August 19, 2025 • 27 mins
🪷 Show Notes: Ever wonder why you just can't seem to get motivated — even for the stuff you actually want to do? In this soul-sparking episode, Cheri breaks down the true nature of motivation and why it's not what you think. Spoiler: it doesn't magically show up before the action... it comes after. From her early days working with people living with schizophrenia to her own personal spiral of stress and transformation, Cheri shares raw stories, real science, and hilarious truth bombs that will make you want to lace up your sneakers (or at least drink some water). We unpack the little-by-little mentality, the “Pickleball Principle,” and the magic of doing less so you can feel more. Plus, a peaceful guided meditation using the powerful mantra “Om” awaits at the end — perfect if you’re ready to start showing up for yourself with love, not pressure. ✨ 3 Key Takeaways:
Hosted by Cheri Flake, The Stress Therapist.
- Motivation follows action, not the other way around. If you're waiting to feel motivated before you start, you'll wait forever.
- Do less, feel better. Start small and stop on a high note — your brain and habits will thank you.
- Feel good first. When a behavior feels good, you’re far more likely to stick with it (hello, pickleball people!).
- 🧠 Volition vs. Motivation — insight from psychiatric work
- 🧘♂️ Davidji – Cheri’s beloved meditation teacher & voice of “RPM: Rise, Pee, Meditate”
- 🎾 Pickleball People – the ultimate metaphor for effortless motivation
- 🐾 Cheri’s Retreats – beachy, mountainy, dog-friendly, magical (come along!)
- 🎵 Sonic Yogi – musical support for the guided Om meditation
- 🛠️ Cheri’s garage – a hot mess, but metaphor gold
- 💧 Hydration struggles & spousal water-bragging rights 😂
- 🚘 Shout-out to her “CHEROKEE” license plate — and the evolving school of “Cheri Flake School”
Hosted by Cheri Flake, The Stress Therapist.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Up? Are you excited? I
don't know why I'm so excited. I'm a little excited today. Okay,
so today we're going to talk about motivation. Hey, beautiful people,
(00:28):
it's time for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how
to meditate and get better at stress for people living
in the real world. Finally a place to park my
twenty five plus years of experience of working as a
psychotherapist in the mental health field and now your host
me the stress therapist Cherry Flake. Yeah, motivation. When I
(01:02):
was working with people who suffer from schizophrenia early in
my mental health business career, there was this word on
all of the forms, you know, we'd have to check,
you know, hallucinations, delusions. It's just it's such a heartbreaking illness.
(01:22):
There's a piece of my heart that will always belong
to these beautiful people because you know why. I mean
side note, people that suffer from schizophrenia, they want to
be normal, Okay. Most people want to be extraordinary or
different or unique or whatever. They want a job, they
want a boyfriend, they want their own place. I mean,
it's it is, I don't know, And in a way,
(01:45):
God shines on them. I just love being around these people.
But whenever I would do a psychiatric assessment in the
emergency room, say, I always had to fill out this
part and it said volition and that word like, I
don't know, it doesn't mean motivation, right, because it's not
really that big. It's small. It's just this like I
don't know this like this, this little thing poking at
(02:09):
you that gets you out of bed, that gets you
to go do the thing that gets you to try
something new, that gets you to I don't know, meditate,
play the guitar, call your friend, you know, take a shower, baby,
whatever I mean. And it was always really sad when
I just did not see that little bit of volition there. Right,
(02:29):
most of us have that it's in place. You know,
we understand that we have to drive to the gas
station to get gas, or that we're eventually going to
have to get groceries or talk to this person or
have a hard conversation or whatever. Like we can usually
do that. However, motivation is usually you know, associated with
some sort of new behavior that you want to do right,
(02:49):
something that you want to finish, something that you want
to do, and for some reason, I'll go all the
way back. I used to work with people who only
had schizophrenica. It was a beautiful, wonderful, amazing I love
that job. And I worked right in downtown Atlanta. Even
though I had to tell people to stop soliciting each
other in the lobby room, you know, and to that
they also could not smoke crack in the lobby. There
(03:11):
were some challenges there. It was a tough, tough neighborhood
down there, but it was so rewarding and I just
I got to work with the most magical people in
the whole world that most people just don't connect with.
And that's why when you feel that call to do
something that's different than everyone else, you need to do it.
You know what I'm saying. I like, you need to
do it. That's you don't be listening to all the
(03:32):
other people, because there might be something about you that
the world needs. There definitely is something about you that
the world needs. So I was working there for a
good long time, and then I opened up my own
practice and in my personal life, I was spinning like
a top. Okay, every doctor in the world wanted to
(03:53):
prescribe me vitamin R. You probably know what that is.
And I was just. I mean I was impulsive. I
was just you know, if I was mad at someone,
I would yell at them. If I was you know,
you know, if I thought something, I would say it,
which I'm still still a little bit like that. You know.
I just had absolutely no filter, not that you know,
(04:13):
I'm working on it still, but you know, I had
this like bundling amount of energy. I was always sick,
I was always down, I was always mad, I was
always stressed out. I had all these things, and then
I came down with this illness that put me in
the hospital. I almost didn't make it, and they could
not find any reason for me to have it except
that I was stressed out. They were like, you have
to do yoga, you have to meditate, you have to
(04:34):
do all these things that just for not. I mean,
I was just drinking diet cokes all day every day.
