January 26, 2024 • 53 mins
Hi everyone! It’s been a *minute* – 6 months to be exact since my last episode.
I’m popping on today to share with you:
- My future on social media
- What I’ve been up to professionally, personally, spiritually
- Why my intended 3-month break went a lot longer than expected
- The impact of 6 months without using ANY social media
- Being okay with being misunderstood
- My plans for the future :)
- Motherhood: health advocacy, parenting style shifts
- My NEW approach to sharing my daughter and family online
- The 2024 version of me you can expect
I’ll also be answering questions submitted in response to my recent newsletter on Substack, which is the the platform I plan on using the most for now.
Join my Substack family to keep in touch and be the first to know about my offerings including my upcoming retreat!!
https://lisahayim.substack.com/
Support Shanna and Levi HERE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No, You'll be ay even when times gethard and you
feel you're in the c See just how beautiful life
can be. When you saften your heart, you can finally
(00:23):
start to live your tu seious life.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello everyone, welcome back to The Truthiest Life. It's your host,
Lisa Haim. You may or may not remember me because
it has been six months since my last episode, and
it's been about six months same amount of time since
I have used social media at all, both for professional
and personal use. Have not clicked any of those trapping
(00:56):
icons such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, none of it.
Six freaking months my longest break yet, and this is
not necessarily my comeback podcast, but I do want to
come to the surface for this moment to share a
bit about where I've been. I feel that there's so
(01:19):
much that I want to share that I don't want
to lose on this journey, But I don't want to
send the wrong message that I'm fully back and I'm
energized and I know exactly where I'm going. Instead, I
want to be really honest that there's still a lot
of question marks for me, and it seems that the
more I hang out in this let's call it lost
(01:41):
phase of I don't know, the more I realize that
I do know, and lost and found are kind of
losing their meaning for me where they don't have the
same charge. Not knowing exactly what's going on in my
life professionally and personally in a lot of ways to
doesn't feel as jarring. Six months in. There have certainly
(02:03):
been moments where it has, but the more I actually
settled and softened into those moments, the more I was like, Wow,
I'm so glad that I kept going with this because
I kept unlocking so much really important, valuable information about
myself that eventually will inform how I show up, if
(02:24):
I show up, the way that I show up, the
amount that I show up, who shows up with me,
And these are really important changes. As I've been on
social media for I don't know, probably over a decade,
and having this kind of time out to pause on
the side of the mountain and decide which way I
want to go is really necessary for my mental health
(02:47):
and in order to sustain whatever comes next and have
it come from a place of truth versus fear. So,
first of all, if you are a truthist life listener,
I just want to say thank you, And if you've
been following me on social med or have worked with
me in the past, I also want to say thank you.
I know I don't owe anybody an explanation, but the
same time, I have shared a lot of my life
(03:08):
with you over the past decade, and I said I
was going to come back after three months, and then
another three months went by and I didn't. That feels
a tad unfair in the sense that I know, again
I don't owe anything to anybody, But at the same time,
I'm really really thankful for your interest in my process.
(03:30):
I guess that's really what I really want to say here.
So a lot has really, you know, changed in my life.
Just upfront, for those of you that are avid Truthiest
Life listeners, I want to be clear that for now
I'm using it to pop in and those will mostly
be solo episodes and we are not going back to
regular new episodes every Friday as previously it has been done.
(03:53):
Not to say that I won't be back there, but
as of right now, I'm still in the how do
I want to use my voice and I want to
get complete clarity on that before I re emerge in
this space. So I just want to mention that out
the door. I also want to share that this is
not my first re emergence back to my audience. I
(04:15):
have used my substack, which is my newsletter, a couple
of times over the last month, and it felt really
good to connect back with you all and my community,
and it felt really good to do so in that way,
in the way that does not have an algorithm. It's
direct me to you. There's no games involved, there's no
(04:37):
you know, big businesses involved. And what I loved most
was the responses I heard immediately back from lots of
you whose names I've interacted with over the years, old friends,
and I got that like excitement again of yes, this
is why I used to do it, because of the
beautiful connections and mirrors that we hold up to each other,
(04:58):
and hugs that we kind of give each other, and
the sameness that we learn that we find through the
sharing from the heart, even if we are really really different.
And a lot of the emails that people do write
me are always like our lives are nothing alike, but
I relate to you in this way, and I think
those are kind of like the most beautiful things. I'm
(05:18):
not meant to be relatable to every single person because
I am me. You're not meant to be relatable to
every single person because you are you. But to be
able to find those points of connectedness and help ourselves
feel more whole and less alone is what keeps me
in this game to begin with. So I recently sent
out an email to It was my first email to
(05:40):
my substack community, and the title of this email was
issue ever coming Back, and I gave a little insight
as to where I'm going, what has been coming up
for me, and where I am headed for twenty twenty four,
or where I think I'm headed, because one thing I've
learned over the last cup of years, or particularly the
(06:02):
last year, is that you never really know. But if
you are interested in staying up to date in a
way that feels really good for me, my substack is
going to be the best way, and those people will
also get first access to learning about offerings that I have,
such as a twenty twenty four metreat, the retreat that
I hosted last year called the Metreat, we are doing
(06:24):
it again, So you're going to want to get on
that email. But anyway, this email was where I kind
of gave a little bit of the inside scoop as
to how I fell off of the earth these last
six months. And I think that a lot of people
think that being off social media is like, wow, you
must feel so good, And while yes, there is a
(06:47):
lot of that, there was also a really really, really
really really big discomfort that came from pausing and being
with self. Even as somebody that is you know, area
a tuned to the ways that I distract and numb,
I am still not able to see in the moment
(07:07):
how much of a filler Checking social media was refreshing, posting,
the highs of serotonin even that you get when you
do post and people clap, and all of that. So anyway,
what I said in this email, essentially in case you
missed it, is that as soon as I went offline,
I really realized how burnt out I was on all fronts,
(07:29):
not just the work front, but the nervous system front,
and with everything that went on last year, I just
was in need of much more than a social media detox.
What I really needed was a full on pull the plug,
don't even attempt to reboot situation. I also shared in
this email that a lot of privilege and privileged guilt
(07:49):
came with this. But one thing that is really important
to me is that I reduce the amount of harm
that I call. I don't believe that we're capable of
not causing harm, period, But the more aware of ourselves
we are, and the more we spend time with that,
(08:10):
sitting with that, and learning about other experiences and people
and all of that, the better chances we have of
reducing our harm. And it really, really really took recognizing
that I'm not sitting from my most dirty place, and
therefore just because I have a platform and a business
does not mean that I should keep going. In fact,
(08:32):
I have a responsibility to, like tortoise up, go back
into my shell and make sure that my words have meaning.
I don't believe in speaking without having a purpose, and
although that hurts my business in seasons like this, it
is also what is the fire that lights me up
to speak about topics when they are feeling like they
(08:53):
can't even stay in my body anymore. So one thing
about me that you should all know is that I
don't ever want to talk or create content just for
the sake of it. I do believe in using my voice,
but there are also seasons where not talking is also
the ultimate power move. I wrote that silence is a
radical act of self care, but unlike a bubble bath,
(09:13):
it comes with far more resistance inner dialogue. It gets
so loud when we get actually quiet discomfort and honest
self reflection. And as soon as I shut that door
to a lot of the outside world, I realize that
I'm going to be here for a while pauses in life.
This whole original email was about the pause. They're absolutely critical,
(09:37):
they're not handed out, and they're also very emotionally complicated.
This summer really ripped my heart open and I allowed
for that to be and I felt so grateful that
I had this space to let myself really fall apart
and feel what I was feeling, and go really deep
in therapy to figure out why, who, what when, and
(09:57):
really gain a deeper knowledge of my myself. It's funny
because this podcast is called the Truthiest Life, right, and
you think I'm living my truthiest life, and even the
most authentic people out there, right, there's always more learning
to do about ourselves. So I guess it should really
be called a quest to live our most truthiest lives. Anyway,
(10:18):
the whole thing that I learned is that I have
really changed my definition and also my desire for success
as I knew it, because success in our world, our society,
often means overriding the parts of myself that I got
to examine and see. I know that the big question
(10:42):
that people want to hear from me is if I'm
coming back to social media. And the more time I
spend on here, the more people are like, Okay, seriously,
are you ever coming back? Or I have friends say
that other friends are asking them like where is Lisa Haim?
And it's kind of funny because I think that people
are asking me not to rush me or confuse me,
(11:05):
because sometimes the question does jostle me because I forget
that I'm not on social media and all of a
sudden I have to answer that question and I don't
have it. But I think that it really comes from
everybody else's desire to have a life without social media.
And it's kind of funny because this is all a
choice to use it, and yet we are acting like
(11:25):
we are shackled by it. And I get that, like
a lot of news and you know, understanding politics is
now coming through that funnel. In also a much more
digestible way. And there are also many positives to social
media that is not what I'm saying out here. We
don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
But there is also a life without social media where
(11:48):
I do, say, up to date on current events, but
I'm not inundated with it in the same way that
I was. And the funny thing about being inundated is
perhaps we don't realize that we are inundated or drowning
as it's happening. But a good look back into the
last couple of years of my life, and oh my gosh,
(12:08):
did the emotions swell and swell and swell and stay
with me and had no reprieve And it really sucks
you in. And I witness it in my own home
with Evan, my partner, who is on social media the
way his brain has become by way of things going
on in the world. It's important again to like know
and stay connected and be heartfelt and passionate about it
(12:32):
and even loose sleep over the terrible things going on.
But there also comes a small part where you got
to take a step back and even realize the exact
information you're being fed is still just a portion of
the story. Okay, I do realize that I am going
off on some tangents and talking about some things unplanned
during this episode, and I'm giving myself the freedom to
(12:53):
do so because if you read my recent newsletter, it
was all about urgency and it's one of the major
things that I'm working on with myself. Our culture is
really has some built in urgency built into everything that
we do, and me specifically my family systems. I have
always lived with urgency pushing me forward, and that is
(13:15):
not really living, and it ramps up my nervous sism,
It quickens my breath, it steals joy, and it makes
me a less productive and less enjoyable person to be around.
