Lacey Johnson {@thelaceyjohnson} is a multi-passionate, award-winning essayist and magazine journalist who sparks conversations that unlock hearts, energize minds and celebrate the human experience. Amy first met Lacey when she was given the assignment to write an article about Amy for Brentwood & Belle Meade Lifestyle Magazines and during their chat for that, Amy realized that she wanted to have Lacey on the podcast! With a deep love and intrigue for human beings, and a passion for comfort and truth, she calls upon her vault of personal experiences in the realms of trauma, grief, and resilience to open doorways of epiphany, power and possibility. Lacey came on to talk about her recently released workbook, Radical Life Renovation: A Guided Program to Heal the Past, Reclaim Your Power & Build a Future You Love, which can be found HERE!
Link to Lacy’s Website: https://www.laceyjohnson.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
A little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty Bay.
It was pretty beautiful. Thanks, beautiful laughs A little month
because your kicking four. I'm sitting across from Lacey Johnson,
which I first met Lacey. I guess it was a
(00:37):
couple of months ago. She came to my house to
interview me for an article that was being done for
Brentwood Lifestyle and Belt Meat Lifestyle. There's these lifestyle magazines
here and around Nashville that arrive in people's mailboxes. Depending
on where you live is which one you get. And
she wrote the kindest article ever, in fact, like some
(00:57):
of the adjectives that she chose to use. I was like,
you can't describe me as that, And then I realized too,
it's also not my place to say what you can
and cannot say about me because you are the writer.
So I'm sure that's also really annoying someone comes back
and says something you made the most really moving impression
upon me. I have to tell you, I have interviewed
(01:18):
probably three hundred people or more at this point, like
in my career for magazines and media sources, and you're
the only person I have ever interviewed who like was
so humble and wanted to like turn down the dial
on your fabulousness like I have normally people at fabulous. Seriously,
(01:40):
you were so humble and just so reserved in the
way that I described you, and it was really refreshing. Well,
in a world of opportunism and influence, it was very refreshing. Well,
we're not here to talk about me, You're here to
talk about you. Because as you were leaving, you shared
a little bit more about what you do. And of
course before the interview started, I knew that you had
(02:02):
articles published in Oprah magazine and I don't know you
nicked Marie Claire, like the list goes on your oprah
dot com. Like you're very into health, mental health, mind, body, spirit,
the whole connection. And somehow right when you walked out,
you said something like, oh, we'll have a book coming out,
and I was like, wait, what you have to come
on the podcast? So I would love for you to
(02:25):
just share with us the workbook, what that's all about,
your upcoming book, Why you're passionate about this, and I
know you have a very wild story of something that
happened to you. So I'm going to pass the mic
and let you share with us why you decided to
put penda paper, but like in an actual not just
an article, like something more for people to work with.
(02:48):
So I am passionate about mental health, you know, trauma, healing, grief.
I've worked with a lot of psychologists, neuroscientists, spiritual thought leaders,
a lot of experts and mental health. And it sort
of came about naturally in my journalism and my work
because I, from a very young age experienced an extremely
(03:09):
traumatic event. When I was six years old. My family
had a furniture store business, and there was a gas leak,
you know, there was an explosion, and my mom, my
two aunts, and my grandmother all passed away. So from
a very young age, my life was turned upside down.
