So I voiced my frustration. I think many times, we tend to want to brush it underneath the rug or deny ourselves what we're feeling. I didn't do that. I didn't deny it. I expressed it. I acknowledged it.

Aura Martinez [00:05:16]:

I accepted it. Then once I accepted that, I was able to sit with that, just like I would sit with someone and be like, okay, what are you trying to tell me, right? What are you here for? And that's part of us taking care of ourselves, too. That's part of us being there for ourselves. So, as I acknowledged it, I just wanted to question that part of me that was feeling frustrated. What do you want from me, right? What do you require from me to shift this? And I didn't rush the process. I think this is so important. I didn't rush it. So, whatever time it took for me to get over that funk of a feeling, I allowed myself to be there.

Aura Martinez [00:06:07]:

I think that's one of the hardest things. Many times, because we're so conditioned to want to feel good.

Christopher [00:06:13]:

I want to ask you this, Aura, would you say that you are a spiritual person?

Aura Martinez [00:06:18]:

Oh, yes. I think all of us are.

Christopher [00:06:20]:

How do you define that for yourself?

Aura Martinez [00:06:22]:

Well, personally, I believe in God, and God, to me, is in each and every one of us. And the moment that we think of that spiritual essence, that higher self of ours, or that God outside of us, I think that's when we disconnect ourselves from our creativity. We disconnect ourselves from how connected we are to absolutely everything. To me, God is within each and every one of us, and it's just a matter of us connecting to that part of us, that God that is within us. Now, for those that may be saying, no, no, you're not God. I'm not saying that I am God, that you are God, but in a way. In a way, because God is within us. God is expressing himself through each and every one of us.

Aura Martinez [00:07:22]:

I'm a big believer that God loves music; God loves fashion. Right? The universe loves a little bit of everything. It's part of what makes this world very interesting. So, to me, the higher essence, God, whatever anybody else wants to call it, is within us. And it's so important that we connect with that and believe that because otherwise, we will literally be disconnecting ourselves from the power that is within us.

Heather [00:07:53]:

So you've. I love that you've expressed to yourself, to a friend, the frustration that you're feeling that there's a piece that's missing or a next evolution of yourself that's kind of on the brink. What were the next steps that you started to take? After expressing to a friend where you wanted to go? How did you start to actually make the shifts?

Aura Martinez [00:08:18]:

So, in reality, I didn't know what shifts to make, so I had no other option but to just pay attention to everything around me. What do I mean by that? Strangely enough, there was a series of events that started happening, and I could not help but notice that something bigger than me was occurring. For example, I would have passengers tell me certain things that I'm like, I know that that's God, that's the universe, trying to hint to me that I'm meant to be going in a different direction. I remember there was this one passenger on a completely different flight telling me, what would you like to do when you grow up? Because you could be the Ambassador of the United States if you wanted to. This is a person who didn't know me but somehow felt called to tell me that and saw something in me. I didn't attach it as it's that person that said, no, it's something bigger wanting to guide me. And so when I started noticing just some of the things that were occurring, the things that. That would come out of people's mouths, and I was like, oh, my God, where is this coming from? I just decided to do whatever I was curious to do.

Aura Martinez [00:09:37]:

I love the stage. I love public speaking. So what did I do? I took acting classes. Interestingly enough, at the time, it's not that I wanted to be an actress, but little did I know that my leaning into the things that I was curious to do was allowing me to acquire tools that would be necessary for me to utilize today. I hope you don't mind me sharing this little story. So, in acting, one of the things that is very important for you to do auditions is a headshot. And I remember my first headshot was a horrible headshot.

Aura Martinez [00:10:22]:

And hearing several casting directors telling me, you know, what I see here in person is not what I see in this picture. This is horrible! I didn't take it personally. Years later, for my coaching business, guess what's so necessary? Taking photos. Where did I learn to take better photos and be more expressive because of those experiences? And so that and many more. It's so important. Whatever you are curious to do, just do it, even if it doesn't make sense, because you'll be able to understand further down the road why you felt called to do what you wanted to do at that time.

