Ep. 21 Taking Leaps, Fostering Community, and Savoring Distinctive Whites

Maria Mayes: [00:00:00] That's good. Welcome back Chakras and Chardonnay listeners. I'm so grateful to be back with you and I'm super excited to share my guest Tyler Skinner with you today. Thank you so much for being here, Tyler. 

Tyler Skinner: Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to 

Maria Mayes: this. Yeah, let's get into it. Can you share a little bit about your background and what you focus on right now 

Tyler Skinner: within your work?

Thank you. Yeah, this is definitely a transformation and I think we're going to get into this probably on the show. I can feel it. Um, I started out, I have an event background. That's where I kind of started out is non profit work, a lot of event planning, community building. That's my core is collaborations, community building connections.

Those are my core things, superpowers, whatever you want to call them. And then COVID happened. So, which I know everyone's probably making a collective. Exhale right now when they're hearing this and then COVID happened, I lost 90 percent of my business in a week and it was [00:01:00] devastating. So what I did.

After I cried and screamed and blamed and did all the things and everyone else around me was shifting and pivoting. And I went within and I said, you have to build it. You have to create what you wish existed. What's not in the world, what is missing, what's out there pay attention. And so women making waves was literally me standing on the edge of a trapeze swing.

I'll get into that later. And. I took a leap, literally, figuratively, emotionally, spiritually, all of it. I took a leap of faith and I said, go and build this, go and do it. Bring women together, gather, talk about it. And that's what we're doing. We started with highlighting women across various industries and atypical niches like cannabis and women in arts and entertainment, and then it became, that was all virtual and now we're hosting many retreats, full day retreats into next year, building out a digital platform and going abroad.

So. It's been three, [00:02:00] a three year, really, really big, wonderful, wild, crazy, challenging journey. And I'm here for all of it. So that's really me. I'm the founder of it. I'm really proud of it, of the community. That's, that's thriving. That's growing and thriving. And I'm here to really uplift women because I believe that women need to be supported and we all deserve to be I 

Maria Mayes: love that.

I love every part of that, especially just the fact that you leverage that opportunity, that choice point that COVID dropped in your lap to really, rather than turning outward, which a lot did, you tuned in and you tapped into your intuition and let that lead the way. So that's so exciting 

Tyler Skinner: to hear. Yeah, it made all the difference.

And, and that pause, that forced pause, which I needed it. Yeah. I needed the force. I wasn't going to stop. Yeah. I wasn't going to stop if I didn't get forced to stop. And that forced pause allowed me to do that. It gave me the space to say, okay, who are you? What do you want to do? What's important to you?

What [00:03:00] matters? And what does everyone else? I started listening also to other people around me, other women, especially we're going through very similar things. And I said, we could all do this together. We can get together and support each other. I'd love 

Maria Mayes: to dive into that a little bit more because it's really resonant because it was definitely a, a shift.

I mean, I wouldn't be here doing this today if it hadn't been for, um, you know, March 2020 and everything that occurred after. So when, when you're talking about women supporting women and these, these things that they were sharing to kind of push you on this journey, what were some of the commonalities that you see?

What. What is needed right now and how is that come to fruition in your event? 

Tyler Skinner: You know, what's funny about that Maria is it changes and that's something that I also learned in this process is that if you're if you're building community, you're working with humans with people and we're evolving. All the time.

That's what humans are meant to do. So it's always shifting and I think what was what was good for us then like in the very beginning is not the [00:04:00] same today. So what I what I feel like then was that it was the isolation. It was just connection. We just want to be with people. We want to be out there. We want to be able to talk and to purge and to share without being judged without people just want to be.

That was the main thing is come as you are. We're happy. You're here to show up and we'll take care of the rest. We know how to do the planning, the logistics, all the things very effortlessly. And we just want to provide a supportive space for you to just be take some time out for yourself. And now it's self care.