So for the sake of this episode and my life,
by the way, I'm really working on not letting urgency
creep up and destroy the smooth path that I'm walking.
(13:39):
You know, having a toddler is one of the quickest
ways to really have opportunity to see all the ways
that you're creating urgency. You try to rush a toddler
and it's pretty much impossible, but it's very easy to
catch myself when I notice myself saying, Okay, we're just
going to go do this and quickly, quickly, quickly right,
and all of that just makes things it's more complicated
(14:02):
this podcast specifically as well. I reflect back and I
realize that I also have put urgency and time limits
on how long I'm allowed to talk, because how long
do people have? So for the sake of me leaning
into the things that I've been working on for this episode,
I'm giving myself the freedoms to wiggle and move and
(14:23):
flow with the conversation as it's coming through me and
allow the podcast to kind of dictate where we go
rather than me dictate where we're going to go. So
if I start to meander and you're like, where's she going,
I just ask you to bear with me, grab a
cup of tea, come back, do whatever you got to do,
because we're going in all the directions and I hope
(14:43):
you're going to come with Okay, So going back to
my social media break, It's true I am not up
to date on most pop culture references. I don't know
what's trending on Amazon. I don't have access to a
lot of influencer discount codes. But my life is very, very,
very full. So when it comes to the question of
will I come back to social media. I can't answer
(15:06):
that right now. What I do know is that I'll
be back in work and of service again. What that
looks like, when exactly it is, and how it includes
social media as I know it are still big questions
that I continue to resist the urge to feel like
I have to answer again. I really want to clarify
(15:29):
that social media isn't the enemy. It played a critical
role in so much of my difficult parts of twenty
twenty three, and also the probably most most powerful workshaping
thing that I did, which was hosting the Metreat in Guatemala.
And on that note, I'm very excited to share that
the second ever met Treat will be happening in April
(15:50):
of this year. It will be actually a little bit different.
It will be Camp met Treat, and those details will
be coming live first and foremost too my News life
slash Substack community, So if you're interested, make sure you're
on that list. We do have limited spaces by nature
of how many beds, and the experience is going to
be insane. I'm so excited, and it feels so good
(16:13):
to be working from a place of doing something that
I love rather than doing things that are absolutely obligatory,
all right, zooming back out for a minute. There was
a quote I read recently from Emma Watson, the actress
(16:34):
who stepped back from acting the last few years, and
she said, I'm so glad that I allowed for things
to be messy for a minute, and I really allowed
myself to not know what's next, because the knowing that
I've come to, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
And this quote, it feels like an oxygen mask for me.
I don't know about you, but when I read it,
(16:55):
it felt like again a permission slip to not only
be afraid to zoom out, but to know that we
really have to. And I want to share I guess
a little bit more about where last year took me
and how I kind of ended up in this very
fried state. So the last year, in case you're you're
(17:15):
new here or you forget, I went through in the
course of five or six months, and ectopic pregnancy very quickly.
That got kind of covered up by my daughter's first
hospitalization and then a few months later the second hospitalization,
And I think like those trio of events really really
really put me in a different state of being. It
(17:38):
wasn't just a state of mind, it was a state
of nervous system. It created a gripping in my life.
It created fear, It created me that was always scanning
for danger. Back in June, I went to a work
event with Evan, my husband, and I was seeing people
for that I hadn't seen in a while, and I
was giving them hugs and I realized as I went
(18:00):
to give them a hug and a kiss, I would
feel their temples, to feel if they had temperature or not.
And it was in that moment that I realized, like,
how heightened my senses are at all time to be
on the lookout for danger. And that's not nothing, that's
not like a regular way to be. But it was
my first sign of really realizing that despite being out
(18:23):
of the danger zone for the time being, I might
as well just as well be in it because I'm
acting as if And I don't know if you've had
any sort of experiences like that before, but my light
bulb really went off that I am living in a
different state of mind and a different body and a
different nervous system. And it took me by surprise, as
(18:43):
if you know, of course, I knew those events were stressful,
but I didn't realize how they had integrated into my
biologic protective mechanism to the point where I wasn't even
using that radar appropriately. Right, meant to just find out
if my daughter has a fever every doctor, and that
I was hugging at this doctor event that I was at.
(19:05):
But the hospital stays really did take a lot out
of me. I think one of the hardest parts of
motherhood that is not spoken about, not to take a
pivot for the dark right here, is that even outside
of her hospitalizations, from the second she was born, you
are face to face with mortality in ways that you
(19:28):
otherwise or for myself, I should say have a much
better lid on for my twenties and early thirties before
pregnancy and having a baby. Obviously we know that the
death it can happen, but something really ramps up when
you become a mother where you start thinking about your
own or your child and you try and tuck it away,
(19:49):
and it's a really big part of the postpartum era.
Even biologically, it's meant to be there so that we
can have a heightened sense of awareness to protect our children.
It's very primal and biological and beautiful, and it kind
of starts to fade as the child gets older and they,
you know, don't need us as much for as many things.
(20:09):
But if you have a child that is very sick
and doctors don't have answers and you see them in
so much pain, it really digs that up in a
way that you might as well be, you know, cutting
out an organ without anesthesia. And that's really the level
of pain that we went through this year. I know
(20:30):
that I have been vague regarding Solely's health, and I
also know a big question I get is how is
Solely's health? So it's such a beautiful thing that that
is the first question that I get that so many
of you care about my most precious and I want
to say that she's doing really, really well right now.
We have not had another hospitalization. And I also want
(20:50):
to share that I have not shared details of everything
because I'm really learning that I don't know what she
will want to have shared, and she is her own
person and therefore telling her story, although there are parts
of it that are really important and have awoken parts
of me that I'm so passionate about. When it comes
(21:11):
to child advocacy, and all the work and alert and
vigilant that that part takes. I also really have come
in the last six months to value and respect her
as an individual. And it's not because she's older, but
it is because I've really scaled it back and started
(21:32):
to explore parenting styles, and with that has come so
much more understanding that they're always whole people. And I
know you're probably thinking, of course, a baby's a real person,
but most of society doesn't really treat babies like people.
We kind of talk around them, we don't talk to them,
we don't tell them what's going to happen, you know,
we think just because they can't talk, that they don't know.
(21:54):
And I have really drastically changed my approach to parenting, which,
by the way, made parenting so much more enjoyable. What
I'm gonna say, easier because I do have a toddler
and I don't remember the last time I got seven
hours of consecutive sleep, But I do want to share
that a lot has kind of shifted in that. And
(22:14):
I originally did check in with myself when I had
solely about like, do I want to share her with
the internet, and I just felt such a beam of
light that she had to give to the world, that
I move forward with that, taking it back a step now,
I'm kind of want to make sure that everything I
do does feel not just right to me, but right
to her. So I'm learning to dance that dance, so
(22:36):
pardon my vagueness, And of course I want to be
of help to anybody that has ever been in a
similar situation. But I also don't want to put everything
of hers out on display, and I also don't want
to put, by the way, everything of mine out on
display anymore. One of the beautiful things that this time
offline has really showed me is that having things that
(22:57):
are sacred to myself, whether they are thoughts, pictures, memories, stories,
is really important. And I don't think I've ever really
been somebody that like laid it all out, but the
things that have become sacred to me have really become illuminated.
My relationship, my marriage is really, really, really important to me.
And Evan and I don't get a lot of time
(23:20):
together with his work and his travel and the phone.
I have come to even more see how interruptive it is.
And even if it's all let me just take this
quick picture or let me do this. It changes the presence.
It's like having a third person there, And to be
quite honest, I can't afford that in my marriage right
now because we don't get a lot of time for
(23:40):
present and deep connection, and anything that slices through that,
even if it's a papercut, it bleeds. It makes us bleed.
So getting really clear on what matters and what I
need to protect and keep sacred is something that I'm
really happy I got to kind of figure out, because
if I kept going right, I wouldn't have had this
(24:01):
check in, and then I wouldn't know it's important, and
I wouldn't know why I'm bleeding out energy, and then
I wouldn't know why my relationship feels like this, or
why I feel anxious at night or anything like that.
So I feel like the best way to describe what's
happening to me it's gonna sound funny, is that I'm
like maturing. You know, so much of my life on
(24:22):
social media has been like being the silly, loud, funny person,
and I am always gonna be silly. And if we
ever get to meet in first and you will certainly
see my silly, quirky, fun dancing moments. I mean last
night in nice Silly and I were doing the macarena
in her room. But there's also a more serious tone
to me that feels appropriate to use on the internet.
(24:46):
I don't know if I'm that same girl I was
ten plus years ago when I entered the chat, and
I'm glad that I'm not. I'm sad in a way too,
because it's not that I'm not fun, but there was
something kind of nice about how naive in moments she
was that I no longer carry because there is more
wisdom and experience in my life anyway. One of the
(25:10):
reasons that I really wanted to take this break is
because I needed space in my life and I needed
to really connect with the good. Tyer Brock says that
we need I think it's thirty seconds to connect with
the joy in our lives for it to steep in
and get those feel good chemicals. And when I am working,
I'm often in rush mode, whether I have to record
(25:30):
the podcast, do this, do that, do that, and so
having permission to get stuck in a what do you
call the contact nap with slowly or do all these
different things was really really really good for me and
really see that time can move slowly. I have a
note in my phone from August. I don't remember writing it,
(25:52):
but that's why notes are good that says time can
move really slowly when you're present. And this summer specifically,
because the break was only to be three months, I
was on a quest to see, how can I add
spaciousness in my life? How can I not live with
such vigilance. I didn't expect to learn everything that I
learned at all. I just wanted to have a touch
more ease and spaciousness in my life and remove all
(26:14):
the stimulants and the to do lists and all of that.
But what ended up happening is that summer was really
my favorite season, long and drawn out in the best
way possible. And it was also very hard emotionally right,
like I shared how hard it was in the beginning
of this, But it was really cool to see how
presence can have an effect on time. Time is something
(26:37):
that I'm always thinking about because it's like fixed, right,
and yet sometimes time goes fast, and time sometimes time
goes slow, and sometimes we want time to go fast
and sometimes we want time to go slow. But it's
always just being time. It doesn't change at all. But
I feel like I extended and expanded the corners and
the boundaries of summer with this presence that I gave
(26:59):
to myself, my daughter, and my home. One of the
things that I've really come to realize is that I believe,
I hope this isn't taken wrong, that I can't do
it all as a mom and a woman. I know
there are some people that can wear like eight hundred hats,
but I can't do it all and do it well.
