Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
We are back again for yet another episode of the Hold On
With Me podcast. I'm your host, Riley Joe Happy
Wednesday. I hope everyone's having such a
great week. We're halfway there.
We're going to make it. July is seriously the busiest
month of the year, at least for the summer.
There's so much going on and it's so happy.
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Everyone's just smiling. You're in the water, you have
tans, popsicles, watermelon. There's nothing better than
that. But I just love this time of
year. So recap though a little bit.
Taking you back to last week, I had two tips that I shared.
The first one we talked about was compassion.
Having compassion, whether it's for yourself or someone else in
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your life, this could be helpfulfor anything.
And that's something that I wanted to share is it doesn't
have to be only for someone who's anxious.
This could apply to anyone who said something that they didn't
mean to, maybe out of context, made a mistake.
If you're feeling stressed out or overwhelmed, This can apply
for anyone in any of your situations.
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The second one is meditation. I found this to be really
helpful whenever I'm feeling more worked up again,
overwhelmed or stressed out. Just taking a couple minutes to
breathe, relax, And I have foundthat having someone walk me
through the meditation is a lot more helpful than if I'm just
talking to myself, taking a few breaths.
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It is effective, but not as muchas if you're actually listening
to a meditation. Now, that's just my own personal
opinion. Whatever works for you is great,
but it can be really helpful to stay present in the moment,
prepare for the future, let go of the past and just keep going
on with your day and it'll get so much better.
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Simple is the way to go. Simple yet significant.
There are three points that I want to make today and shed some
light on maybe experiences that you've had in the past or maybe
what you're experiencing now. The first one is we are so
capable of a lot more than we might even realize.
This is huge. So I'm going to tell you a story
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we're building on from last week.
My younger self, she's in 4th grade, middle school, and now
we're the big girl era. She enters high school and this
was seriously one of the best times of her life.
She didn't have these anxious feelings that were so present.
She was able to go have fun withfriends, go out every night, be
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with people on the weekends, sports, traveling.
Life was really, really good. So one of my one of my friends
in high school, we were talking and it was the year before.
So we were juniors and she goes Riley, we should try out for
like our school's pageant. It's like a scholarship program.
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It's so fun. You have to have a talent, an
interview process, an on stage question.
What else is there? You had your own dance routine.
Well, not dance routine. That's what I did.
You have your talent, the onsagequestion and like a fitness
routine. And I remembered I just said I
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could never do that. There's no way, no way you're
going to get me to do that. Thinking about answering a
question on the spot in front ofso many people was terrifying.
I was so scared. But then we finished the year,
so sign ups, they come around. I don't remember where I was.
I couldn't be there for the first meeting.
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My friend texts me and she goes,OK, are you going to do this?
I got you a flyer. If you want to come, I would
love to do this with you. Let's do it together.
And I decided, you know what, yes, I'm going to go for it.
I'll just try. I have the courage to put myself
out of my comfort zone and do something new.
Now, this was kind of a common theme for me in high school.
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I had a lot of different experiences where I was doing
things that I probably wouldn't have even thought about or
didn't picture myself being involved with.
So the fact that I just went forit, it kind of went along with
this theme. I remember when I was a
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sophomore, we or I, I went out to go, I think it was the third
sport soda been like spring and I went to track practice for the
first day. None of my friends were
involved. Nobody was there.
And I thought, why am I doing this?
This is not this is not for me. I don't want to run for fun.
Maybe when I was younger, I liked it, but not at this point
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in time. And so I remember talking to
someone else about golf and it came up and she goes, Riley, why
don't you just try it? I went to the meeting.
I completed the service project that you had to do to earn your
hours to try out and I borrowed some pink clubs from a friend's
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mom and just went for it. Just tried put myself out there
and thought, what, what do I have to lose like this?
This could be so fun. I love sports and being involved
and connecting with people. Let's just give it a shot now.
The coolest part though, to thisstory is where I'm at right now
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and looking back, like, wow, like I had a lot of, I had a lot
of guts, honestly, to just try something new that was so out of
my element. I didn't, I didn't have any.