And so I had just a really heaping dose of
(03:30):
what can happen when your life falls apart, when the
village gets burned down, so to speak. As I was
growing up, I I think I did a lot of,
I would say, not healthy things with my grief, with
my pain, with my trauma. And you know, I did
experience depression and anxiety, and I had an attachment issues
and had it made a lot of like trauma driven decisions,
(03:52):
and at some point it was sort of like something
has to change. And it was a right about the
time that I was finishing, you know, my education at
Belmont in journalism, and I was kind of like, what
vein of journalism am I going to go into. I
know that I don't want to do breaking news. And
as I was healing myself, I sort of realized, like,
I think we're here to teach what we're here to
(04:14):
learn in life. I knew that going into the realms
of of wellness, mental wellness, mind wellness was the best
place for me to be and really contribute and be
of service in my work. And so that's how it
came to be Okay, well, let's talk about radical life
for renovation, a guided program to heal the past, to
(04:36):
reclaim your power and build a future you love. Yes,
So this came about in in that year, I created
so much content because there was this huge demand for
mental health experts, and I mean I was so busy,
especially early in the pandemic, and so it was it
(04:57):
was really interesting time for me. So much pressure for
people needing guidance, people needing information to help them reconceptualize
what was going on, to make the best of it,
to maybe heal traumas that they hadn't faced in a
long time. When you're shoved away from your family, or
you're forced to give up the business that you built,
or your relationship dissolves because you guys have been isolated together.
(05:21):
I mean, everyone was going through something different. It truly
was a magnifier of the truth of what was going on.
And there was no escape. There was nowhere to run, right,
So I learned a lot, and in that year I
was like, I knew that I had a book in me,
and I had an idea of where I know I
had lots of books in me, but I had an idea. Well,
(05:42):
that fall in September, it was like the first day
that I think I had really taken my little girl
out out of the house much because it was such
a scary time. It was the first time that we
were going to go step foot in them all since
I think, I guess, before the pandemic had started. She
was eighteen months on this day. It was a beautiful day,
(06:04):
sort of like a soft breeze of a nearing falls,
really lovely day. I put her in her car seat
and drove her to the mall and pulled her out
and strapped her tightly into her stroller with her baby
doll in her sippy cup, and proceeded to push her
through the parking lot into the mall. And all of
a sudden, I felt this monstrous weight shoved me to
(06:27):
the pavement. I heard nothing, and there was no warning,
and I didn't even have time to think. The tires
of the car just ran over me. I mean I
was swallowed within seconds, completely swallowed by the car. The
back tire actually ran over my hair. I had to
like rip my hair to get out from underneath there.
But the back tire stopped about an inch and a
(06:49):
half according to the doctor, from my skull, and I
think an inch and a half from puncturing my lungs.
It went over my shoulder and my arm in hand
and over my hair. When I came to my daughter's
screams were filling the air. I had no idea what
I was going to see, and I I slithered like
a snake, help out from underneath the car and rushed
to her. And luckily, because I had her strapped in,
(07:12):
she was only had superficial scratches to her head. Of course,
we saw to have her examined. I was you know,
my my flesh was was hanging off of my shoulder
and my arm in my hand. I was bleeding all
over her. There are people rushing about. They thought that
they had just witnessed someone's mother be killed. As it
turns out, it was an unlicensed teenage seventeen year old
(07:34):
who was looking at her phone. Of course, I didn't
learn all of these details until later, but I was
taken away in an ambulance. And I share all this
because it does lead to the book, and its inspired
the book. But in the aftermath of that, I had
so many people coming at me, and I believe almost
all of them had beautiful intentions. They thought they were
being supportive, but they were just sort of combing through
(07:56):
their own rolodex of ideas and limitations and leafs around
what trauma will be and how I was supposed to
behave or feel. And obviously I was teeming with with
trauma and it was very acute and it was scary.
There were for days after I was like I had
to calmly tell myself, like breathe and calm my nervous
system down and tell myself, you know, this is just
(08:19):
your brain trying to protect you. This, you had a
very impactful experience, and um, you're not underneath that car anymore.
It's not coming for your skull. You're okay. But I
had people say things like, Oh, it's going to be
a long time before you can walk through a parking
lot again, or oh, you you know, you're never going
to be able to be in a car again, or
you're you know, every time you see tires, you're going
(08:41):
to you know, have a really bad reaction, or you
will have PTSD from this. And I believe this is
going to be more trauma, you know, people especially who
knew my story of what I've been through in my life.
This is going to be a whole new set of traumas.