It really is about the self care and the going within the self awareness so that you can say. Well, who am I? What's, what's Tyler really about? What's Maria really about? What does she want? And that's what making waves is to us. It's really about what do you want and how can we support you in getting that?

So it really isn't a business thing. It's not a mom thing. It's not anything other than that is I want something more. I know there's more available. So it's really a big plays into a lot of abundance mindset. [00:05:00] For sure. 

Maria Mayes: I, you know, I love that. It's so resonant that, um, the self awareness is really. If I look at all these different, um, just everything that's occurred just in the last even few months within my life and what I've built within my businesses, what I've seen is that's kind of the two big outcomes with clients, whether it be they intentionally, they didn't go intentionally in and saying, I want to become more self aware or I want more self compassion.

They come in and they say, I want to move the needle from here to here in this part of my life. But two of the big outcomes is developing or cultivating those, I think their skills, self awareness and self compassion and their skills that aren't taught in school, unfortunately. So, I love that that is, uh, shining through in your work because I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it all over and I feel like once we have those, we can tap into anything.

Tyler Skinner: The possibilities are endless. Once we finally go, we have the answers. We know exactly who, what we're meant to do. I mean, a lot of this, even just what we've been talking about a little bit before we recorded the show is a lot of [00:06:00] this, these synchronicities, these things are available, we pay attention and we're just going, okay, I'm, I'm looking around, I'm feeling something.

I talked about this two years ago. I might've had this chance meeting with someone. It's no accident. It's all part of this. Path that you're on. And, and you know, what's hardest is people want instant gratification. You know, they want to just be, let's just work on this now and get done with it, get it over with.

It doesn't work like that. It's a practice. It's process. So for us, that's what it is, is be in a community where all along the way you can touch in, you can engage, you can go to many events. So you don't have to go to something like a Bali retreat for a week and spend a bunch of money and travel somewhere for, and then you come home.

And what's waiting for you? Everything's still there, right? How are you bringing Bali back home? That's kind of my thing. 

Maria Mayes: God, I love that because, um, so a couple of things came up for me. One is just having done a few big retreats in the last couple of years. Just, you know, it is a big push on the pocketbook, right?

[00:07:00] And, and you can completely detach yourself and be in that. moment in that retreat, but then when you come back to the world and the world hits, how are you keeping that? And I think, um, you know, the most recent retreat I went on was in, I was in Hawaii and it was through, um, Chopra Global. And it was, um, I got some additional meditation training from Deepak, et cetera.

And what I found there is I ended up taking my family with me and normally those I wouldn't, right. I would just be solo. So it became this big, big universal lesson on how not only when you go back home, right, do you have to assimilate and try to keep vibrating high, but it's when you go back to the hotel room and you got a hangry husband and you got, you know, kids that are, you know, wanting attention.

So I love that you have that awareness with it, because I think if there's. It really has made me think of how do we, how do we take whatever this is in the experience, the yoga class, the [00:08:00] course, the session, the meditation, whatever it is, in that moment of really fully being rather than doing, how do we bring that beingness into our relationships, into how we walk into the grocery store, into everything, 

Tyler Skinner: so.

Yep. And that's continual for us. So I, I feel like there's opportunities right in your backyard. And I tell this often, like we live in Pismo beach, so we're, that's where we're based in California and we're next to the beach and we can have this opportunity to have the ocean, right. Which is very powerful and healing in its own way.

But then you go somewhere else and there's, there's lakes and rivers and mountains and there's deserts and there's all these things. All of it has something right in your backyard that is available to you. That you can do and I think that people forget that it doesn't necessarily mean you have to travel to some special place to have that healing happen.

And so that's what really how it started for us was literally 10 women on a beach gathered and we just said, we don't even know what's going to happen. We got some Trader Joe's [00:09:00] flowers. And we just put out a beautiful spread of food and we're like, let's just, we put a little table with some pillows down and let everybody just be.