Like I don't have any previous experience with talking on stage
or golfing in a team for a tournament in front of people.
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I had no idea what I was doing. But there's a part of me that
wanted that experience and just went for it anyways.
So it's really cool to see as this story has unfolded.
You know, my younger self, she was more anxious, had a tough
time, didn't know she was capable to high school.
Now she's feeling a lot more capable of the things that she's
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doing and she's involved with. We really have so much more
capacity to do the things that scare us and terrify us.
Maybe deep down we really want to do and try.
Doesn't have to be forever, but giving it a shot is like the
biggest confidence boost ever. Knowing OK, I went for it, I
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tried and it's so much fun. This can apply to anything in
our life right now too. I last week I tried frisbee golf
for the first time. Never would think that's
something that I wanted to do, but I thought, you know what,
I'll do it. I want to go have fun.
It's something new. Let's just let's just go for it.
And it was actually a blast. Doesn't mean that I'm going to
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go every week now and become a regular, but it's so fun to put
yourself out of the norm of whatyou're so used to doing, like
the consistent routine to add a little bit more excitement into
your life with new things like this.
So this Miss Russet pageant is what it's called.
It's a scholarship program for my my school and September comes
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around and I had practiced all summer.
I came up with a routine to dance.
I practice interview questions all summer long, worked on the
routines that we were doing together as a group.
And the day came for the rehearsal and the actual event
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the night before or the no, the day after.
And it happened and I made it through and I was OK.
And I'm not even kidding, at theend of the entire thing, no, I
didn't win. And I'm totally OK with that.
I'm so grateful that I had this experience no matter what the
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outcome was. I just remember feeling so
empowered, like I could conquer the world and do anything
because I had just done something that was so hard.
I got up on stage, I did a routine all by myself.
I was a clogger and I did a little clogging dance, answered
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the question on stage. It wasn't perfect, not
everything went smooth and exactly the way I'd practiced,
but the best part was knowing that I was so capable of doing
anything I set my mind to. And it takes work, It takes
practice. And I just love this idea
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because it can be applied to us now in our lives and kind of
what I've shared before. If you're someone like me who
has struggled to talk to people in new situations or social
settings, flying, there's all these things.
It's the repetition, the practice, working on these
things that are are hard, maybe scary or tough, but the tough
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season, it doesn't have to last forever.
We can learn new ways to talk topeople, to come out of our
shell, to ask different questions and doing it over and
over and over again. I haven't started this yet but I
want to asking myself questions in the mirror and then answering
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them in a way that feels true and aligned to me.
Because I struggle when someone asks asks me a question about my
life or what I've done or what Iwant to do and then suddenly I'm
like I don't even remember my name.
Like what? What's my favorite color?
I have no idea and I kind of getlost in my tracks.
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But I can promise as if we work through this together and try a
little by little, conversations are going to flow a little bit
better. Maybe those nerves won't be so
present and I'll be able to enjoy the moment more because
we're not worried about, am I going to make a mistake?
Will I say something silly? Are they, you know, are they
going to judge me? All of that can just be be at
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Bay. They can just, they can just
rest. So I graduated high school and I
decided for my senior trip I really wanted to go visit my
cousin and her husband and little boy in Virginia.
Now I traveled a little bit whenI was younger and this would be
like the first time I had ever gone by myself anywhere alone
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without my family. And it was the coolest
experience ever. I remember riding the bus to
Salt Lake Airport, flying all the way there and making it and
feeling like wow, OK, I'm so capable of doing things by
myself. And it's so interesting how when
you get worked up you think likeI don't know can I do this?
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But in reality we all know we can.
The trip was amazing, so much fun.
So there was a lot of sightseeing and great moments.
Now, on the way home, there was a really big storm and the
flight that I was on, 1st flight, got delayed.
And so I'm in the airport in Virginia.
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Like, am I going to make this next flight or should I just
stay here? And I remember them telling me
like, yeah, you'll be fine. You'll make it.
It'll be close, but we'll make sure that you get on.
So I'm in the air. I finally land into the next
airport and I missed the next flight.