Christopher [00:11:10]:

There's a word you used back at the beginning of this conversation, that was curiosity. I think a lot of people are curious but timid about taking action. That takes courage. Where do you find the courage to take action on your curiosity?

Aura Martinez [00:11:30]:

Oh, I had to do a lot of inner work, actually. So, interesting enough, when you are leaning towards whatever it is that you want to do, you will discover that certain things will trigger layers that you have to unravel and uncover. Right. So, I want to share this if you don't mind me sharing. So when I first started as a wellness and life coach, I had a lot of challenges. One of the challenges was showing up a lot online. I didn't want to do videos. I would hide behind the blog.

Aura Martinez [00:12:12]:

People would tell me, you need to do videos. But I couldn't understand why, years later when I took a business coaching program and uncovered that I had a wound. That wound was a hatred that I had towards myself. Right. And when I healed that wound, guess what happened? I started showing up a lot because I started accepting, I accepted myself. It's like, this is who I am. Is this enough? Right? And so the courage will come the more you keep working on the courage muscles. I would dare to say that courage is also a muscle because, trust me, it shows up on podcasts.

Aura Martinez [00:13:01]:

Before I was shy, I was thinking, oh, how do I look? And so you gotta work that muscle. You're gonna get sore. It's part of the process.

Heather [00:13:17]:

That's beautiful. And so tell us about, you know, you've made these shifts, and now, you know, you have your business. Can you tell our listeners what your business is all about and how you work with your clients?

Aura Martinez [00:13:32]:

Yes. So, I'm a self-discovery and empowerment coach, helping women gain total clarity in their purpose so they can wake up to daily fulfillment and uncertainty. And I do that through a method that's called the Aura Blueprint. Yes. It has my name because every letter represents the step. So, the first "A" is to Assess. We're going to assess where you are, where you would like to be, and what is required for you to get there.

Aura Martinez [00:14:02]:

That's so important to "U" Understand. Understand why you have been parked at the gate. Now, I'm here using an airline analogy. Why have you been parked all this time? And that's so important. Before a flight can leave the gate, the mechanics need to check it. There's a pilot checking outside the plane, one that's checking inside of the plane because you want to make sure that the plane is "R" ready to ride. And so we need to make sure that we are ready and that we are working through whatever it is that we need to work through.

Aura Martinez [00:14:41]:

"R" is to realign. Because once you peel all those layers and all that gunk that doesn't belong to you, it's time for you to realign yourself to your true essence. When I healed the wound, the hatred that I had towards myself, I needed to reconnect to who God designed me to be. To who the universe knows who I am so that I don't fall back into the trap of all those things that don't belong to me or how I saw myself. And the "A", the last A in the Aura Blueprint is Aliveness. Aliveness is what you're going to feel when you see that you're able to step into the version of you that your vision requires. So, that's the method that I guide my clients through. I actually started out as a wellness and life coach, helping people get out of the sugar roller coaster that they will find themselves in. Since I was certified as a nutrition and wellness consultant, I was also board-certified. That led me to transition to self-discovery and empowerment coaching. In fact, that's how I noticed that the clients that were coming to me didn't need a meal plan.

Aura Martinez [00:15:54]:

They didn't need to know what workouts to do. They were having a relationship with food, with their body, and with themselves. That's what was getting in the way of them not eating healthy or acquiring healthy habits. And so I understood then that if we are to get to the core of who we really are, we can literally and simultaneously transform different areas of our lives all at the same time because we are the common denominator to everything.

Christopher [00:16:24]:

So have you. Have you rounded up your parents and thanked them profusely for naming you AURA?

Aura Martinez [00:16:32]:

You know that it was an accident. An accident in the sense that my name was supposed to be my mom's name, but because they messed up her name on the birth certificate, they called her Elena Aurora. She said, if I ever have a daughter, I'm going to call her Aura Elena. And so that's where my name comes from.