(27:19):
So for this time being, I guess I kind of chose,
without even exactly realizing that I chose to be mom,
and a mom that's on her phone a lot less too,
by the way, and a mom that gives presents again privilege.
I hear it, I see it. It makes me feel
very uncomfortable because I know that not everybody gets to
experience this. But one thing about me is that I
(27:45):
have always loved children, and I dreamed of having a
family with young kids. Babies very hard. Toddler's my experience
was a little bit older than with Soley, who was
about two and a half. Now, By the way, I
was always I love being around children. They're fun, they
add the spaciousness. They disrupt that rigidity of time. And
(28:05):
one of the things I've really basked in is realizing that,
don't get me wrong, these are really hard days and nights.
Like I said, we're not sleeping still two and a
half years later, and she has meltdowns over seemingly quote
unquote nothing, but these are like the best days of
my life, having a toddler running with her little footsteps
(28:28):
all over the house. Words that she says that are
just so funny and crack us up, her storytelling her
being up at three in the morning and singing Happy Birthday,
like I don't know what world and vortex I've been
sucked into, But as hard as it is, I really
really really love it, and I'm so grateful to be
able to bask in it a bit. I think that
(28:49):
the hardness of raising children, Granted I have one. I
know a lot of people have more, and I can
only imagine how difficult this is, but I have felt
such a luxury and how exhausting it is, and then
also realizing like this is a season and it's not
always going to be like this, and my house is
so full and there's there's so much excitement and loudness
(29:12):
and stuff everywhere, and I just let it be. It
feels amazing, and I try my hardest to also not
grip onto it so tightly, because gripping can create attachment
that doesn't allow you to be present. So it's this
delicate dance of how can I be with this moment
(29:33):
without trying to hold on so tightly to it so
that I can get the feel good effects, knowing that
it won't always be this simple for lack of a
better word. So, yeah, a lot has been happening with me.
What am I up to this year? Work wise? There
(29:53):
are a couple things in the works. I actually this
past weekend just finished another yoga training that as me
feeling very excited to maybe start teaching. But the only
thing concrete and major in the works is planning the
next ME Treat, which is Can't Me Treat in April
in the Jungle of Mexico. The official details. I don't
(30:14):
think we'll be out when this podcast comes out, but
it will be depending on when you listen to it
over at the Me Treat by Lisa dot Com or
Like I've said, the best way to stay up to
date is to be on my newsletter. Who's going to
get first DIBs on applying, But I'm very excited about it.
Tracy and I my co host. She was also the
(30:35):
lead yoga teacher on the last one. She's an incredible
person in my life that has transformed everything about the
way I practice yoga, the way I think, the way
I act, the way I mother. She's just God bless Tracy.
Tracy and I went to Mexico for twenty hours on Sunday.
That was all we could squeeze in with our mother
(30:56):
responsibilities to do a site visit. So a site visit
is where we make sure that the location that we've
been looking at is as good as it appears online,
and we go through everything top to bottom so that
we can create a great event. Site visits are absolutely
necessary for me. I take my role as host and
bringing people on a journey very very very seriously. Anyway,
(31:17):
we were so wowed by this experience that the flight
home we were just like pouring out all of the
content that is going to flow and work so well
with the Mayan sacred lands and the power of the
property that we've chosen. I'm excited to share more, but
I'll hold off For now, all I will say is
that we have the entire property to ourselves and our
(31:40):
own private sinote. And if you don't know what a
sinote is, google ce nte to be absolutely wowed. It's
going to be, I think, one of my most proud
productions if we pull off all that is coming to
our imagination and manifest the most incredible transformative retreat that
(32:02):
will bring you home to your truthy you self. So
I wanted to read a few of the replies that
I got to the first newsletter that I sent out
in early winter. So I wanted to read a few
of the replies that I got to the first newsletter
(32:24):
that I sent out in early winter. And somebody said,
I have no excuse to not slow down, prioritize me,
and start chasing joy. The weird thing is, it feels scary.
It's easier for me to thrive on caffeine and adrenaline
and my job. It's hard for me to slow down
and listen to my insides. But I'm going to practice.
I love this because this is me. The second but
(32:48):
I've been caffeine free for a while, so I know
about that decaf life. But the second that I have
a sip of caffeine or my adrenaline starts going. It's
a lot easier to go fast than it is to
go slow. I applaud you. Another one said, while I
don't currently check my email consistently as everything related to
technology and my phone feels overstimulated, yours landed in my
(33:10):
inbox at the same time, and I happened to read it.
Reading your email made me feel like I'm not crazy
for feeling how I'm feeling, and I'm not the only
one going through nervous system dysregulation on such a high level.
And I just want to say to this that I
think a lot of people are unaware of how their
phones do create a sense of dysregulation, urgency, overstimulation. And
(33:35):
I know that they are such an integral parts of
our lives for so many important reasons. But it's important
to also be able to take that step back. So
for anybody that feels validated by that sentence by that reader,
go ahead, and maybe you too take a step back
of using your phone so much or some social media apps,
whatever feels right for you. So in that email, I said,
(33:57):
ask me anything, and I will do my best too answer.
And the first question that I got was was it
hard to go offline? And I have to say that
I have another note in my phone that just straight
up says I love not being an influencer, with like
a big exclamation point. I don't remember writing that one either,
but I will say that it has been really nice
(34:19):
to first of all, not capture everything. People have this
idea that memories are photos or videos. So like people
might say, wow, our kids are going to have so
many memories because we captured everything. That's not a memory
that is a capturing of something that happened. A memory
is imprinted within our bodies. And yes, pictures can maybe
(34:39):
help us remember a memory, but a lot of the
times the pictures we just remember the picture, not the
actual memory and emotion. So it has been really nice
to be with a delicious moment in my home, or
a delicious meal out, or just something that I so
badly want to keep and capture and not. One of
the practices in you yoga is non hoarding. I forget
(35:01):
the Sanskrit word for it right now, but this is
the one of the ways that we don't hoard, and
the meaning is don't try and capture and grip and
hold on to everything. It's almost like a little bit greedy.
But the opposite of that is a freedom that comes
with experiencing it, and it's like, shouldn't be this revolutionary?
But I think that like Kodak moments, which like started
(35:22):
it all, like capture, the moment has bled into the
twenty twenty four version of that, which is like see something,
take a picture, picture pictor picture, picture, picture, But all
it has really done is interrupted presence in many situations.
Don't get me wrong, I love a photo, I love videos.
This is not, you know, a black and white conversation,
but it is really nice to be with a moment
(35:45):
rather than document a moment. And it has also been
really nice to go through big things in politics and
not be under scrutiny as to what I'm going to
say or how I'm going to say it. As I
look back the last couple of heavy years, there was
a lot of pressure to say something because there was
(36:05):
a lot of awful things happening. And yet I'm somebody
who needs to sit back, dig learn emotionally processed, which
can take me a long time and then emerge. And
there's also topics that I do not feel I need
to speak on even if I am exploring them personally.
(36:26):
And I think that, like for me, that has been
one of the most profound things I didn't know I
was feeling being online, and the heaviness of just having
to go through something emotionally heavy in the world process
and then speak so fast wasn't healthy for me. So
just being able to process on my own time and
(36:47):
not have like you need to come up with a
clear statement so that you can speak out about the
injustices has felt like such a freedom to me that
I didn't know that I didn't have before. Next question
is what's weighing heavy on me these and what is
my version of tapping into love during dark times look like?
So first part of this question, what's weighing heavy? So
(37:08):
many things? I used to use the word emotional sifting,
where I like, go inside and I unpack my suitcase
of all the things, and I feel like the biggest
one is just the state of the world. It's just
soul crushing and moving. A little bit more superficial is
I have a lot of people going through really hard
things in my life. My friend Margaret, Margaret, if you're listening,
(37:30):
I love you. She was on this podcast for her
breast cancer journey. She recently got news that it spread
to her liver and her bones. And if you didn't
listen to that episode, she's a mom of two and
she's the most incredible, upbeat person I've ever met in
my life, and I admire her so, so so much,
And she's also takes a lot of her health into
her own hands. So if you are interested in supporting
(37:52):
Margaret and remember the episode that she was on, her
cousin created a little bracelet you can buy in support.
I'm going to link that below too. And if she
starts a GoFundMe, I know she didn't want to because
she doesn't want to ask people for money. If she
start to go fund me, I'm going to link that
below too, so you could learn a little bit more
about Margaret her story and if you feel called to
support support. After I sent out that email too, I
(38:13):
heard from my friend Shanna Hutchison Wellness for the Win
on Instagram and she had her second baby right after
I got out of the hospital with Soli, and I
remember her posting images from the hospital and things didn't
go as planned for her. Trigger warning for anybody who
is listening that might be sensitive to this type of content.
I remember briefly seeing the images, and it was just
(38:36):
on the brink of me coming out of Soley's hospitalization,
and I was just too raw to see the images.
So I didn't fully take in the story of what
had happened other than seeing it and getting a snippet.
But I think self protective wise, I just kind of
scrolled past without taking the weight and gravity of what
had happened. Anyway, she reached out to me after I
(39:00):
sent my email to share the story of what happened
and essentially her son, Levi was born in May visc
section after his heart rate started to decline and he
ended up being diagnosed with hypoxic ischemic and cephalopathy, which
basically means he sustained a severe brain injury due to
the lack of oxygen during delivery, and he was in
(39:22):
the NIKU for twenty nine days and since then he
has been on a feeding tube and been diagnosed with
epilepsy and dystonia and many more days in the hospital.