It was so bad, so bad. I was not healthy
at all. And I had to figure out a way
to not only get these things into my life, but
get them into my life with regularity and a lot
of therapists. You know, we usually treat people who look
like us when we're not doing well, you know, I mean,
(04:57):
there's exceptions with the schizophrenia thing. And you know, I
have a friend who's an amazing substitutes counselor and he's
never done any drugs ever. And I have a friend
who treats teens and she doesn't have any kids, and
they're both excellent and amazing and wonderful at their jobs.
But occasionally therapists will go into that because they know
how they got themselves out of it. And I had
(05:18):
to learn how to make these things habitual. I used
to teach people, you know, how to make running habitual,
how to make all these things habitual, But then you know,
it kind of morphed into this. If you make meditation habitual,
it kind of takes care of the rest. And it
kind of does. But there are some really cool things
that we can take from making anything habitual and bring
it into our meditation practices to make our lives better.
(05:40):
And one of those things is examining motivation and how
it works. And I think it's mostly because it's misunderstood.
I think people don't really get how motivation works in
their brain. So we're going to talk a little bit
about that today. And here's the good news. It's super easy,
super duper easy and so anyway, I was trying to
learn how to make yoga habitual on how to make
(06:01):
drinking water habitual. Still working on that. What is up
with that? All my husband does is brag about his
water consumption all the time. Puff lease, it gets so old.
He attributes everything to water consumption, which only means I'm
not doing it. And That's why I'm putting it down right.
You gotta be able to call yourself out on some
you know what I'm saying, call yourself out on some
(06:22):
The reason why I'm annoyed with his water journey is
because I'm not drinking it. I mean, I definitely need
to drink more of it. Side note, do you find
it interesting those of you that are into astrology, do
you find it interesting that my mom, who's a pisces,
hates water. She doesn't ever want to get wet. It's
like this big struggle. I mean like like, I mean,
(06:43):
she bathes and everything, but she wouldn't get her hair
wet if she don't have to. I mean, she will
avoid that like the plague. And she doesn't drink any
of it. Ever, She never drinks any water anyway. I
thought that was weird. For a prison. So before we
even get started talking about motivation, I think it's important
that we remember what I said last time. If you
want to do something new in your life, remember there's
an interim period when that behavior is not habitual. It
(07:06):
is absolutely imperative that you feel good about it. Okay.
I don't know if you run into any pickleball players
here lately, but they don't have any trouble. Get being motivated.
Get into the pick a ball court because I've never
seen anybody so excited about pick a ball. I mean,
I'm not one to shitt on people, but maybe we
should all try it. Have you talked to someone who's
playing pickleball right now? They're out of their minds. Pickaball
(07:27):
has been around forever. I don't know what the big
deal is, but if you talk to someone who has
recently picked it up, they are lit up. Man, they
feel great, and I bet you could get there down
to the pick a ball court in about ten seconds flat.
Why Because they feel good. They have convinced their brain
this is a good thing. It's in alignment with my purpose.
I feel good, it feels great. That's number one. You
(07:49):
gotta feel good about whatever behavior you want to change
if you feel bad about it, I get it. Sometimes
you feel bad because you haven't done it, because I mean, listen,
we're Americans. We tend to feel bad about what we're
not doing rather than feeling good about what we're working on,
which is so weird because like, nothing's ever done, you
know what I mean, You're working on it. Even the
pickleball people are like, well, I just got my new
(08:10):
own racket or whatever I mean, but they're working on it. Okay,
they're working on it. They're not done with it. There's
nowhere to get to. You're in the middle of it.
You're doing it. Okay, So that's a you gotta feel good. Okay.
Now the next thing is you have to remember that
motivation comes after action, not before. Motivation comes after action,
(08:32):
not before. I feel like I need to keep saying
that because we often think that motivation comes before action.
If you think that, then you are confusing motivation with inspiration. Okay. Now,
inspiration's great, but you're gonna fizzle out unless there's some
action behind it. Right. So if you you know, you
can get inspiration from a budding flower, you can get
it from a beautiful song, you can get it from
(08:55):
an inspiring movie, Like if you go see Rocky, you're
probably gonna feel pretty and y'all remember Rocky? Am I
dating myself? I mean, but you know you might feel
really inspired after watching Rocky. It's inpirational people. It's good.
It's a good film. Okay. However, unless you both get
a gray sweatsuit and run up back down the stairs
in Philadelphia, it's probably gonna fizzle out relatively quickly. Okay,
(09:18):
Like you're gonna need some motivation there. You're gonna need
to join the gym or do whatever, buy the things
or do something. Okay, But the good news is, which
comes to my next point, is that even though you're
gonna have to force yourself to do a little something
to get that action going, that motivation right, because motivation
comes after action, not before. You're gonna need to do
(09:38):
a little something, but the operative board, little little, not
something gigantic, little by little, because your brain works like
the rest of your body. Now, I don't like Okay,
as we speak, someone's redoing my kitchen. I mean, it's exciting.