And when I saw that, I went, whoa, that's powerful. This is what for centuries and millennia women have been doing is getting together and connecting this way. And what I saw was a lot of everything came out in those few hours. It was, It was crying. It was love. It was passion. It was purpose. It was, it was sadness.

It was just grief. All of it was in that space. And I went, holy moly, what do we have here? This is, this is big. This is bigger than the central coast. It's bigger than us. And that's what I knew in that moment that, okay, I'm dedicated to something bigger than me and I don't know what that totally looks like.

I'll just be honest. I think that people on here have to hear that too, right? Is that we don't have it all, all figured out and we're not supposed to. We're not supposed to. It's a journey, right? 

Maria Mayes: It's a 

Tyler Skinner: continual evolution. Yeah. It's an [00:10:00] evolution and it's fun when we allow it to be. Yes. That's it. If we don't and we want to control everything because I've been there to trust me.

I, I'm a, I'm a recovering people pleaser perfectionist, all the things. And I've, I am definitely want it to be perfect. And I want everyone to like, love it. And, and sometimes I had to let go of that. I had to say, okay, it's okay that only five women showed up to this. That was those five women that were meant to be so liberating when you let go, liberating, 

Maria Mayes: just It's just all of a sudden this liberation of just all those years of trying to, to do the right thing in the right way for the right people at the right time and realizing that all that energy could have been directed back at just nurturing self and then really blossoming.

I love it. 

Tyler Skinner: Exactly. It's right there. It's right there for us. And we, we're a mirror for each other. We're a reflection of what's going on. We listen to other women. We learn from each other. And the thing I [00:11:00] think that I'm most proud of with this too, is that we are, we are such a diverse group. And that was intentional.

When I started talking to people about creating this space, they were like, Well, what's your target market and what's your avatar and what's your this? And I said, uh, all women, that's my, I mean, it's just for, I don't care if you're 18 or 88, like you belong here. And that was where I've had women email me and say, I'm an empty nester.

I'm 55. I'm divorced. I'm this, I'm that, do I belong? Can I come to this event? And my answer is the same across the board. Absolutely. You should be there. You should come. And when they're there, they're welcomed. They're a part of it. And we all, they all contribute something. So that's, that's the magic for me.

I love that. 

Maria Mayes: So let's circle back to the swing. 

Tyler Skinner: Okay, the trapeze. I knew that was coming. Yeah, the trapeze. So Circus Vargas during COVID could obviously clearly not do Circus Vargas. There was not an [00:12:00] availability to have a circus. So they were genius. They at the Madonna Inn, which is famous here in San Luis Obispo, right off Highway 101, they put up a trapeze rig.

Everyone, people see it, right? A lot of people knew what I'm talking about. And I, they put up this trapeze rake and I swear, I literally was driving down the freeway with my husband, kids in the car. I pulled, I go pull in the parking lot where I'm going to do. They're looking at me like, what are you doing?

Where are you going? What's happening? I said, I need to get, I need to get up there. I need to get on that. I just, what was happening was I felt. I wouldn't say that I felt just I needed to shake things up. That's what I think was I was feeling is it was too. I was uncomfortable. There was so much going on and I just, it was overwhelming with everything happening, homeschooling on zoom, all of it.

And I said, I got to go. I got up there onto the rig and I just signed up. I got up there. And what happened was climbing up. I'm terrified of heights. That's another thing I'll mention. I got up there and I, you get in this rig and if no one's ever done this, [00:13:00] you have to strap in and you. uncomfortably and awkwardly lean out over the edge and have to grab this handle, but your body is is forward.

So you're looking down at everything while you're doing that. You're not standing on the edge and then you swing. You have to be out over it. And someone's holding your harness in the back to keep you ready to go. And I, I knew everything. I saw the net, I saw the harness. I knew it was safe. I knew all those things logically, but my heart was pounding.

Like I'm not, this is not happening. I can't do this. And the man said to me later, he goes, the people that step to the edge, I know they're going to do it. The people that don't are going to walk back down, climb back down that ladder and be done. They can't handle it. So by virtue of me just taking that one step and looking down and facing that part of it, I was able to let go and I have a video of it on my Instagram.