Following the nick you stay, you know when I got
that note from Shanna and I had Amaya, who works
(39:43):
for me, kind of I didn't want to burden her by, like,
tell me everything that's going on, So I had her
share anything she publicly shared. So she sent me screenshots
of her Instagram and she's sharing life from you know,
the hospital bed with your baby and a diaper and
everything she wrote just took me right back to where
I was for just ten y total of my life,
two five day visits that felt like a eternity, which
(40:04):
is so much more for other people, and my career
as a medical mom, as I call it, it was very
short lived compared to this ongoing thing that Shanna deals
with and so many people deal with. And that's where
my heaviness kind of comes from in being so lucky
so far of going through something terrible but not having
(40:25):
it consume my entire life. It really really really gives
you clarity as to what other people are going to,
which makes you a more compassionate person. When I heard
about Shanna's story and all the medical stuff going on,
I created a GoFundMe for her and I will share
that as well if you're interested in learning more about
her story. She's just a really beautiful, supportive person. She's
(40:48):
breastfeeding him although he cannot eat by way of boob.
He's actually on a tube feed, so she is pumping
a million times a day just so that this baby
can be tube fed with her breastmel And if you
have ever pumped, you know how challenging that is, let
alone to go through this extra hurdle of putting it
through the tube. I just I commend her so much
(41:10):
for that. I mean, I commend her so much regardless,
but my heart breaks for that part specifically, And when
you see all the cumbersome things that it takes to
get to keep this child having the best life possible,
her force and her vigor is just contagious and the
same time uplifting. So if you feel called to help
(41:31):
her in her family out, I'm going to share that
below as well. And tapping into love during my dark times?
What does it look like? This is a really good question,
because just this past week I feel like I unlocked
a next level version of myself that I know twenty
twenty four is going to be a really big year
for me. I have gotten really serious about my daily
(41:54):
practices of Pranayama meditation. Journaling does not mean that I
don't miss day sometimes because I have life with a
toddler and it's just one of those things. But with
that has become an intense connection to using different parts
of myself to better understand when things are kind of
(42:15):
not right. So from my breath to my monkey brain
to my somatic experiences, I just feel like I've unlocked
this deeper level of interception I think is the correct
word for it here, of like using all the internal
senses to better understand what's going on in the mind, body,
and spirit, and therapy as well has really been huge
(42:38):
for me these last couple of months. Despite being with
the same therapists for seven years, I feel like we
just like unlocked this next level. So the question was
what's your version of tapping into love during dark times?
But it seems that the only way to get to
love is for me to lift some of the dark,
and to lift some of the dark onns I need
to unpack some of the things, and the best way
(43:00):
to unpack is to not pack so much. So the
daily routine shoveling out keeps me at a lighter state
and helps me feel when things are out of balance
more easily, and from that I can lean more into
compassion and compassion for self, but maybe perhaps more importantly
for other people for experiences that are not mine, and
(43:22):
sometimes leaning into love can mean just dancing in my
room at night alone after I get the baby to sleep.
It can look like having an really needed emotional reconnection
with my husband. It can look like belly laughing and
giving into just being so present with my daughter that
nothing else matters in that moment. It's kind of an
(43:45):
abstract answer to a direct question, but it's the best
I got. Okay, what kind of clarity have you gained
in taking this time off about you, your authentic self
and your desires? I think I kind of answer that
as we've gone on here, I've gotten lots of clarity
and still gotten lots of question marks, and I'm really
comfortable with that, and I know that this journey has
(44:08):
a long way for me to still go. Next question,
is one thing that I really admire about you is
your ability to do what works best for you and
tune out a lot of the noise and pressure from
the rest of the world, or to fork the noise.
As you say, I struggle with caring too much about
what others think and making decisions based on what society dictates.
I honestly don't know what actually works best for me
(44:28):
or what I want, since I'm so used to following that.
I'm so used to following what I'm told to do
or what is expected of me. I know this is
super broad, but any insight you can provide how to
tune into and honor your needs would be great. So
the first thing that comes up when I read this
is to say, if you don't listen to yourself, you
will be yelled at. If we ignore the whispers of
(44:49):
our truth, it ends up being a scream in some way.
We start to break down, either emotionally or physically. Things
just start to break if we don't listen to the
w whispers. So I do encourage you to listen to
the whispers and to know that the whispers are there.
I also want to say that none of us, including me,
really ever know if we're on the right path right.
(45:12):
We can't say I'm going to do this, this and
this and end up here. There's so much messiness in
between the path that we go to set on and
the destination we're trying to get out. But I do
believe that we only know what is right for the
right now. So rather than getting lost in that if
I do this, this happens. If I do that, that
happens where I try to make decisions from and at
(45:33):
that point they don't even become choices. They're like so
clear to me, it's what do I need right now?
And a lot of times that comes with being misunderstood.
But one of the things that I have really gotten
clarity on this past couple of weeks in journaling is
that and this feels so good, by the way, is
(45:54):
that I'm okay being misunderstood publicly, professionally, personally in my
relationships indefinitely, meaning like something happens to me people think
that I'm one way when it's not the truth. I
am not so concerned with clearing up and making sure
everybody understands me, but I am committed to staying true
(46:16):
to myself and honoring my own needs, which oftentimes does
not come with the full on explanation. So just wanted
to share that. And yeah, I think that a lot
of times we spend time trying to make the most
risk a verse and reward positive choices. But like I said,
we really don't have a clue which way life is going.
(46:37):
And I'm curious, as I said that sentence, how that
made you feel either more scared or more free. But
I hope that you can lead into the more freeing
aspect of really knowing that we don't know which way
life is going to go. Next question is what are
you working on? And I'm really excited to share that
despite being offline, I have been working on three trains,
(47:00):
and not three at once. It's kind of like one started, then,
the second started, now one stopping, and I'm in my third.
One is a mindful mentor training program so that when
I do lead groups, I can be a better facilitator
and really use skillful tools and language and ways to
manage groups because I do want to host more retreat
(47:22):
and work with groups in general. That's a little bit vague,
but we'll leave it at that for now. I also,
maybe to surprise or no surprise, we'll be wrapping up
this weekend my second two hundred hour yoga teacher training.
So where I last left you, I finished my three
hundred hour last year with Yoga Shanti, and I felt
very called to do their two hundred hour. Now, some
(47:44):
people who don't know the process might be like, you
already have your you know, two hundred hour. That's the
basic entry level yoga teacher training that anyone can do.
So I'm in a training with people that have never
done a training before, despite having five hundred hours now,
which by the way, is a very normal thing to
do if you do want to be a good yoga teacher.
Many people go back, do multiple two hundred hours, do
(48:06):
multiple three hundred hours, cherry pick their trainings from different places.
But in doing the three hundred hour, I felt like
my work at Shanty was nowhere near done. And it's
not only good for teaching yoga, but it's good for
me acquiring skills. I learned so much from my teachers,
Colleen and Rodney, Colleen Sageman and rodneyy and they have
been such forces in my life. And I'm so glad
(48:30):
that I did this because I'm wrapping up tomorrow with
my final exam and I couldn't feel more excited and
sad too that it's over, and I don't usually get
that way by the end of programs. Normally, by the
time programs are finishing up, I'm just like excited to
be done, but I'm really going to miss having that
time with them to you know, not just be a
(48:51):
mother and be a student and continue to learn from
everything that they say and do. I also want to
give a shout out to my mentors Sandy and Shamus,
who have led the program, and they have really become
such a resource for me. And I don't just mean
like a cognitive resource. They have become an emotional resource,
a safe place for me to land and ask questions
(49:12):
without judgment, without fear of is this a stupid question?
Sandy specifically as my mentor, Oh God, bless that woman.
So I'd be finishing that up. And I'm also working
on another training, which is a breathwork course, and I'm
not sure what I want to do with it yet,
but I felt very called to take it or if
I will do anything with it. Essentially, all this really
(49:32):
comes down to is reducing harm and learning more about
the nervous system and helping people become more in tune
with themselves. And I know that I'm a nutritionist by trade,
and a lot of people might be confused because here
I am pursuing all these different things. But what I
have loved about yoga Maybe verse nutrition does not mean
(49:54):
I don't love nutrition, but what I love is that
yoga and the studies that I've been are a lot
less black and white. There aren't as many concrete answers
that the nutrition world finds itself in. And the funny
thing about the nutrition world is nothing's really black and white.
It's a very young science. We're constantly finding out that
what we believe to be true is false, but we
(50:16):
hold on to every bit as if it is truth.
Where I feel like there's so much more wiggle room
in yoga, it's also a much more ancient practice, and
with that comes that gray area. We really don't know
exactly what was meant by ABC and D. It's all
a translation of what we think the practice of yoga,
(50:38):
beyond what was on the mat was meant to be.
And what I've also really loved. I just was having
an appointment with somebody and I was telling her about
the program and how great it has been to be
and study with this community is It's something I really missed,
the continual, perpetual study. I feel like I finished grad
school and my training and then I just went back
(50:59):
into my career and having this constant mentorship, this community
in person, especially after COVID, has been really really, really
really really good for me my mental health and my
own personal development. And I also do really want to
become a really good yoga teacher, including Austina breath, and
(51:19):
use that tool that continues to help me peel like
an onion, to help people not just feel good emotionally,
but also physically. These bodies are not really meant to
last as long as we've been lasting, and with that
comes so much pain and physical degradation. I have experienced
physical pain in my body for a long time, and
(51:42):
despite looking like I wouldn't because I'm young, and I'm thin,
and I'm all the things, I really spend a lot
of time thinking about joy, health, supporting my body, and
how I can be in this body with as much
ease as possible. And that's one of the reasons I
was also drawn to you Gashanti, because their approach really
takes that into consideration. It's not about the workout or
(52:05):
the sweat, and although sometimes it is, it's really about
the integrity of the body, the nervous system, sequencing, brilliant sequencing,
and really knowing the roots and history of yoga where
it came from, so that we cannot misappropriate it, but
rather tell its story in full with time, so that's
(52:25):
where I've been, That's where I'm going. I am really
so thankful that you've interested to listen to this episode,
And like I said, I don't know how regularly I'll
be popping on here. Shout out by the way to
Amy Brown, whose podcast network I am on, for allowing
me to have the freedom to use it in this way,
and Houston, my incredible editor, for hanging on and always
(52:47):
helping me out when I need an episode turned around quick.