I can't lie. However, I haven't historically been that into
eating and that into cooking. I mean, I think this
(10:00):
inspire me, but it's to me it seems massively inconvenient,
especially when you have all these people around, especially small people,
who are constantly telling you that it's not any good. Okay,
So if I could, I would love to live like
a mosquito. I hear they only eat like once every
two weeks. Wouldn't that be so nice? It would be
so much cheaper, It would be so much more convenient.
You could do a lot of other things. You can
(10:21):
enjoy a lot more sunsets. I mean, I don't know.
And wouldn't it be cool if you could eat all
your meals for the whole year and one sitting. I
would definitely sign up for that. If I could do it,
I would do that absolutely. That would be me. However,
it doesn't work like that. Your body can't take it.
It can only take things little by little. Your brain
is the same. Your brain's the same. And when we
(10:44):
don't honor that, we mess up. Case in point. I
have the most messiest garage on the planet. I have kids.
There's so much stuff in there, y'all. It's like bikes
and tennis stuff and basketballs and the helmets and the
pumps and I mean, there's so much stuff there, pull stuff,
feeds stuff, you know, I mean roller scaling, oh, the
(11:04):
roller skating. I mean, there's so much stuff in there. Anyway,
it's always messy. But if I went in there and
I didn't honor the little by little mentality and I
just went in there and just clean up the whole thing,
it would take hours. Okay, I would miss out on
some things, right, but it would look amazing. And because
motivation comes after action, afterwards, I would look at my
job and I'll be like, oh my god, it's amazing.
(11:25):
I'm never gonna let it get dirty again. Does this
sound familiar? And then a month later it's the exact same. Wait,
why cause your brain the whole time you're bragging about
how amazing it looks and feeling motivated, and it looks
so good and you're so motivated to keep it clean,
your brain is thinking far too cunversome, not doing this again.
Didn't get to meet with friends, didn't get to do
what I normally do on Saturdays. You know, I had
(11:46):
a day that was wasted whatever. Okay, it was too much,
it was too much. It was all those meals in
two weeks. Okay, imagine if you went in there and
you just did the bikes, you put the pumps together,
and helmets and the bikes and whatever, and the accessories
and the bottleholders or whatever, and you just organize all
(12:07):
of that. You would probably feel pretty motivated to keep going, right.
You'd be like, well, now I'm gonna put the tools together,
I'm going to organize the what else is in there,
the light bulbs and batteries or whatever. I'm going to
do that. Right. But imagine if you didn't, right, you
would feel a little motivated to keep moving. And so
you have to keep on with this idea of the
(12:29):
little by little mentality, and you have to stop when
the going gets good. You have to stop when the
going gets good. You have to stop, Okay, which brings
me to my next point. Right, Let's say, and this
happens all the time. Let's say that you come into
my office and you want to make running habitual, okay,
and I ask you how much are running out? Not
at all? Okay? But I used to run, so I
(12:51):
know it's in alignment with me. It does make me
feel good. It's got to pick a ball feel to it,
you know what I'm saying. And so you say yeah,
I say yes, yes, we can totally do this. And
let's say that I tell you, Okay, tomorrow, I would
like for you to, you know, walk for eight minutes,
and then on you know, Wednesday, I want you to
run for five minutes, and then on Thursday, I want
(13:11):
you to run for four minutes. And then I want
you to take a day off, and I give you
a very specific prescription exactly what to do each day
and for how long. Okay, you go out there that
first day and you start running, and you start to
have the pick a ball enthusiasm, right, You're like, because
motivation comes after action. You're out there running, You're like,
oh yeah, okay, and you start feeling really good because
(13:33):
motivation comes after action, and you're like playing pick a
ball and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to
be amazing. I'm gonna be so fit, my blood pressure
is going to go down. I'm going to fit into
those jeans, I'm gonna get a dog, I'm gonna know
all my neighbors. It's gonna be amazing. And you're running
and running in the little alarm goes off and it says,
stop running, right, because I gave you a very specific
prescription on how much to run and all of that,
(13:55):
and you look at and you say, Sherry doesn't know
a thing. I feel amazing. I'm going to keep right right.
I'm gonna keep running. And you keep running, and then
you get home and your shin hurts and you're whatever.
And the next day you're supposed to run a short run,
but you're like, oh, but you start doing some weird math.
You know in your head, well, since I did an
(14:15):
extra eleven minutes today, then I can take off four minutes.
And then you're The next day you're off, and then
the day after that you're supposed to be off. But
then you feel guilty because you didn't do it, and
your body's so sore. You're not really sure if it's
a good idea to run. Anyway, you start talking yourself
out of it and run. You start saying, oh, it's
a bad idea, regardless of how exactly it goes down.
By the time you come into my office a week later,
(14:36):
you feel bad about that behavior, don't you. You don't
feel good, And that's the number one thing. Remember, You
gotta feel good. You gotta feel good. If I could
make a billboard, and I used to have one in Atlanta.