Christopher [00:16:56]:

Since it's the foundation of your philosophy, I want to ask you about that. What is forensic psychology?

Aura Martinez [00:17:04]:

So I have my BA in forensic psychology, and that's basically the psychology of the criminal mind, and that's because I wanted to be a lawyer. Actually, I wanted to be a lawyer in the criminal aspect of the law, and that's because I used to watch a show. It was a law show, and it was all actors. It was fake. But it looks so exciting. I was like, ooh, I want to be a lawyer. And so either that or I wanted to be a psychologist. I was not a forensic psychologist, but a psychologist because I wasn't sure. That's why I did forensic psychology, which ended up being extremely interesting.

Christopher [00:17:50]:

Oh, I can imagine.

Heather [00:17:52]:

Like you said, all these little pieces that you're weaving together as you've moved through your journey.

Aura Martinez [00:17:58]:

Yes. It's all connected.

Heather [00:18:01]:

What sort of advice would you have to somebody who's kind of feeling that initial change and, you know, really wanting to step into this new chapter? Like what? You know, you've already given some really great examples of how to step into your courage, but do you have any other pieces of wisdom that you found with your clients to help move them forward?

Aura Martinez [00:18:23]:

Don't resist. So many times, we resist. We resist change. We resist something that is inevitable. Don't resist it. Lean into it. That's your gold. That's your stepping stone.

Aura Martinez [00:18:39]:

Don't resist and lean in.

Christopher [00:18:41]:

Do you work with men as well?

Aura Martinez [00:18:42]:

Yes.

Christopher [00:18:43]:

Is there a difference in how they come to you? Do you see a difference in what they bring as their luggage to your door?

Aura Martinez [00:18:51]:

I would dare to say that the luggage is, quote-unquote, the same, only that men; I've noticed that for men, it's a little more challenging to really open up. Right. I think it's because men have been conditioned. No, you gotta be the strong one. Right? You cannot express emotion. And it's like. No, it's important because we're human beings at the end of the day. Men are more direct.

Aura Martinez [00:19:18]:

We [women] are more. I guess the only thing I can think of is we see a web. We go here and there because, for us, everything is connected. Everything in our life is connected. Right. But I think that some men don't realize how everything is connected, even for them.

Christopher [00:19:35]:

Yeah, there's some forensics to be done there.

Aura Martinez [00:19:39]:

I don't know about that now.

Heather [00:19:48]:

So we love to ask our guests if there's one of the names in our show that spoke to you or that you have a really strong response to, or a personal story of the Virgin, the Beauty, and the Bitch?

Aura Martinez [00:20:05]:

I think we're all of it. I think we're all of it, and it's important to embrace it. There's beauty in being the virgin, the innocent. Right. In being the beauty. Nature loves beauty and the bitch. Why not? We all have it. We need to embrace every aspect of ourselves.

Aura Martinez [00:20:24]:

So I love the name because I feel like it triggers different things for different people, and we need to embrace it all.

Christopher [00:20:31]:

Have you always had that open mind towards those words as far as how they apply to you in your life? Or have you changed as you've matured?

Aura Martinez [00:20:41]:

I can recall in my twenties, I've always been pretty open because I'm a big believer that we could learn. Excuse me, for my. For the, for the word. We can learn from the hoe. We could learn from everyone. From the nun, the person in the street.

Aura Martinez [00:21:00]:

I'm a big believer. We could learn from everyone. So perhaps I've always been like that but never really noticed it. I love learning from everyone. I think we can learn from every person.

Christopher [00:21:13]:

Are your friends all like you? Because you are very your sponge. However, when you squeeze, their wisdom comes out. Are you all your friends like this?

Aura Martinez [00:21:25]:

No, the ones that I'm close with. I would dare to say yes. Again, I think we learn from everyone. I am very mindful of who I'm friends with, I have to say. And that's because we literally do become the people that we surround ourselves with. I know we hear that over and over, but I don't think we realize to what degree we end up talking like them. We end up making the same amount of money as them. I mean, literally. 