And I don't know exactly how I'll be popping onto
social media and serving, but I do know that I
have been loving writing and sharing and I would love
to be using my substack mostly so if you want
to be on my newsletter, I will link that in
the show notes below. Thank you for listening and being
part of this update about self, family, and the journey
(53:10):
that I've been on. And I love you all so much.
No, You'll be ay even when times gethard and you
feel you're in the c See just how beautiful life
can be. When you saften your heart, you can finally
(00:23):
start to live your tu seious life.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello everyone, welcome back to The Truthiest Life. It's your host,
Lisa Haim. You may or may not remember me because
it has been six months since my last episode, and
it's been about six months same amount of time since
I have used social media at all, both for professional
and personal use. Have not clicked any of those trapping
(00:56):
icons such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, none of it.
Six freaking months my longest break yet, and this is
not necessarily my comeback podcast, but I do want to
come to the surface for this moment to share a
bit about where I've been. I feel that there's so
(01:19):
much that I want to share that I don't want
to lose on this journey, But I don't want to
send the wrong message that I'm fully back and I'm
energized and I know exactly where I'm going. Instead, I
want to be really honest that there's still a lot
of question marks for me, and it seems that the
more I hang out in this let's call it lost
(01:41):
phase of I don't know, the more I realize that
I do know, and lost and found are kind of
losing their meaning for me where they don't have the
same charge. Not knowing exactly what's going on in my
life professionally and personally in a lot of ways to
doesn't feel as jarring. Six months in. There have certainly
(02:03):
been moments where it has, but the more I actually
settled and softened into those moments, the more I was like, Wow,
I'm so glad that I kept going with this because
I kept unlocking so much really important, valuable information about
myself that eventually will inform how I show up, if
(02:24):
I show up, the way that I show up, the
amount that I show up, who shows up with me,
And these are really important changes. As I've been on
social media for I don't know, probably over a decade,
and having this kind of time out to pause on
the side of the mountain and decide which way I
want to go is really necessary for my mental health
(02:47):
and in order to sustain whatever comes next and have
it come from a place of truth versus fear. So,
first of all, if you are a truthist life listener,
I just want to say thank you, And if you've
been following me on social med or have worked with
me in the past, I also want to say thank you.
I know I don't owe anybody an explanation, but the
same time, I have shared a lot of my life
(03:08):
with you over the past decade, and I said I
was going to come back after three months, and then
another three months went by and I didn't. That feels
a tad unfair in the sense that I know, again
I don't owe anything to anybody, But at the same time,
I'm really really thankful for your interest in my process.
(03:30):
I guess that's really what I really want to say here.
So a lot has really, you know, changed in my life.
Just upfront, for those of you that are avid Truthiest
Life listeners, I want to be clear that for now
I'm using it to pop in and those will mostly
be solo episodes and we are not going back to
regular new episodes every Friday as previously it has been done.
(03:53):
Not to say that I won't be back there, but
as of right now, I'm still in the how do
I want to use my voice and I want to
get complete clarity on that before I re emerge in
this space. So I just want to mention that out
the door. I also want to share that this is
not my first re emergence back to my audience. I
(04:15):
have used my substack, which is my newsletter, a couple
of times over the last month, and it felt really
good to connect back with you all and my community,
and it felt really good to do so in that way,
in the way that does not have an algorithm. It's
direct me to you. There's no games involved, there's no
(04:37):
you know, big businesses involved. And what I loved most
was the responses I heard immediately back from lots of
you whose names I've interacted with over the years, old friends,
and I got that like excitement again of yes, this
is why I used to do it, because of the
beautiful connections and mirrors that we hold up to each other,
(04:58):
and hugs that we kind of give each other, and
the sameness that we learn that we find through the
sharing from the heart, even if we are really really different.
And a lot of the emails that people do write
me are always like our lives are nothing alike, but
I relate to you in this way, and I think
those are kind of like the most beautiful things. I'm
(05:18):
not meant to be relatable to every single person because
I am me. You're not meant to be relatable to
every single person because you are you. But to be
able to find those points of connectedness and help ourselves
feel more whole and less alone is what keeps me
in this game to begin with. So I recently sent
out an email to It was my first email to
(05:40):
my substack community, and the title of this email was
issue ever coming Back, and I gave a little insight
as to where I'm going, what has been coming up
for me, and where I am headed for twenty twenty four,
or where I think I'm headed, because one thing I've
learned over the last cup of years, or particularly the
(06:02):
last year, is that you never really know. But if
you are interested in staying up to date in a
way that feels really good for me, my substack is
going to be the best way, and those people will
also get first access to learning about offerings that I have,
such as a twenty twenty four metreat, the retreat that
I hosted last year called the Metreat, we are doing
(06:24):
it again, So you're going to want to get on
that email. But anyway, this email was where I kind
of gave a little bit of the inside scoop as
to how I fell off of the earth these last
six months. And I think that a lot of people
think that being off social media is like, wow, you
must feel so good, And while yes, there is a
(06:47):
lot of that, there was also a really really, really
really really big discomfort that came from pausing and being
with self. Even as somebody that is you know, area
a tuned to the ways that I distract and numb,
I am still not able to see in the moment
(07:07):
how much of a filler Checking social media was refreshing, posting,
the highs of serotonin even that you get when you
do post and people clap, and all of that. So anyway,
what I said in this email, essentially in case you
missed it, is that as soon as I went offline,
I really realized how burnt out I was on all fronts,
(07:29):
not just the work front, but the nervous system front,
and with everything that went on last year, I just
was in need of much more than a social media detox.
What I really needed was a full on pull the plug,
don't even attempt to reboot situation. I also shared in
this email that a lot of privilege and privileged guilt
(07:49):
came with this. But one thing that is really important
to me is that I reduce the amount of harm
that I call. I don't believe that we're capable of
not causing harm, period, But the more aware of ourselves
we are, and the more we spend time with that,
(08:10):
sitting with that, and learning about other experiences and people
and all of that, the better chances we have of
reducing our harm. And it really, really really took recognizing
that I'm not sitting from my most dirty place, and
therefore just because I have a platform and a business
does not mean that I should keep going. In fact,
(08:32):
I have a responsibility to, like tortoise up, go back
into my shell and make sure that my words have meaning.
I don't believe in speaking without having a purpose, and
although that hurts my business in seasons like this, it
is also what is the fire that lights me up
to speak about topics when they are feeling like they
(08:53):
can't even stay in my body anymore. So one thing
about me that you should all know is that I
don't ever want to talk or create content just for
the sake of it. I do believe in using my voice,
but there are also seasons where not talking is also
the ultimate power move. I wrote that silence is a
radical act of self care, but unlike a bubble bath,
(09:13):
it comes with far more resistance inner dialogue. It gets
so loud when we get actually quiet discomfort and honest
self reflection. And as soon as I shut that door
to a lot of the outside world, I realize that
I'm going to be here for a while pauses in life.
This whole original email was about the pause. They're absolutely critical,
(09:37):
they're not handed out, and they're also very emotionally complicated.
This summer really ripped my heart open and I allowed
for that to be and I felt so grateful that
I had this space to let myself really fall apart
and feel what I was feeling, and go really deep
in therapy to figure out why, who, what when, and
(09:57):
really gain a deeper knowledge of my myself. It's funny
because this podcast is called the Truthiest Life, right, and
you think I'm living my truthiest life, and even the
most authentic people out there, right, there's always more learning
to do about ourselves. So I guess it should really
be called a quest to live our most truthiest lives. Anyway,
(10:18):
the whole thing that I learned is that I have
really changed my definition and also my desire for success
as I knew it, because success in our world, our society,
often means overriding the parts of myself that I got
to examine and see. I know that the big question
(10:42):
that people want to hear from me is if I'm
coming back to social media. And the more time I
spend on here, the more people are like, Okay, seriously,
are you ever coming back? Or I have friends say
that other friends are asking them like where is Lisa Haim?
And it's kind of funny because I think that people
are asking me not to rush me or confuse me,
(11:05):
because sometimes the question does jostle me because I forget
that I'm not on social media and all of a
sudden I have to answer that question and I don't
have it. But I think that it really comes from
everybody else's desire to have a life without social media.
And it's kind of funny because this is all a
choice to use it, and yet we are acting like
(11:25):
we are shackled by it. And I get that, like
a lot of news and you know, understanding politics is
now coming through that funnel. In also a much more
digestible way. And there are also many positives to social
media that is not what I'm saying out here. We
don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
But there is also a life without social media where
(11:48):
I do, say, up to date on current events, but
I'm not inundated with it in the same way that
I was. And the funny thing about being inundated is
perhaps we don't realize that we are inundated or drowning
as it's happening. But a good look back into the
last couple of years of my life, and oh my gosh,
(12:08):
did the emotions swell and swell and swell and stay
with me and had no reprieve And it really sucks
you in. And I witness it in my own home
with Evan, my partner, who is on social media the
way his brain has become by way of things going
on in the world. It's important again to like know
and stay connected and be heartfelt and passionate about it
(12:32):
and even loose sleep over the terrible things going on.
But there also comes a small part where you got
to take a step back and even realize the exact
information you're being fed is still just a portion of
the story. Okay, I do realize that I am going
off on some tangents and talking about some things unplanned
during this episode, and I'm giving myself the freedom to
(12:53):
do so because if you read my recent newsletter, it
was all about urgency and it's one of the major
things that I'm working on with myself. Our culture is
really has some built in urgency built into everything that
we do, and me specifically my family systems. I have
always lived with urgency pushing me forward, and that is
(13:15):
not really living, and it ramps up my nervous sism,
It quickens my breath, it steals joy, and it makes
me a less productive and less enjoyable person to be around.
So for the sake of this episode and my life,
by the way, I'm really working on not letting urgency
creep up and destroy the smooth path that I'm walking.