It's pretty good. But if I could make a billboard,
it would say feel good. You gotta feel good about
whatever it is you want to change. Imagine if you
would have stopped running when I told you to, right
(15:00):
when you were saying, I'm amazing and I'm gonna know
my neighbor is and i'm gonna look amazing, and i'm
gonna get a dog, and I'm gonna know my neighborhood
and I just feel this so good, and I'm outside
and you have all this like beautiful intrinsic reward. Imagine
if you stop right there, you would be dying to
get back out there to run again. And that's creating
motivation on your own. Okay, Oh that's how you do it.
(15:24):
That's how you do it. That's how you do it
all by yourself. Right. Feel good motivation comes after action.
Force yourself to do a little something, have the little
by little mentality. Make sure you stop on a high note.
You gotta stop on a high note. That's the one
everybody forgets. That's the one everybody forgets. Okay, So you
just like moved up, Maybe not a whole grade, but
(15:44):
maybe a semester in sherry Flake School. My husband got
me a license plate and it says sherapy. So you're
in sherapy school. You're in stress therapy school. Imagine how
much stress relief you can get if you're actually doing
the behaviors that you wish you were doing. Yes, that's
why we have to learn about motivation, because a lot
(16:05):
of time stress is just caused by not doing the
things that you want in your life with regularity. That's it.
I mean, I can totally teach you that this is
gonna be great moving up in Cherry Flake School. Here's
the thing. We are going to meditate for a few
minutes together, and we're gonna do a little bit of
woo in a second. But what I want you to
think about is your meditation practice. The wise words of
(16:29):
David g my meditation teacher. Great guy. Look him up
on insight timer, look him up everywhere. He's lovely, his
voice love sweetest guy on the planet anyway, he says,
r P M rise P meditate, rise P meditate. Imagine
(16:52):
if that was the first thing you did each day,
what kind of motivation would you have for the rest
of the day. Pretty good? What happens is is people
who want to meditate. They say, well, I'm gonna rise pee,
let the dog out, brush my chomps, make the coffee,
grab the paper, God forbid, pick up the phone, and
(17:12):
then they're doing. And then it's three o'clock, in four o'clock,
at five o'clock, at six o'clock, and it's time for bed,
and that meditation thing it never happened. Man, what if
it was the first thing you did, Rise P meditate. Now,
I got a ton of people who tell me I
can't do that, I can't do it, I can't do it.
And I got one friend of mine right now, And
you know who you are. You know who you are
(17:33):
telling me that you can't do it in the morning.
I'm just saying later on in sherry Flake School, when
you're in Sherpy first grade or second grader, maybe eighth grade,
right around there you can move to right after work
or right after school or right before bed. But right now,
when we're's sherry Flake like nursery, kindergarten, first grade or whatever,
(17:54):
it's rise P meditate, Rise P meditate. I'm talking about
for five minutes, not in your bed, no meditation. Move
someplace else, go somewhere else, Rise Pee, meditate and then
tell me that it didn't work. What if it works?
What if it does? What if you turn out to
(18:15):
be a pickleball enthusiast about your meditation practice. It happens
all the time. It happens on my retreat. You could
come out and retreat with me. You know, I got one.
I always got one coming. I got this, like pretty serious,
like a tense one in the mountains where we meditate
and yoga and meditate and yoga and eat amazing, And
then I got one at the beach a little more
laid back. You could bring your dog, you know that
(18:36):
kind of thing. But definitely come on retreat with me.
It happens all the time. Rise Pete, meditate Okay, right now,
get a comfortable spot. You can put me on pause,
but you gotta come back. Man, you can't leave me.
You gotta show up, Show up, get your butt on
the cushion. Don't be a poser, okay, don't be a poser.
Be someone who actually meditates, not someone who just talks
(18:59):
about it. Come sit in your comfortable space, and we're
going to meditate together right now with the beautiful musical
stylings of sonic yogi. Oh, and we can start like
that too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Create some heat.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
People. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, put your hands,
palms up on your knees. Feel what it feels like
to have your lovely energy, your prana, your life force
coursing through your hands. Breathe in, breathe out. Today we're
(19:50):
going to be using the mantra. Mantra. Oh, this is
the sound of the universe. This is the hymn of
the universe. It's the word, the good word, the only word.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Oh. Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
If you don't like all, you could use peace, you
could use amen. But just knowing that om is the
sound that the earth is making. If you could hear
it silently saying it to yourself and allowing this vibration
(20:49):
up your spine as you breathe in, as you breathe out,
bring an energy and a vibe that I just don't
want you to miss out of silently repeat, Oh, it's
(21:09):
your meditation anchor for this meditation together. Oh oh, with
(21:29):
your eyes comfortably closed, sitting up comfortable, silently repeat over
and over.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Oh, And when your attention falters, just come back to
the mantra, keep coming back, keep coming back, and I'll
be back in a few moments to guide you upt.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
M oh oh h.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Allow this mantra to fall away from your awareness. Yes,
sitting still with your eyes closed, Sit in this calmness,
in this piece that you have created for a moment,
(25:25):
instead of just jumping up to the next thing, allow
yourself to luxuriate here.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Just for a few moments.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose, let
it all go out of your mouth. And take another long, slow,
deep breath in your nose and let it all go
(26:08):
out of your mouth, and still with your eyes closed,
but awakening coming into this moment in this time, take
another long, slow, deep breath in your nose, letting it
all go, and when you're ready, you can open your
beautiful eyes. I so hoped that was lovely for you.