Aura Martinez [00:22:01]:

So, I like to be very mindful of my conversations with people because I know that I'm very sensitive to energy, so I get affected by certain conversations. Not that I cannot handle it, but I don't like a lot of negativity. No, no, absolutely not.

Christopher [00:22:22]:

Do we control that? I mean, a lot of people say they're a magnet for people's issues and problems. Is that because we are expressing that, and that is why it comes to us?

Aura Martinez [00:22:36]:

I think we attract everything. What's important is what we allow. Not so much what we attract, right? Because I think that when we get so focused on what we are attracting, we can start, without realizing, creating beliefs that are not true about ourselves, and we can start taking certain things personally. So I think it's so important to have boundaries. It's so important for you to know what your limits are. I think you do. You do control the conversations that you have. Now, I'm gonna tell you this. I don't control what my coworkers talk about or anything like that, or how passengers are or anything like that.

Aura Martinez [00:23:13]:

But what I do have control over is how long am I gonna stay in that conversation. Am I gonna let how this person just spoke to me bother me so much? Right? Like those. I mean. I mean, we gotta say it, right? So. So those things we do have control over.

Christopher [00:23:33]:

Thank you for that. Thank you for that. I think it's very important that we do have control. A lot of people may believe they do not. However, like you say, if you have boundaries, then you do. I cannot imagine a time when you did not like yourself or found yourself less than amazing.

Aura Martinez [00:23:51]:

Oh, no, no, trust me. So I. Okay, so I'm gonna be very vulnerable here. So, my parents are from the Dominican Republic, and in many Latin American countries, anybody who has curly hair is considered bad hair. Right. And the damage that that does to little girls is unbelievable.

Aura Martinez [00:24:18]:

So, believe it or not, in my twenties, I would allow, like, I would date guys that were not good for me. What we allow is truly a reflection of what is going on within us, our relationship with ourselves. This is why the more we peel the layers, the more we see ourselves the way that we are designed to see ourselves. Not the way society tells you, not the way your parents tell you, not the way your culture tells you. No. What is true of you. That's what's really important. This is why inner work, personal development, and healing are so necessary so that you can know your identity.

Aura Martinez [00:25:03]:

Because when we do not know who we are at our core, that's when we allow things that we have no business allowing. So trust me, I've had my moments where in the past. Yeah. So, yeah.

Christopher [00:25:18]:

Thank you for that. Thank you.

Heather [00:25:19]:

We always appreciate it when people get vulnerable and allow others to see a piece of ourselves that can be a little harder to show but necessary to connect.

Christopher [00:25:33]:

And if someone wants to connect and work with you, how would you suggest they go about doing that?

Aura Martinez [00:25:38]:

So they can follow me online? Well, they could go to https://www.auraemartinez.com/. There they can sign up for the newsletters. They can find out the packages that I offer and the courses that I offer. They can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. I'm literally almost everywhere. Basically, find me by my name, Aura E. Martinez.

Christopher [00:26:09]:

Tremendous, it has been a ray of sunshine talking to you. It really has.

Aura Martinez [00:26:14]:

It's been beautiful being here. It's been beautiful.

Christopher [00:26:17]:

Thank you for your time and for, as you say, your vulnerability. We really appreciate getting to the core of who you are. Thank you.

Aura Martinez [00:26:27]:

Oh, thank you.

Heather [00:26:28]:

And thanks for presenting curiosity as part of the cure.

Aura Martinez [00:26:38]:

Never even looked at it that way. That cure is in the word curiosity, but it is. It is the cure.

Christopher [00:26:44]:

It's a more marketing fire for you.

Aura Martinez [00:26:47]:

Yes.

Heather [00:26:48]:

Thank you so much. And you have been listening to the.

Heather [00:26:51]:

Virgin, the Beauty, and the Bitch.

Christopher [00:26:54]:

Find us like us. Share us. Bring your friends. Come on back. To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us @virginbeautybitch.com. Like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And share us with people who are Defiantly Different, like you.

Until next time, thanks for listening.