I did swing once, swing twice, I fell, I did try to flip over, I didn't make it. Third time I [00:14:00] was caught midair, flipped upside down and was caught by someone else. I fully completed it. Third try. And when I mean everything rushing through my body after that, I did a whole video, download all these things of how I was feeling and a million things happened for me after that it opened up everything like, okay, if you can do this, you can do everything.

You can start this community, you can build this stuff, you can really make this happen and then share with other women how to do this too. And yes, I'm also a mom. Yes, I'm a business owner. I'm a partner. I'm all these things. I wear a thousand hats. I'm on boards of, you know, nonprofits, all this stuff, but it doesn't mean that I'm just one thing.

And I just have to do this one thing. I can really make this happen for myself. And that was really, that was everything that was the shift. And now I'm, we're doing adventures for women. A lot of what we do is the retreats, but there's a grounding intention piece. They're called pause and play. So the [00:15:00] pause is that.

Let's get grounded. Let's get connected. Let's take the space and the time and the plays because we want to have fun. We can go zip lining. We can go out paddle boarding together. We can go climb up a mountain together. We can go have a good time, horseback riding, whatever it is. We come up with all kinds of things to go adventure.

And it's been super rewarding. I'm, I'm not, I can't say that I regret any minute of that. So a lot of that, that came from the trapeze. That's where it all came from. And I love, 

Maria Mayes: you know, that whole sense of adventure and play, you know, it really ties into like what the intention is behind Chakras and Chardonnay to just not take ourselves too seriously, not get caught up on the, Oh, is that the record?

pronunciation of chakras. No, it's actually not. I don't pronounce it the way it, it really is intended to be in Sanskrit. You know, it's kind of a play on everything, but, but the, the intention, the purity of the intention and wanting to share these wisdom teachings and wanting to [00:16:00] keep things light and fun because we're meant to have fun and joy in life.

And I love it. I, I, um, And I'm with you in terms of the, these experiences outdoors. I mean, hiking really helped me and exploring nature. Had I not, if I wouldn't be on an acre here and have a backyard with tons of exploration, I would have had a very different experience in the initial shutdown because I'm so So one that needs to be outdoors.

So I love that you're doing experiences. And so I want to learn a little bit more about that and how people can get ahold of you. But before that, can you, can you offer for the women that are listening, which I'm sure there's quite a few right now. That are something just hit for them. They're like, yeah, yeah, I need that.

What's something that they could do in addition to sharing in a moment, how they can get ahold of you and get involved in the organization and the services you offer, what's something they can do today to shift. 

Tyler Skinner: I'm going to have to [00:17:00] say it. And then we're going to go back to the trapeze thing. I'm going to have to say, take that step, whatever that is.

That step to the edge is everything and your edge can mean a lot of different things. So I'm not saying get on a trapeze and do that. I'm not saying jump off a cliff or skydive. What I'm saying is stepping to the edge is and not having it perfect. Just do it. I started a podcast. Like you're saying, I started a podcast with a free service and a microphone I bought on Amazon.

You know, I, I started doing lives when I was terrified of going live on Instagram. I say, start just doing it, even though you don't have it figured out, go ahead and start. And then allow yourself to figure out who the people are, find the resources, the people, everyone will start coming in together and start aligning because you said yes to yourself.

I love it. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. 

Maria Mayes: So step to the edge without needing to control its perfection. I love the 

Tyler Skinner: outcome. Yeah. the outcome. For [00:18:00] sure. 

Maria Mayes: So how can people get ahold of you and do you have any retreats coming up or? 

Tyler Skinner: Oh yeah, we've got a lot of things coming up. We have our big, I'll, I'll say that the best way to get ahold of us is we play on Instagram quite often.