(26:40):
Maybe it was a little motivating, the littlest bit of meditation.
Maybe it created some motivation for you, because motivation comes
after action. Okay, let me know how you do with
rise pee, meditate, motivation. All love it, I love it.
(27:01):
I'll see you next time. Have a lovely, lovely day. Hi, y'all.
Feeling after that stress therapy session good Awesome. Check out
the show notes. To connect with me the Stress Therapist
on social media at the stress Therapist on Instagram and
at stress Therapy on Twitter. You can always go to
(27:22):
I loovethapy dot com to find out about meditation and
yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If
you live in Georgia and you're ready to be one
of my clients, go to my website to find out
how you can sign up for a free face to
face consultation with me at the very least. Jump by
my mailers so you don't stress or miss one thing
until next time, Have a lovely, lovely day,
Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Up? Are you excited? I
don't know why I'm so excited. I'm a little excited today. Okay,
so today we're going to talk about motivation. Hey, beautiful people,
(00:28):
it's time for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how
to meditate and get better at stress for people living
in the real world. Finally a place to park my
twenty five plus years of experience of working as a
psychotherapist in the mental health field and now your host
me the stress therapist Cherry Flake. Yeah, motivation. When I
(01:02):
was working with people who suffer from schizophrenia early in
my mental health business career, there was this word on
all of the forms, you know, we'd have to check,
you know, hallucinations, delusions. It's just it's such a heartbreaking illness.
(01:22):
There's a piece of my heart that will always belong
to these beautiful people because you know why. I mean
side note, people that suffer from schizophrenia, they want to
be normal, Okay. Most people want to be extraordinary or
different or unique or whatever. They want a job, they
want a boyfriend, they want their own place. I mean,
it's it is, I don't know, And in a way,
(01:45):
God shines on them. I just love being around these people.
But whenever I would do a psychiatric assessment in the
emergency room, say, I always had to fill out this
part and it said volition and that word like, I
don't know, it doesn't mean motivation, right, because it's not
really that big. It's small. It's just this like I
don't know this like this, this little thing poking at
(02:09):
you that gets you out of bed, that gets you
to go do the thing that gets you to try
something new, that gets you to I don't know, meditate,
play the guitar, call your friend, you know, take a shower, baby,
whatever I mean. And it was always really sad when
I just did not see that little bit of volition there. Right,
(02:29):
most of us have that it's in place. You know,
we understand that we have to drive to the gas
station to get gas, or that we're eventually going to
have to get groceries or talk to this person or
have a hard conversation or whatever. Like we can usually
do that. However, motivation is usually you know, associated with
some sort of new behavior that you want to do right,
(02:49):
something that you want to finish, something that you want
to do, and for some reason, I'll go all the
way back. I used to work with people who only
had schizophrenica. It was a beautiful, wonderful, amazing I love
that job. And I worked right in downtown Atlanta. Even
though I had to tell people to stop soliciting each
other in the lobby room, you know, and to that
they also could not smoke crack in the lobby. There
(03:11):
were some challenges there. It was a tough, tough neighborhood
down there, but it was so rewarding and I just
I got to work with the most magical people in
the whole world that most people just don't connect with.
And that's why when you feel that call to do
something that's different than everyone else, you need to do it.
You know what I'm saying. I like, you need to
do it. That's you don't be listening to all the
(03:32):
other people, because there might be something about you that
the world needs. There definitely is something about you that
the world needs. So I was working there for a
good long time, and then I opened up my own
practice and in my personal life, I was spinning like
a top. Okay, every doctor in the world wanted to
(03:53):
prescribe me vitamin R. You probably know what that is.
And I was just. I mean I was impulsive. I
was just you know, if I was mad at someone,
I would yell at them. If I was you know,
you know, if I thought something, I would say it,
which I'm still still a little bit like that. You know.
I just had absolutely no filter, not that you know,
(04:13):
I'm working on it still, but you know, I had
this like bundling amount of energy. I was always sick,
I was always down, I was always mad, I was
always stressed out. I had all these things, and then
I came down with this illness that put me in
the hospital. I almost didn't make it, and they could
not find any reason for me to have it except
that I was stressed out. They were like, you have
to do yoga, you have to meditate, you have to
(04:34):
do all these things that just for not. I mean,
I was just drinking diet cokes all day every day.
It was so bad, so bad. I was not healthy
at all. And I had to figure out a way
to not only get these things into my life, but
get them into my life with regularity and a lot
of therapists. You know, we usually treat people who look
like us when we're not doing well, you know, I mean,
(04:57):
there's exceptions with the schizophrenia thing. And you know, I
have a friend who's an amazing substitutes counselor and he's
never done any drugs ever. And I have a friend
who treats teens and she doesn't have any kids, and
they're both excellent and amazing and wonderful at their jobs.
But occasionally therapists will go into that because they know
how they got themselves out of it. And I had
(05:18):
to learn how to make these things habitual. I used
to teach people, you know, how to make running habitual,
how to make all these things habitual, But then you know,
it kind of morphed into this. If you make meditation habitual,
it kind of takes care of the rest. And it
kind of does. But there are some really cool things
that we can take from making anything habitual and bring
it into our meditation practices to make our lives better.