(13:39):
You know, having a toddler is one of the quickest
ways to really have opportunity to see all the ways
that you're creating urgency. You try to rush a toddler
and it's pretty much impossible, but it's very easy to
catch myself when I notice myself saying, Okay, we're just
going to go do this and quickly, quickly, quickly right,
and all of that just makes things it's more complicated
(14:02):
this podcast specifically as well. I reflect back and I
realize that I also have put urgency and time limits
on how long I'm allowed to talk, because how long
do people have? So for the sake of me leaning
into the things that I've been working on for this episode,
I'm giving myself the freedoms to wiggle and move and
(14:23):
flow with the conversation as it's coming through me and
allow the podcast to kind of dictate where we go
rather than me dictate where we're going to go. So
if I start to meander and you're like, where's she going,
I just ask you to bear with me, grab a
cup of tea, come back, do whatever you got to do,
because we're going in all the directions and I hope
(14:43):
you're going to come with Okay, So going back to
my social media break, It's true I am not up
to date on most pop culture references. I don't know
what's trending on Amazon. I don't have access to a
lot of influencer discount codes. But my life is very, very,
very full. So when it comes to the question of
will I come back to social media. I can't answer
(15:06):
that right now. What I do know is that I'll
be back in work and of service again. What that
looks like, when exactly it is, and how it includes
social media as I know it are still big questions
that I continue to resist the urge to feel like
I have to answer again. I really want to clarify
(15:29):
that social media isn't the enemy. It played a critical
role in so much of my difficult parts of twenty
twenty three, and also the probably most most powerful workshaping
thing that I did, which was hosting the Metreat in Guatemala.
And on that note, I'm very excited to share that
the second ever met Treat will be happening in April
(15:50):
of this year. It will be actually a little bit different.
It will be Camp met Treat, and those details will
be coming live first and foremost too my News life
slash Substack community, So if you're interested, make sure you're
on that list. We do have limited spaces by nature
of how many beds, and the experience is going to
be insane. I'm so excited, and it feels so good
(16:13):
to be working from a place of doing something that
I love rather than doing things that are absolutely obligatory,
all right, zooming back out for a minute. There was
a quote I read recently from Emma Watson, the actress
(16:34):
who stepped back from acting the last few years, and
she said, I'm so glad that I allowed for things
to be messy for a minute, and I really allowed
myself to not know what's next, because the knowing that
I've come to, I wouldn't trade that for the world.
And this quote, it feels like an oxygen mask for me.
I don't know about you, but when I read it,
(16:55):
it felt like again a permission slip to not only
be afraid to zoom out, but to know that we
really have to. And I want to share I guess
a little bit more about where last year took me
and how I kind of ended up in this very
fried state. So the last year, in case you're you're
(17:15):
new here or you forget, I went through in the
course of five or six months, and ectopic pregnancy very quickly.
That got kind of covered up by my daughter's first
hospitalization and then a few months later the second hospitalization,
And I think like those trio of events really really
really put me in a different state of being. It
(17:38):
wasn't just a state of mind, it was a state
of nervous system. It created a gripping in my life.
It created fear, It created me that was always scanning
for danger. Back in June, I went to a work
event with Evan, my husband, and I was seeing people
for that I hadn't seen in a while, and I
was giving them hugs and I realized as I went
(18:00):
to give them a hug and a kiss, I would
feel their temples, to feel if they had temperature or not.
And it was in that moment that I realized, like,
how heightened my senses are at all time to be
on the lookout for danger. And that's not nothing, that's
not like a regular way to be. But it was
my first sign of really realizing that despite being out
(18:23):
of the danger zone for the time being, I might
as well just as well be in it because I'm
acting as if And I don't know if you've had
any sort of experiences like that before, but my light
bulb really went off that I am living in a
different state of mind and a different body and a
different nervous system. And it took me by surprise, as
(18:43):
if you know, of course, I knew those events were stressful,
but I didn't realize how they had integrated into my
biologic protective mechanism to the point where I wasn't even
using that radar appropriately. Right, meant to just find out
if my daughter has a fever every doctor, and that
I was hugging at this doctor event that I was at.
(19:05):
But the hospital stays really did take a lot out
of me. I think one of the hardest parts of
motherhood that is not spoken about, not to take a
pivot for the dark right here, is that even outside
of her hospitalizations, from the second she was born, you
are face to face with mortality in ways that you
(19:28):
otherwise or for myself, I should say have a much
better lid on for my twenties and early thirties before
pregnancy and having a baby. Obviously we know that the
death it can happen, but something really ramps up when
you become a mother where you start thinking about your
own or your child and you try and tuck it away,
(19:49):
and it's a really big part of the postpartum era.
Even biologically, it's meant to be there so that we
can have a heightened sense of awareness to protect our children.
It's very primal and biological and beautiful, and it kind
of starts to fade as the child gets older and they,
you know, don't need us as much for as many things.
(20:09):
But if you have a child that is very sick
and doctors don't have answers and you see them in
so much pain, it really digs that up in a
way that you might as well be, you know, cutting
out an organ without anesthesia. And that's really the level
of pain that we went through this year. I know
(20:30):
that I have been vague regarding Solely's health, and I
also know a big question I get is how is
Solely's health? So it's such a beautiful thing that that
is the first question that I get that so many
of you care about my most precious and I want
to say that she's doing really, really well right now.
We have not had another hospitalization. And I also want
(20:50):
to share that I have not shared details of everything
because I'm really learning that I don't know what she
will want to have shared, and she is her own
person and therefore telling her story, although there are parts
of it that are really important and have awoken parts
of me that I'm so passionate about. When it comes
(21:11):
to child advocacy, and all the work and alert and
vigilant that that part takes. I also really have come
in the last six months to value and respect her
as an individual. And it's not because she's older, but
it is because I've really scaled it back and started
(21:32):
to explore parenting styles, and with that has come so
much more understanding that they're always whole people. And I
know you're probably thinking, of course, a baby's a real person,
but most of society doesn't really treat babies like people.
We kind of talk around them, we don't talk to them,
we don't tell them what's going to happen, you know,
we think just because they can't talk, that they don't know.
(21:54):
And I have really drastically changed my approach to parenting, which,
by the way, made parenting so much more enjoyable. What
I'm gonna say, easier because I do have a toddler
and I don't remember the last time I got seven
hours of consecutive sleep, But I do want to share
that a lot has kind of shifted in that. And
(22:14):
I originally did check in with myself when I had
solely about like, do I want to share her with
the internet, and I just felt such a beam of
light that she had to give to the world, that
I move forward with that, taking it back a step now,
I'm kind of want to make sure that everything I
do does feel not just right to me, but right
to her. So I'm learning to dance that dance, so
(22:36):
pardon my vagueness, And of course I want to be
of help to anybody that has ever been in a
similar situation. But I also don't want to put everything
of hers out on display, and I also don't want
to put, by the way, everything of mine out on
display anymore. One of the beautiful things that this time
offline has really showed me is that having things that
(22:57):
are sacred to myself, whether they are thoughts, pictures, memories, stories,
is really important. And I don't think I've ever really
been somebody that like laid it all out, but the
things that have become sacred to me have really become illuminated.
My relationship, my marriage is really, really, really important to me.
And Evan and I don't get a lot of time
(23:20):
together with his work and his travel and the phone.
I have come to even more see how interruptive it is.
And even if it's all let me just take this
quick picture or let me do this. It changes the presence.
It's like having a third person there, And to be
quite honest, I can't afford that in my marriage right
now because we don't get a lot of time for
(23:40):
present and deep connection, and anything that slices through that,
even if it's a papercut, it bleeds. It makes us bleed.
So getting really clear on what matters and what I
need to protect and keep sacred is something that I'm
really happy I got to kind of figure out, because
if I kept going right, I wouldn't have had this
(24:01):
check in, and then I wouldn't know it's important, and
I wouldn't know why I'm bleeding out energy, and then
I wouldn't know why my relationship feels like this, or
why I feel anxious at night or anything like that.
So I feel like the best way to describe what's
happening to me it's gonna sound funny, is that I'm
like maturing. You know, so much of my life on
(24:22):
social media has been like being the silly, loud, funny person,
and I am always gonna be silly. And if we
ever get to meet in first and you will certainly
see my silly, quirky, fun dancing moments. I mean last
night in nice Silly and I were doing the macarena
in her room. But there's also a more serious tone
to me that feels appropriate to use on the internet.
(24:46):
I don't know if I'm that same girl I was
ten plus years ago when I entered the chat, and
I'm glad that I'm not. I'm sad in a way too,
because it's not that I'm not fun, but there was
something kind of nice about how naive in moments she
was that I no longer carry because there is more
wisdom and experience in my life anyway. One of the
(25:10):
reasons that I really wanted to take this break is
because I needed space in my life and I needed
to really connect with the good. Tyer Brock says that
we need I think it's thirty seconds to connect with
the joy in our lives for it to steep in
and get those feel good chemicals. And when I am working,
I'm often in rush mode, whether I have to record
(25:30):
the podcast, do this, do that, do that, and so
having permission to get stuck in a what do you
call the contact nap with slowly or do all these
different things was really really really good for me and
really see that time can move slowly. I have a
note in my phone from August. I don't remember writing it,
(25:52):
but that's why notes are good that says time can
move really slowly when you're present. And this summer specifically,
because the break was only to be three months, I
was on a quest to see, how can I add
spaciousness in my life? How can I not live with
such vigilance. I didn't expect to learn everything that I
learned at all. I just wanted to have a touch
more ease and spaciousness in my life and remove all
(26:14):
the stimulants and the to do lists and all of that.
But what ended up happening is that summer was really
my favorite season, long and drawn out in the best
way possible. And it was also very hard emotionally right,
like I shared how hard it was in the beginning
of this, But it was really cool to see how
presence can have an effect on time. Time is something
(26:37):
that I'm always thinking about because it's like fixed, right,
and yet sometimes time goes fast, and time sometimes time
goes slow, and sometimes we want time to go fast
and sometimes we want time to go slow. But it's
always just being time. It doesn't change at all. But
I feel like I extended and expanded the corners and
the boundaries of summer with this presence that I gave
(26:59):
to myself, my daughter, and my home. One of the
things that I've really come to realize is that I believe,
I hope this isn't taken wrong, that I can't do
it all as a mom and a woman. I know
there are some people that can wear like eight hundred hats,
but I can't do it all and do it well.