And I knew that those that there was a lot
of merit and people telling me those things. But I
also knew and being in the realm of of doing
(09:02):
so much work and creating so much content and interviewing
so many incredible people, I know so much about the brain,
I know so much about human resilience and transformation process,
and I thought that might be their stories. But I
don't have to fold them into me. I don't have
to to own those stories. And so three days I
believe it was two or three days after the accident.
(09:26):
With my arm and shoulder and hand bandaged, I asked
my husband to drive me back there, and I was like,
I want to drive my car home. You know, I
want to not because I have anything to prove to anybody,
but because I know that I can write my own story.
I can decide what is true for me. And as
I was driving myself home, I thought about the year
(09:49):
that we were in and all the collection of stories
I had just interviewed, so many feature subjects and people experts,
but also just people going through just a vast range
of experiences that were so nuanced that are impossible to
really understand unless you're inside of it. And I had
(10:09):
heard so many stories of struggle and pain and loss
and grief and grieving the freedoms that we had taken
for granted and and grieving, you know, people who have
lost love, loved ones, people who had been forced to
move across the coast and leave a life that they love,
people who missed the comfort of office banter, you know,
being in that space with people that they had grown
to love it maybe they didn't even realize they loved.
(10:31):
And I knew that I had so much to offer
in terms of from my own life and the ways
that I had reconceptualized the way that I looked at
my experiences as well as I had this vault of
knowledge from these experts that I had interviewed. And so
what I did is I combed through mentally, combed through
(10:51):
that vault well and physically too. I went through my
my files, and I decided to create something that would
allow people to sort of get in to their inner
world and to reconceptualize their experiences, to learn to access
their personal power, not in a toxic positivity way that
denies anything. We're not denying anything, but allow them to
(11:15):
view their life through a lens of power and intention
and go through their their memories and their beliefs and
their patterns and their habits and their relationships and and
really own their life experience and reconceptualize it and reset
that climate. So, in addition to it being a book,
(11:44):
like you're calling it a workbook because of the exercises
version in the book, that can like a call to action,
like not just that you're reading this, but like is
there writing exercises or I do this? So there's lots
of stories. I actually plucked my interviews with with Dr
Deepak Chopra interviewed Damon john from Shark Tank. He's in there.
(12:05):
Betsy Johnson knowledge that from her doctor Caroline Leave. She's
a neuroscientist Dr Edith Eager. She's a Holocaust survivor and
brilliant author of the book The Gift, and has become
like a friend. She's just so lovely. She's like a mentor. Really,
I've combed through my interviews with him and some of
the most profound and impactful lessons and takeaways. I'm also
(12:27):
you know, illuminating a lot of my stories, angles of
my stories. But I almost like to think if the
book is like a sanctuary you can learn and you
can ruminate and dream and examine and be very safe.
It's almost like a guardian angel on your nightstand, but
also sort of like a sanctuary where you can you
can just really lay it all down, everything inside of you,
(12:49):
and rebuild and reimagined. So there's four sections, four phases.
Really that's where you kind of comb through your mental
house and decide what is not working, what needs to go.
You can like comb through your attict of experiences, things
that you shoved into hiding and your mental closets and decide,
you know, this relationship isn't working, this compulsion isn't working,
(13:10):
this habit, this belief. And then the second phase is reimagined,
and that's sort of where you take ownership of like,
perhaps things haven't worked out the way that you originally envisioned,
But what are you going to do with this life now?
What are you going to do with what you have? Now?
Can you reimagine perhaps something even more enriching, you know,
something more powerful, something that allows you to champion your
(13:32):
gifts in a way that that exceeds what you originally
like maybe the ideas that you inherited about yourself. Then
phase three is let the light and wonder in And
that's where I very strategically, with a lot of empowering
science to support all of the stories and the exercises,
I sort of invite you to re access your sense
(13:53):
of childlike wonder and return to that and remember your
your gifts and and what lights you up. We do
some things where we we tap into you know, your
your senses, because that truly is the gateway to your soul.