(05:40):
And one of those things is examining motivation and how
it works. And I think it's mostly because it's misunderstood.
I think people don't really get how motivation works in
their brain. So we're going to talk a little bit
about that today. And here's the good news. It's super easy,
super duper easy and so anyway, I was trying to
learn how to make yoga habitual on how to make
(06:01):
drinking water habitual. Still working on that. What is up
with that? All my husband does is brag about his
water consumption all the time. Puff lease, it gets so old.
He attributes everything to water consumption, which only means I'm
not doing it. And That's why I'm putting it down right.
You gotta be able to call yourself out on some
you know what I'm saying, call yourself out on some
(06:22):
The reason why I'm annoyed with his water journey is
because I'm not drinking it. I mean, I definitely need
to drink more of it. Side note, do you find
it interesting those of you that are into astrology, do
you find it interesting that my mom, who's a pisces,
hates water. She doesn't ever want to get wet. It's
like this big struggle. I mean like like, I mean,
(06:43):
she bathes and everything, but she wouldn't get her hair
wet if she don't have to. I mean, she will
avoid that like the plague. And she doesn't drink any
of it. Ever, She never drinks any water anyway. I
thought that was weird. For a prison. So before we
even get started talking about motivation, I think it's important
that we remember what I said last time. If you
want to do something new in your life, remember there's
an interim period when that behavior is not habitual. It
(07:06):
is absolutely imperative that you feel good about it. Okay.
I don't know if you run into any pickleball players
here lately, but they don't have any trouble. Get being motivated.
Get into the pick a ball court because I've never
seen anybody so excited about pick a ball. I mean,
I'm not one to shitt on people, but maybe we
should all try it. Have you talked to someone who's
playing pickleball right now? They're out of their minds. Pickaball
(07:27):
has been around forever. I don't know what the big
deal is, but if you talk to someone who has
recently picked it up, they are lit up. Man, they
feel great, and I bet you could get there down
to the pick a ball court in about ten seconds flat.
Why Because they feel good. They have convinced their brain
this is a good thing. It's in alignment with my purpose.
I feel good, it feels great. That's number one. You
(07:49):
gotta feel good about whatever behavior you want to change
if you feel bad about it, I get it. Sometimes
you feel bad because you haven't done it, because I mean, listen,
we're Americans. We tend to feel bad about what we're
not doing rather than feeling good about what we're working on,
which is so weird because like, nothing's ever done, you
know what I mean, You're working on it. Even the
pickleball people are like, well, I just got my new
(08:10):
own racket or whatever I mean, but they're working on it. Okay,
they're working on it. They're not done with it. There's
nowhere to get to. You're in the middle of it.
You're doing it. Okay, So that's a you gotta feel good. Okay.
Now the next thing is you have to remember that
motivation comes after action, not before. Motivation comes after action,
(08:32):
not before. I feel like I need to keep saying
that because we often think that motivation comes before action.
If you think that, then you are confusing motivation with inspiration. Okay. Now,
inspiration's great, but you're gonna fizzle out unless there's some
action behind it. Right. So if you you know, you
can get inspiration from a budding flower, you can get
it from a beautiful song, you can get it from
(08:55):
an inspiring movie, Like if you go see Rocky, you're
probably gonna feel pretty and y'all remember Rocky? Am I
dating myself? I mean, but you know you might feel
really inspired after watching Rocky. It's inpirational people. It's good.
It's a good film. Okay. However, unless you both get
a gray sweatsuit and run up back down the stairs
in Philadelphia, it's probably gonna fizzle out relatively quickly. Okay,
(09:18):
Like you're gonna need some motivation there. You're gonna need
to join the gym or do whatever, buy the things
or do something. Okay, But the good news is, which
comes to my next point, is that even though you're
gonna have to force yourself to do a little something
to get that action going, that motivation right, because motivation
comes after action, not before. You're gonna need to do
(09:38):
a little something, but the operative board, little little, not
something gigantic, little by little, because your brain works like
the rest of your body. Now, I don't like Okay,
as we speak, someone's redoing my kitchen. I mean, it's exciting.
I can't lie. However, I haven't historically been that into
eating and that into cooking. I mean, I think this
(10:00):
inspire me, but it's to me it seems massively inconvenient,
especially when you have all these people around, especially small people,
who are constantly telling you that it's not any good. Okay,
So if I could, I would love to live like
a mosquito. I hear they only eat like once every
two weeks. Wouldn't that be so nice? It would be
so much cheaper, It would be so much more convenient.
You could do a lot of other things. You can
(10:21):
enjoy a lot more sunsets. I mean, I don't know.
And wouldn't it be cool if you could eat all
your meals for the whole year and one sitting. I
would definitely sign up for that. If I could do it,
I would do that absolutely. That would be me. However,
it doesn't work like that. Your body can't take it.
It can only take things little by little. Your brain
is the same. Your brain's the same. And when we
(10:44):
don't honor that, we mess up. Case in point. I
have the most messiest garage on the planet. I have kids.