(27:19):
So for this time being, I guess I kind of chose,
without even exactly realizing that I chose to be mom,
and a mom that's on her phone a lot less too,
by the way, and a mom that gives presents again privilege.
I hear it, I see it. It makes me feel
very uncomfortable because I know that not everybody gets to
experience this. But one thing about me is that I
(27:45):
have always loved children, and I dreamed of having a
family with young kids. Babies very hard. Toddler's my experience
was a little bit older than with Soley, who was
about two and a half. Now, By the way, I
was always I love being around children. They're fun, they
add the spaciousness. They disrupt that rigidity of time. And
(28:05):
one of the things I've really basked in is realizing that,
don't get me wrong, these are really hard days and nights.
Like I said, we're not sleeping still two and a
half years later, and she has meltdowns over seemingly quote
unquote nothing, but these are like the best days of
my life, having a toddler running with her little footsteps
(28:28):
all over the house. Words that she says that are
just so funny and crack us up, her storytelling her
being up at three in the morning and singing Happy Birthday,
like I don't know what world and vortex I've been
sucked into, But as hard as it is, I really
really really love it, and I'm so grateful to be
able to bask in it a bit. I think that
(28:49):
the hardness of raising children, Granted I have one. I
know a lot of people have more, and I can
only imagine how difficult this is, but I have felt
such a luxury and how exhausting it is, and then
also realizing like this is a season and it's not
always going to be like this, and my house is
so full and there's there's so much excitement and loudness
(29:12):
and stuff everywhere, and I just let it be. It
feels amazing, and I try my hardest to also not
grip onto it so tightly, because gripping can create attachment
that doesn't allow you to be present. So it's this
delicate dance of how can I be with this moment
(29:33):
without trying to hold on so tightly to it so
that I can get the feel good effects, knowing that
it won't always be this simple for lack of a
better word. So, yeah, a lot has been happening with me.
What am I up to this year? Work wise? There
(29:53):
are a couple things in the works. I actually this
past weekend just finished another yoga training that as me
feeling very excited to maybe start teaching. But the only
thing concrete and major in the works is planning the
next ME Treat, which is Can't Me Treat in April
in the Jungle of Mexico. The official details. I don't
(30:14):
think we'll be out when this podcast comes out, but
it will be depending on when you listen to it
over at the Me Treat by Lisa dot Com or
Like I've said, the best way to stay up to
date is to be on my newsletter. Who's going to
get first DIBs on applying, But I'm very excited about it.
Tracy and I my co host. She was also the
(30:35):
lead yoga teacher on the last one. She's an incredible
person in my life that has transformed everything about the
way I practice yoga, the way I think, the way
I act, the way I mother. She's just God bless Tracy.
Tracy and I went to Mexico for twenty hours on Sunday.
That was all we could squeeze in with our mother
(30:56):
responsibilities to do a site visit. So a site visit
is where we make sure that the location that we've
been looking at is as good as it appears online,
and we go through everything top to bottom so that
we can create a great event. Site visits are absolutely
necessary for me. I take my role as host and
bringing people on a journey very very very seriously. Anyway,
(31:17):
we were so wowed by this experience that the flight
home we were just like pouring out all of the
content that is going to flow and work so well
with the Mayan sacred lands and the power of the
property that we've chosen. I'm excited to share more, but
I'll hold off For now, all I will say is
that we have the entire property to ourselves and our
(31:40):
own private sinote. And if you don't know what a
sinote is, google ce nte to be absolutely wowed. It's
going to be, I think, one of my most proud
productions if we pull off all that is coming to
our imagination and manifest the most incredible transformative retreat that
(32:02):
will bring you home to your truthy you self. So
I wanted to read a few of the replies that
I got to the first newsletter that I sent out
in early winter. So I wanted to read a few
of the replies that I got to the first newsletter
(32:24):
that I sent out in early winter. And somebody said,
I have no excuse to not slow down, prioritize me,
and start chasing joy. The weird thing is, it feels scary.
It's easier for me to thrive on caffeine and adrenaline
and my job. It's hard for me to slow down
and listen to my insides. But I'm going to practice.
I love this because this is me. The second but
(32:48):
I've been caffeine free for a while, so I know
about that decaf life. But the second that I have
a sip of caffeine or my adrenaline starts going. It's
a lot easier to go fast than it is to
go slow. I applaud you. Another one said, while I
don't currently check my email consistently as everything related to
technology and my phone feels overstimulated, yours landed in my
(33:10):
inbox at the same time, and I happened to read it.
Reading your email made me feel like I'm not crazy
for feeling how I'm feeling, and I'm not the only
one going through nervous system dysregulation on such a high level.
And I just want to say to this that I
think a lot of people are unaware of how their
phones do create a sense of dysregulation, urgency, overstimulation. And
(33:35):
I know that they are such an integral parts of
our lives for so many important reasons. But it's important
to also be able to take that step back. So
for anybody that feels validated by that sentence by that reader,
go ahead, and maybe you too take a step back
of using your phone so much or some social media apps,
whatever feels right for you. So in that email, I said,
(33:57):
ask me anything, and I will do my best too answer.
And the first question that I got was was it
hard to go offline? And I have to say that
I have another note in my phone that just straight
up says I love not being an influencer, with like
a big exclamation point. I don't remember writing that one either,
but I will say that it has been really nice
(34:19):
to first of all, not capture everything. People have this
idea that memories are photos or videos. So like people
might say, wow, our kids are going to have so
many memories because we captured everything. That's not a memory
that is a capturing of something that happened. A memory
is imprinted within our bodies. And yes, pictures can maybe
(34:39):
help us remember a memory, but a lot of the
times the pictures we just remember the picture, not the
actual memory and emotion. So it has been really nice
to be with a delicious moment in my home, or
a delicious meal out, or just something that I so
badly want to keep and capture and not. One of
the practices in you yoga is non hoarding. I forget
(35:01):
the Sanskrit word for it right now, but this is
the one of the ways that we don't hoard, and
the meaning is don't try and capture and grip and
hold on to everything. It's almost like a little bit greedy.
But the opposite of that is a freedom that comes
with experiencing it, and it's like, shouldn't be this revolutionary?
But I think that like Kodak moments, which like started
(35:22):
it all, like capture, the moment has bled into the
twenty twenty four version of that, which is like see something,
take a picture, picture pictor picture, picture, picture, But all
it has really done is interrupted presence in many situations.
Don't get me wrong, I love a photo, I love videos.
This is not, you know, a black and white conversation,
but it is really nice to be with a moment
(35:45):
rather than document a moment. And it has also been
really nice to go through big things in politics and
not be under scrutiny as to what I'm going to
say or how I'm going to say it. As I
look back the last couple of heavy years, there was
a lot of pressure to say something because there was
(36:05):
a lot of awful things happening. And yet I'm somebody
who needs to sit back, dig learn emotionally processed, which
can take me a long time and then emerge. And
there's also topics that I do not feel I need
to speak on even if I am exploring them personally.
(36:26):
And I think that, like for me, that has been
one of the most profound things I didn't know I
was feeling being online, and the heaviness of just having
to go through something emotionally heavy in the world process
and then speak so fast wasn't healthy for me. So
just being able to process on my own time and
(36:47):
not have like you need to come up with a
clear statement so that you can speak out about the
injustices has felt like such a freedom to me that
I didn't know that I didn't have before. Next question
is what's weighing heavy on me these and what is
my version of tapping into love during dark times look like?
So first part of this question, what's weighing heavy? So
(37:08):
many things? I used to use the word emotional sifting,
where I like, go inside and I unpack my suitcase
of all the things, and I feel like the biggest
one is just the state of the world. It's just
soul crushing and moving. A little bit more superficial is
I have a lot of people going through really hard
things in my life. My friend Margaret, Margaret, if you're listening,
(37:30):
I love you. She was on this podcast for her
breast cancer journey. She recently got news that it spread
to her liver and her bones. And if you didn't
listen to that episode, she's a mom of two and
she's the most incredible, upbeat person I've ever met in
my life, and I admire her so, so so much,
And she's also takes a lot of her health into
her own hands. So if you are interested in supporting
(37:52):
Margaret and remember the episode that she was on, her
cousin created a little bracelet you can buy in support.
I'm going to link that below too. And if she
starts a GoFundMe, I know she didn't want to because
she doesn't want to ask people for money. If she
start to go fund me, I'm going to link that
below too, so you could learn a little bit more
about Margaret her story and if you feel called to
support support. After I sent out that email too, I
(38:13):
heard from my friend Shanna Hutchison Wellness for the Win
on Instagram and she had her second baby right after
I got out of the hospital with Soli, and I
remember her posting images from the hospital and things didn't
go as planned for her. Trigger warning for anybody who
is listening that might be sensitive to this type of content.
I remember briefly seeing the images, and it was just
(38:36):
on the brink of me coming out of Soley's hospitalization,
and I was just too raw to see the images.
So I didn't fully take in the story of what
had happened other than seeing it and getting a snippet.
But I think self protective wise, I just kind of
scrolled past without taking the weight and gravity of what
had happened. Anyway, she reached out to me after I
(39:00):
sent my email to share the story of what happened
and essentially her son, Levi was born in May visc
section after his heart rate started to decline and he
ended up being diagnosed with hypoxic ischemic and cephalopathy, which
basically means he sustained a severe brain injury due to
the lack of oxygen during delivery, and he was in
(39:22):
the NIKU for twenty nine days and since then he
has been on a feeding tube and been diagnosed with
epilepsy and dystonia and many more days in the hospital.
Following the nick you stay, you know when I got
that note from Shanna and I had Amaya, who works
(39:43):
for me, kind of I didn't want to burden her by, like,
tell me everything that's going on, So I had her
share anything she publicly shared. So she sent me screenshots
of her Instagram and she's sharing life from you know,
the hospital bed with your baby and a diaper and
everything she wrote just took me right back to where
I was for just ten y total of my life,
two five day visits that felt like a eternity, which
(40:04):
is so much more for other people, and my career
as a medical mom, as I call it, it was very
short lived compared to this ongoing thing that Shanna deals
with and so many people deal with. And that's where
my heaviness kind of comes from in being so lucky
so far of going through something terrible but not having
(40:25):
it consume my entire life. It really really really gives
you clarity as to what other people are going to,
which makes you a more compassionate person. When I heard
about Shanna's story and all the medical stuff going on,
I created a GoFundMe for her and I will share
that as well if you're interested in learning more about
her story. She's just a really beautiful, supportive person. She's
(40:48):
breastfeeding him although he cannot eat by way of boob.