That's our space. We love, we started there even without a website. There's another way to tell you. We started on Instagram doing all of our events through Instagram, so you can do that too without a website. We started there and it's at women. making. waves. to find us there. And I check the DMs often. It is me.

Yes. Everyone's like, whoa, it's me answering. It's me looking. It's me carrying me there. And I think also our website, we do have a website now, which is women making waves. com. And that'll have all the events coming up. That'll have all the information on a membership, anything else you're looking for.

There's various ways to get involved in our community. So people don't have to be a member to come to our events. I want to be super clear about that. They can buy a ticket and show up because we want people to really want to be here. If they want to be a member, [00:19:00] it's because they say, okay, I want to be part of this bigger vision moving forward and how this is expanding and growing.

And if they just want to come and hang out and try it out or be part of it, we have lots of free events and we have ticketed events. So there's lots of opportunities to connect. And then I think a big thing I want to talk about is our 11, 11 event, which I'm wearing my little necklace right now that my.

social media lady gave me from mantra band. They're one of our sponsors. Um, 11, 11 is happening here in Paso Robles and it is going to be basically mishaps, magic and mayhem the experience. So that's our podcast and we're turning it into an experience with storytelling, workshopping. It's a full day retreat.

So you'll information will be out on that very shortly. And we would love for people to come to that and experience that they're willing to travel or hang out. There's opportunities to stay overnight. So just let us know. 

Maria Mayes: I love it. And for those local and the central Valley, the shortest drive, two and a half hours, if that, and I think we are going to be talking about doing [00:20:00] something here, local too, so I can't wait.

I see a lot in our future. So let's pivot this conversation into one about wine. Tell me, Tyler, do you have any type of wine you love to mindfully 

Tyler Skinner: enjoy? I do. I actually have several, but I'm, I'm always, are you talking about a varietal or do you want a specific winery? 

Maria Mayes: Varietals, fine. Whatever you 

Tyler Skinner: want.

Okay. A varietal. I mean, I'm a white girl, so I do love my, I do love the unique varietal. So I'm always looking for a good Verdello or something like that. Those are my kind of go to's when I'm, when I'm drinking wine, but I have to say, I do want to give a plug to my girl, Nancy Uyoha who just opened up Uyoha and that's in Paso.

She Tyler, what was her name again? Nancy? Nancy Ulloa. It's U L L O A. Okay. And she is the first Latina winemaker and she opened up her winery. And I'm going up there tonight to an event, but I wanted to, um, give a shout out to her because she's really, really doing the intention setting, the crystals, the whole thing.

And the wine and the [00:21:00] woo is what I like to call it. She's marrying all of that. Mindfulness intention setting everything about how our lunar calendar is everything that's going on with these wine with her winemaking practices. So it's very special very unique so anything she's got and her wines delicious, let's be real, because it's made with this intention, I can taste it I can feel it so anything that she's got, I highly recommend.

I love it. I 

Maria Mayes: definitely will have to check out the wine and the woo. You're spooking my language here. So i'm so excited to learn more about that and to continue connecting with you maybe plan an event here locally So we have 

Tyler Skinner: to and maria, thank you for doing this because honestly we talked about this a little bit But i'll just reinforce how I feel about this is it's so hard Especially for women to say, Oh, I'm in a wellness space or a health space and then the wine and I really, really, really want to say that that's, it's not a, and if, and or it's not a choice, they can be together.

And I really love that you're bringing that, you know, what that can be [00:22:00] your choice. It can be your choice, not to drink or not to engage, but it can be an, and, and they can go together and you still can be working on healing and still be working on your process and your growth and also enjoy wine. It's 

Maria Mayes: all comes down to the intention, right?

And the presence that you have with it. 

Tyler Skinner: I love 

Maria Mayes: it. Oh, I love it. Thank you so much, Tyler. I'm just so grateful for sharing that wisdom. So you heard her. Let's step to the, step to the edge, take the first step and, uh, and check out all the details will be in the show notes. So thanks much