There's so much stuff in there, y'all. It's like bikes
and tennis stuff and basketballs and the helmets and the
pumps and I mean, there's so much stuff there, pull stuff,
feeds stuff, you know, I mean roller scaling, oh, the
(11:04):
roller skating. I mean, there's so much stuff in there. Anyway,
it's always messy. But if I went in there and
I didn't honor the little by little mentality and I
just went in there and just clean up the whole thing,
it would take hours. Okay, I would miss out on
some things, right, but it would look amazing. And because
motivation comes after action, afterwards, I would look at my
job and I'll be like, oh my god, it's amazing.
(11:25):
I'm never gonna let it get dirty again. Does this
sound familiar? And then a month later it's the exact same. Wait,
why cause your brain the whole time you're bragging about
how amazing it looks and feeling motivated, and it looks
so good and you're so motivated to keep it clean,
your brain is thinking far too cunversome, not doing this again.
Didn't get to meet with friends, didn't get to do
what I normally do on Saturdays. You know, I had
(11:46):
a day that was wasted whatever. Okay, it was too much,
it was too much. It was all those meals in
two weeks. Okay, imagine if you went in there and
you just did the bikes, you put the pumps together,
and helmets and the bikes and whatever, and the accessories
and the bottleholders or whatever, and you just organize all
(12:07):
of that. You would probably feel pretty motivated to keep going, right.
You'd be like, well, now I'm gonna put the tools together,
I'm going to organize the what else is in there,
the light bulbs and batteries or whatever. I'm going to
do that. Right. But imagine if you didn't, right, you
would feel a little motivated to keep moving. And so
you have to keep on with this idea of the
(12:29):
little by little mentality, and you have to stop when
the going gets good. You have to stop when the
going gets good. You have to stop, Okay, which brings
me to my next point. Right, Let's say, and this
happens all the time. Let's say that you come into
my office and you want to make running habitual, okay,
and I ask you how much are running out? Not
at all? Okay? But I used to run, so I
(12:51):
know it's in alignment with me. It does make me
feel good. It's got to pick a ball feel to it,
you know what I'm saying. And so you say yeah,
I say yes, yes, we can totally do this. And
let's say that I tell you, Okay, tomorrow, I would
like for you to, you know, walk for eight minutes,
and then on you know, Wednesday, I want you to
run for five minutes, and then on Thursday, I want
(13:11):
you to run for four minutes. And then I want
you to take a day off, and I give you
a very specific prescription exactly what to do each day
and for how long. Okay, you go out there that
first day and you start running, and you start to
have the pick a ball enthusiasm, right, You're like, because
motivation comes after action. You're out there running, You're like,
oh yeah, okay, and you start feeling really good because
(13:33):
motivation comes after action, and you're like playing pick a
ball and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to
be amazing. I'm gonna be so fit, my blood pressure
is going to go down. I'm going to fit into
those jeans, I'm gonna get a dog, I'm gonna know
all my neighbors. It's gonna be amazing. And you're running
and running in the little alarm goes off and it says,
stop running, right, because I gave you a very specific
prescription on how much to run and all of that,
(13:55):
and you look at and you say, Sherry doesn't know
a thing. I feel amazing. I'm going to keep right right.
I'm gonna keep running. And you keep running, and then
you get home and your shin hurts and you're whatever.
And the next day you're supposed to run a short run,
but you're like, oh, but you start doing some weird math.
You know in your head, well, since I did an
(14:15):
extra eleven minutes today, then I can take off four minutes.
And then you're The next day you're off, and then
the day after that you're supposed to be off. But
then you feel guilty because you didn't do it, and
your body's so sore. You're not really sure if it's
a good idea to run. Anyway, you start talking yourself
out of it and run. You start saying, oh, it's
a bad idea, regardless of how exactly it goes down.
By the time you come into my office a week later,
(14:36):
you feel bad about that behavior, don't you. You don't
feel good, And that's the number one thing. Remember, You
gotta feel good. You gotta feel good. If I could
make a billboard, and I used to have one in Atlanta.
It's pretty good. But if I could make a billboard,
it would say feel good. You gotta feel good about
whatever it is you want to change. Imagine if you
would have stopped running when I told you to, right
(15:00):
when you were saying, I'm amazing and I'm gonna know
my neighbor is and i'm gonna look amazing, and i'm
gonna get a dog, and I'm gonna know my neighborhood
and I just feel this so good, and I'm outside
and you have all this like beautiful intrinsic reward. Imagine
if you stop right there, you would be dying to
get back out there to run again. And that's creating
motivation on your own. Okay, Oh that's how you do it.
(15:24):
That's how you do it. That's how you do it
all by yourself. Right. Feel good motivation comes after action.
Force yourself to do a little something, have the little
by little mentality. Make sure you stop on a high note.
You gotta stop on a high note. That's the one
everybody forgets. That's the one everybody forgets. Okay, So you
just like moved up, Maybe not a whole grade, but
(15:44):
maybe a semester in sherry Flake School. My husband got
me a license plate and it says sherapy. So you're
in sherapy school. You're in stress therapy school. Imagine how
much stress relief you can get if you're actually doing
the behaviors that you wish you were doing. Yes, that's
why we have to learn about motivation, because a lot
(16:05):
of time stress is just caused by not doing the
things that you want in your life with regularity. That's it.