And then the fourth part is build a beautiful future.
And that's where I take you through a series of
exercises to where I we create something called your abundance Blueprint.
(14:17):
Really there's a lot of science to support it. Well, yes,
I love that you want to back everything up with that.
You're not just like putting this out there, but being
that you have had all this access to so many
people that have studied the brain and the neuroplasticity, and
I mean, it's completely fascinating. And I haven't even barely
begun to dip my toe into that world and haven't
(14:38):
had access to have conversations with some of the people
like you have. I mean, of course they have tools
and resources and books and things out there that we
can read, but yeah, I can't imagine the wealth of
knowledge that you have just from sitting down with certain people.
I think sometimes it's hard for people, if they haven't
thought of our brains in that way, to really think
that you can rewire it. What the point is is,
(15:00):
it's I'm really pointing people down a pathway of possibility
and responsibility from the very beginning. I it's about taking
radical responsibility for your life, radical accountability for all of
your results, and also knowing that if your brain can
be wired in a way that can create a lot
of destruction, it can also be rewired in a way
(15:21):
that can create a lot of beauty. So there's just
a lot of of coming to it from a place
of celebration, celebrating your life, celebrating your body, your your
existence on this planet, which is invaluable, truly, you know,
it's not the events and the things that happened to
us that create our lives. We have a lot of
(15:44):
broken systems in our society, and people as a result
have come to believe that we are we are victims,
and that's just not true. It's not the events, the
things that happen to you, the ways you've been violated,
the ways you've been at your heartbroken, been mistreated, abused, wronged. Yes,
those things happen, and there are things that have happened
(16:05):
to you that are not your fault. They will never
be your fault. Uh, And you didn't deserve them and
you will never have deserved them, and they were wrong.
What you do with them will always be your responsibility.
So it's it's it's the things that happened to you,
and it's your response to those things that creates the
story that you're living, that creates the movie of your life.
(16:26):
One example, my grandfather lost his business. He had to
go home to a big empty house and watch in
his recliner and glance around at at a totems of
a former life. His daughter died, had died tragically, his
wife had died tragically, his two sons had lost their wives.
All of his grandkids were suddenly motherless, almost all of them.
(16:48):
And still I watched my grandfather in the years later
grieve but also make the decision to find the son again,
to find joy again. Went on to live until he
was ninety four, uh thirty more years, and he filled
his life with so much beauty and I'm sure grief
(17:08):
and pain that I will will never know. But that's
that's not the point. We We can take our experiences
and we can use them as sort of I call
it like your mental toolbox, your power tools, and you
can you can take the things that you've gone through
in your life and you can make beautiful things with them,
and you can find the joy in the sun again. Well,
(17:41):
I'm linking radical life renovation, which is again a guided
program to heal the past or claim your power and
build a future that you love. It will be in
the show notes, so you can find it there if
you want to check it out. It's also on Amazon
and go over the four parts of the book again.
So purge is part one. That's why we're sort of
them through your life and you decide what isn't working,
(18:03):
you know, what needs to be aired out, what you've
been and so is this like purge You mentioned it
a minute ago that a lot of it was like
mental but could some of that be purging out like
in your physical space? And this is so important. We
really can't separate our emotional self from our mental self
from our physical self. We think we can. That's an illusion.
(18:25):
So when you are working on one, you're really working
on all, on it all, and that's really what I
work on in this program to Okay, Yeah, so you
might need to purge some things from home, absolutely, because
that's where you start. I mean, you think about if
you're going to renovate your home, does this wall need
to be knocked down? Do we need to clean out
these closets? Do we need to get rid of this clutter?
(18:46):
And the thing is it's really important and I always
tell people this it's not the most fun part of
the program. It's not the most fun part of the
book because sometimes you find old stuff, like old keepsakes
or things that you've forgotten about. But it's it's important
to get out so that you can then build something
that you can build a life that you don't have
to hide from you don't you know what I mean.