He's actually on a tube feed, so she is pumping
a million times a day just so that this baby
can be tube fed with her breastmel And if you
have ever pumped, you know how challenging that is, let
alone to go through this extra hurdle of putting it
through the tube. I just I commend her so much
(41:10):
for that. I mean, I commend her so much regardless,
but my heart breaks for that part specifically, And when
you see all the cumbersome things that it takes to
get to keep this child having the best life possible,
her force and her vigor is just contagious and the
same time uplifting. So if you feel called to help
(41:31):
her in her family out, I'm going to share that
below as well. And tapping into love during my dark times?
What does it look like? This is a really good question,
because just this past week I feel like I unlocked
a next level version of myself that I know twenty
twenty four is going to be a really big year
for me. I have gotten really serious about my daily
(41:54):
practices of Pranayama meditation. Journaling does not mean that I
don't miss day sometimes because I have life with a
toddler and it's just one of those things. But with
that has become an intense connection to using different parts
of myself to better understand when things are kind of
(42:15):
not right. So from my breath to my monkey brain
to my somatic experiences, I just feel like I've unlocked
this deeper level of interception I think is the correct
word for it here, of like using all the internal
senses to better understand what's going on in the mind, body,
and spirit, and therapy as well has really been huge
(42:38):
for me these last couple of months. Despite being with
the same therapists for seven years, I feel like we
just like unlocked this next level. So the question was
what's your version of tapping into love during dark times?
But it seems that the only way to get to
love is for me to lift some of the dark,
and to lift some of the dark onns I need
to unpack some of the things, and the best way
(43:00):
to unpack is to not pack so much. So the
daily routine shoveling out keeps me at a lighter state
and helps me feel when things are out of balance
more easily, and from that I can lean more into
compassion and compassion for self, but maybe perhaps more importantly
for other people for experiences that are not mine, and
(43:22):
sometimes leaning into love can mean just dancing in my
room at night alone after I get the baby to sleep.
It can look like having an really needed emotional reconnection
with my husband. It can look like belly laughing and
giving into just being so present with my daughter that
nothing else matters in that moment. It's kind of an
(43:45):
abstract answer to a direct question, but it's the best
I got. Okay, what kind of clarity have you gained
in taking this time off about you, your authentic self
and your desires? I think I kind of answer that
as we've gone on here, I've gotten lots of clarity
and still gotten lots of question marks, and I'm really
comfortable with that, and I know that this journey has
(44:08):
a long way for me to still go. Next question,
is one thing that I really admire about you is
your ability to do what works best for you and
tune out a lot of the noise and pressure from
the rest of the world, or to fork the noise.
As you say, I struggle with caring too much about
what others think and making decisions based on what society dictates.
I honestly don't know what actually works best for me
(44:28):
or what I want, since I'm so used to following that.
I'm so used to following what I'm told to do
or what is expected of me. I know this is
super broad, but any insight you can provide how to
tune into and honor your needs would be great. So
the first thing that comes up when I read this
is to say, if you don't listen to yourself, you
will be yelled at. If we ignore the whispers of
(44:49):
our truth, it ends up being a scream in some way.
We start to break down, either emotionally or physically. Things
just start to break if we don't listen to the
w whispers. So I do encourage you to listen to
the whispers and to know that the whispers are there.
I also want to say that none of us, including me,
really ever know if we're on the right path right.
(45:12):
We can't say I'm going to do this, this and
this and end up here. There's so much messiness in
between the path that we go to set on and
the destination we're trying to get out. But I do
believe that we only know what is right for the
right now. So rather than getting lost in that if
I do this, this happens. If I do that, that
happens where I try to make decisions from and at
(45:33):
that point they don't even become choices. They're like so
clear to me, it's what do I need right now?
And a lot of times that comes with being misunderstood.
But one of the things that I have really gotten
clarity on this past couple of weeks in journaling is
that and this feels so good, by the way, is
(45:54):
that I'm okay being misunderstood publicly, professionally, personally in my
relationships indefinitely, meaning like something happens to me people think
that I'm one way when it's not the truth. I
am not so concerned with clearing up and making sure
everybody understands me, but I am committed to staying true
(46:16):
to myself and honoring my own needs, which oftentimes does
not come with the full on explanation. So just wanted
to share that. And yeah, I think that a lot
of times we spend time trying to make the most
risk a verse and reward positive choices. But like I said,
we really don't have a clue which way life is going.
(46:37):
And I'm curious, as I said that sentence, how that
made you feel either more scared or more free. But
I hope that you can lead into the more freeing
aspect of really knowing that we don't know which way
life is going to go. Next question is what are
you working on? And I'm really excited to share that
despite being offline, I have been working on three trains,
(47:00):
and not three at once. It's kind of like one started, then,
the second started, now one stopping, and I'm in my third.
One is a mindful mentor training program so that when
I do lead groups, I can be a better facilitator
and really use skillful tools and language and ways to
manage groups because I do want to host more retreat
(47:22):
and work with groups in general. That's a little bit vague,
but we'll leave it at that for now. I also,
maybe to surprise or no surprise, we'll be wrapping up
this weekend my second two hundred hour yoga teacher training.
So where I last left you, I finished my three
hundred hour last year with Yoga Shanti, and I felt
very called to do their two hundred hour. Now, some
(47:44):
people who don't know the process might be like, you
already have your you know, two hundred hour. That's the
basic entry level yoga teacher training that anyone can do.
So I'm in a training with people that have never
done a training before, despite having five hundred hours now,
which by the way, is a very normal thing to
do if you do want to be a good yoga teacher.
Many people go back, do multiple two hundred hours, do
(48:06):
multiple three hundred hours, cherry pick their trainings from different places.
But in doing the three hundred hour, I felt like
my work at Shanty was nowhere near done. And it's
not only good for teaching yoga, but it's good for
me acquiring skills. I learned so much from my teachers,
Colleen and Rodney, Colleen Sageman and rodneyy and they have
been such forces in my life. And I'm so glad
(48:30):
that I did this because I'm wrapping up tomorrow with
my final exam and I couldn't feel more excited and
sad too that it's over, and I don't usually get
that way by the end of programs. Normally, by the
time programs are finishing up, I'm just like excited to
be done, but I'm really going to miss having that
time with them to you know, not just be a
(48:51):
mother and be a student and continue to learn from
everything that they say and do. I also want to
give a shout out to my mentors Sandy and Shamus,
who have led the program, and they have really become
such a resource for me. And I don't just mean
like a cognitive resource. They have become an emotional resource,
a safe place for me to land and ask questions
(49:12):
without judgment, without fear of is this a stupid question?
Sandy specifically as my mentor, Oh God, bless that woman.
So I'd be finishing that up. And I'm also working
on another training, which is a breathwork course, and I'm
not sure what I want to do with it yet,
but I felt very called to take it or if
I will do anything with it. Essentially, all this really
(49:32):
comes down to is reducing harm and learning more about
the nervous system and helping people become more in tune
with themselves. And I know that I'm a nutritionist by trade,
and a lot of people might be confused because here
I am pursuing all these different things. But what I
have loved about yoga Maybe verse nutrition does not mean
(49:54):
I don't love nutrition, but what I love is that
yoga and the studies that I've been are a lot
less black and white. There aren't as many concrete answers
that the nutrition world finds itself in. And the funny
thing about the nutrition world is nothing's really black and white.
It's a very young science. We're constantly finding out that
what we believe to be true is false, but we
(50:16):
hold on to every bit as if it is truth.
Where I feel like there's so much more wiggle room
in yoga, it's also a much more ancient practice, and
with that comes that gray area. We really don't know
exactly what was meant by ABC and D. It's all
a translation of what we think the practice of yoga,
(50:38):
beyond what was on the mat was meant to be.
And what I've also really loved. I just was having
an appointment with somebody and I was telling her about
the program and how great it has been to be
and study with this community is It's something I really missed,
the continual, perpetual study. I feel like I finished grad
school and my training and then I just went back
(50:59):
into my career and having this constant mentorship, this community
in person, especially after COVID, has been really really, really
really really good for me my mental health and my
own personal development. And I also do really want to
become a really good yoga teacher, including Austina breath, and
(51:19):
use that tool that continues to help me peel like
an onion, to help people not just feel good emotionally,
but also physically. These bodies are not really meant to
last as long as we've been lasting, and with that
comes so much pain and physical degradation. I have experienced
physical pain in my body for a long time, and
(51:42):
despite looking like I wouldn't because I'm young, and I'm thin,
and I'm all the things, I really spend a lot
of time thinking about joy, health, supporting my body, and
how I can be in this body with as much
ease as possible. And that's one of the reasons I
was also drawn to you Gashanti, because their approach really
takes that into consideration. It's not about the workout or
(52:05):
the sweat, and although sometimes it is, it's really about
the integrity of the body, the nervous system, sequencing, brilliant sequencing,
and really knowing the roots and history of yoga where
it came from, so that we cannot misappropriate it, but
rather tell its story in full with time, so that's
(52:25):
where I've been, That's where I'm going. I am really
so thankful that you've interested to listen to this episode,
And like I said, I don't know how regularly I'll
be popping on here. Shout out by the way to
Amy Brown, whose podcast network I am on, for allowing
me to have the freedom to use it in this way,
and Houston, my incredible editor, for hanging on and always
(52:47):
helping me out when I need an episode turned around quick.
And I don't know exactly how I'll be popping onto
social media and serving, but I do know that I
have been loving writing and sharing and I would love
to be using my substack mostly so if you want
to be on my newsletter, I will link that in
the show notes below. Thank you for listening and being
part of this update about self, family, and the journey
(53:10):
that I've been on. And I love you all so much.
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