I mean, I can totally teach you that this is
gonna be great moving up in Cherry Flake School. Here's
the thing. We are going to meditate for a few
minutes together, and we're gonna do a little bit of
woo in a second. But what I want you to
think about is your meditation practice. The wise words of
(16:29):
David g my meditation teacher. Great guy. Look him up
on insight timer, look him up everywhere. He's lovely, his
voice love sweetest guy on the planet anyway, he says,
r P M rise P meditate, rise P meditate. Imagine
(16:52):
if that was the first thing you did each day,
what kind of motivation would you have for the rest
of the day. Pretty good? What happens is is people
who want to meditate. They say, well, I'm gonna rise pee,
let the dog out, brush my chomps, make the coffee,
grab the paper, God forbid, pick up the phone, and
(17:12):
then they're doing. And then it's three o'clock, in four o'clock,
at five o'clock, at six o'clock, and it's time for bed,
and that meditation thing it never happened. Man, what if
it was the first thing you did, Rise P meditate. Now,
I got a ton of people who tell me I
can't do that, I can't do it, I can't do it.
And I got one friend of mine right now, And
you know who you are. You know who you are
(17:33):
telling me that you can't do it in the morning.
I'm just saying later on in sherry Flake School, when
you're in Sherpy first grade or second grader, maybe eighth grade,
right around there you can move to right after work
or right after school or right before bed. But right now,
when we're's sherry Flake like nursery, kindergarten, first grade or whatever,
(17:54):
it's rise P meditate, Rise P meditate. I'm talking about
for five minutes, not in your bed, no meditation. Move
someplace else, go somewhere else, Rise Pee, meditate and then
tell me that it didn't work. What if it works?
What if it does? What if you turn out to
(18:15):
be a pickleball enthusiast about your meditation practice. It happens
all the time. It happens on my retreat. You could
come out and retreat with me. You know, I got one.
I always got one coming. I got this, like pretty serious,
like a tense one in the mountains where we meditate
and yoga and meditate and yoga and eat amazing, And
then I got one at the beach a little more
laid back. You could bring your dog, you know that
(18:36):
kind of thing. But definitely come on retreat with me.
It happens all the time. Rise Pete, meditate Okay, right now,
get a comfortable spot. You can put me on pause,
but you gotta come back. Man, you can't leave me.
You gotta show up, Show up, get your butt on
the cushion. Don't be a poser, okay, don't be a poser.
Be someone who actually meditates, not someone who just talks
(18:59):
about it. Come sit in your comfortable space, and we're
going to meditate together right now with the beautiful musical
stylings of sonic yogi. Oh, and we can start like
that too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Create some heat.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
People. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, put your hands,
palms up on your knees. Feel what it feels like
to have your lovely energy, your prana, your life force
coursing through your hands. Breathe in, breathe out. Today we're
(19:50):
going to be using the mantra. Mantra. Oh, this is
the sound of the universe. This is the hymn of
the universe. It's the word, the good word, the only word.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Oh. Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
If you don't like all, you could use peace, you
could use amen. But just knowing that om is the
sound that the earth is making. If you could hear
it silently saying it to yourself and allowing this vibration
(20:49):
up your spine as you breathe in, as you breathe out,
bring an energy and a vibe that I just don't
want you to miss out of silently repeat, Oh, it's
(21:09):
your meditation anchor for this meditation together. Oh oh, with
(21:29):
your eyes comfortably closed, sitting up comfortable, silently repeat over
and over.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Oh, And when your attention falters, just come back to
the mantra, keep coming back, keep coming back, and I'll
be back in a few moments to guide you upt.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
M oh oh h.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Allow this mantra to fall away from your awareness. Yes,
sitting still with your eyes closed, Sit in this calmness,
in this piece that you have created for a moment,
(25:25):
instead of just jumping up to the next thing, allow
yourself to luxuriate here.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Just for a few moments.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose, let
it all go out of your mouth. And take another long, slow,
deep breath in your nose and let it all go
(26:08):
out of your mouth, and still with your eyes closed,
but awakening coming into this moment in this time, take
another long, slow, deep breath in your nose, letting it
all go, and when you're ready, you can open your
beautiful eyes. I so hoped that was lovely for you.
(26:40):
Maybe it was a little motivating, the littlest bit of meditation.
Maybe it created some motivation for you, because motivation comes
after action. Okay, let me know how you do with
rise pee, meditate, motivation. All love it, I love it.
(27:01):
I'll see you next time. Have a lovely, lovely day. Hi, y'all.
Feeling after that stress therapy session good Awesome. Check out
the show notes. To connect with me the Stress Therapist
on social media at the stress Therapist on Instagram and
at stress Therapy on Twitter. You can always go to
(27:22):
I loovethapy dot com to find out about meditation and
yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If
you live in Georgia and you're ready to be one
of my clients, go to my website to find out
how you can sign up for a free face to
face consultation with me at the very least. Jump by
my mailers so you don't stress or miss one thing
until next time, Have a lovely, lovely day,
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