I was sitting on the airplane and they come on.
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They're like, it's delayed. And I thought, Oh my gosh.
So now I'm stuck in the New Yorkairport all by myself and it's,
it's late at night. So there was no other flights
that we're leaving. And this is kind of a panic
modem. OK, what do I do?
I don't even know if I have a charger.
Just little 18 year old me trying to figure it out.
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And you know, I'm calling my dad, We're working it through.
We're talking. And they offered to, I think
maybe give me a voucher or something.
I can't remember. But I was stuck in the airport
overnight. Talk about some anxious nerves.
I couldn't sleep at all because I was so paranoid.
I had my bags with me. I am just this little girl, you
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know, in this big big airport and city she'd never been to
before. Now I wish at the time, like now
looking back, I wish I would have been a little bit more
brave to maybe just go sightseeing a little bit, but
probably wasn't very smart. Luckily my dad kept me in check
anyways, so the next day comes finally it's time I get my new
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flight plans and they just gave me like a random a random seat
for this new flight and I'm really exhausted.
I'm sleep deprived. But I get on the plane and I'm
just so excited to be back back home because this was a long a
long two days. Now something that I want to
point out is it's so interestingback at this time, I felt really
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more capable of doing these things.
I wasn't as nervous or anxious. I sat on the the flights and I
did well. I was OK.
I wasn't so worried about anything.
That now being where I'm at in my life, I worry about a lot
more. But at that time she did totally
fine. There were there were no
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worries. So where did it all change?
What happened? Why was it a lot easier back
then, now, just right after graduating high school, to do
the things that honestly paralyze me a lot more right
now, in this moment? This idea has really played in
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my like, has stayed in my mind for so long because it really
led me to questioning and getting curious about where did
this change? How come I could do it before,
but now I'm older, I should be alot more confident to do the
things as an adult with more freedom.
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I'm in control a little bit morewith what I'm doing and where
I'm at and who I'm with. How did I conquer all of those
things? What was the difference now?
I'll continue this story next week when I start to explain a
little bit more of how much realization I had of when things
really began to change and what has impacted my life up until
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this point. It gets a little bit more deep
and vulnerable, but I've had clarity and understanding what
really went on, why things started to change, and I can't
wait to share more with you. And that's just something that I
want to point out is have the courage to try new things right
now. Put it on your calendar if you
want to take a solo trip or try new foods.
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Maybe try Pilates for the first time.
There are so many fun things that this world has to offer.
It's beautiful and it's great and God has given us so many
amazing things that we can just dive into and involve ourselves
with to feel joy and happiness. It is so fulfilling and there
really is no better feeling whenyou push yourself to do
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something that you probably would never do.
Maybe it seems silly at first, but go for it and just see what
happens. I have a I have a pretty good
feeling that you'll leave with asmile on your face.
I hope that it fuels the fire for you to keep putting yourself
out there and trying things thatare a little bit harder or
scary. I mean, maybe it's going to the
farmers market. Whatever it is, just know that
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it will be worth it and put yourbest foot forward and give it a
shot. I'm rooting for you every step
of the way, whatever it is that you do, and I want to hear about
it. Let me know if you try something
new and you have a blast. We unpacked a lot here today,
but I'm so glad that you could be here with me, this safe
space, and we're learning and figuring it out together.
Life transitions can be tough, but that tough season doesn't
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last forever. And just know it does get
better. It'll come and go, and you can
look forward to something bettercoming ahead.
There's always, always light that falls after our darkest
times, and I hope that this episode shows you that things
started to pick up. I might have felt anxiety when I
was younger on a very, very heavy level during my third and
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4th grade years, but then thingsfelt lighter as time went on and
it was OK. So if this season right now
feels like it's dragging on and it's never going to end, hear it
from a girl who totally gets it.I promise it will get better.
We are capable, we can have courage, and I believe it.
I hope you have a great rest of your week.
Thanks for listening and being here with me as we figure it out
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together. One step at a time, little by
little. And always remember, it's you,
me, God, we got this. Hold on with me.