So the first part is perched, and there's reimagine. That's
(19:08):
where I take you through a series of stories and
exercises and rituals and prompts to reimagine your future. Like
even if if you're in the midst of ruin, you
are at a mean transformation your new life is. You know,
ruin is the birthplace of your new start. So we
start there and then let the light and wonder in.
So we really sort of invite you back to what
(19:31):
wakes you up, what calls to you, what what delights you,
What what excited you when you were little, that the
truest parts of you, that just make you, that just
illuminate the best of you. When you did this as
your process, what is something you realized maybe from your childhood,
what got you curious about I mean, just things that
I when I when I was a little girl. Yeah,
(19:52):
like if when you when you went back to that,
because I think like as children were naturally more curious,
and then we are adults. I mean, some people grow
into being just curious people seven, but sometimes, based on
certain life events, curiosity may fade. So I didn't know
if there's anything that you, as an adult then got
(20:13):
curious about that you were curious about as a child,
or what did you learn about yourself? I would say
less learning, because I've always been sort of a student
of myself, more embracing parts of myself that maybe I
hadn't accepted. What I say, a lot of my title
is journalist or author, a writer, but I feel like
I illuminate the human experience in a way that hopefully
(20:34):
allow that invites people to live more vividly and empowered
and in celebration of their life, their existence. And maybe
that comes from just having linked arms or like danced
in the arms of of life's fragility so many times,
you know, experiencing death at a young age, I was
actually like witnessed the building burning, I was outside of it.
(20:56):
Having had a near death experience and being I would
say I've always always just been very in touch with
the fragility of life. But to answer your question, I
have always been so curious about other human beings and
so in love with other people's stories. Like I really
do love people a lot, And from a very young age,
(21:19):
I was such an observer of people and just I
used to get in trouble for for asking too many questions,
you know, but it was came from a place of
sincere curiosity, not nosiness, but just being so fascinated with
how we work and why we respond the way we do,
why we react the way we do, why we withhold
(21:39):
the way we do. So now I think I've I
embraced that in my adult life and and have hopefully
taken that natural inclination of mine and I'm doing positive
things with it. Where you are, yeah, thank you so much. Okay,
So where are we at the purge? Yeah? Um, let
the light and wonder in and then build a beautiful future.
(22:00):
So that's the final that's the that's that's the final piece. Yeah, well,
that makes sense that you would take those steps and
then the future awaits and if you're doing those things
that will help set you up. All of these steps
are taking that next right step which I will acknowledge
for some of you listening right now, it might be
daunting or seem daunting like because it does take work
(22:24):
and you can't hide. I don't really allow you to
trauma block anymore. I really allow you force you to
face yourself. But here's the beautiful part, this is the
fun part. So many mental health and self help books
out there I really want. I mean, there's a lot
of beautiful content out there, but I feel like there
is a lot of content that wants to like either
just put a glossy coat of positivity just you know,
(22:46):
be positive, or or they focus too much on what's
wrong about you. Yes, we do need to look at
what's not working. But in my my work in general,
I want to wake you up. I want to unlock
what's right about you so that that can be free
and you can build something a beautiful life with that.
I can just tell sending across from you that you, Yeah,
(23:07):
you're genuine curiosity about people as a childhood is now coming.
It's met you as an adult and your life genuinely curious.
But you're also genuinely care about using everything that you've
learned and sharing with others. Because you've seen it work
in your own life, and yes, you've been through a lot,
and you you know the work that it took, and
(23:28):
you genuinely care about other people finding what you found.
I can feel it. Oh, thank you so much for
saying that, because I do. I really want to be
in service. I don't want to just take somebody's money ever,
in any area of my work. I wanted to be
some of the best money they've ever spent. Well, thank
you for coming on to talk about it, Lacy, and
I would love to hear four things that you're thankful
(23:50):
for right now. They can be big or small. I
am grateful for my gorgeous daughter, who is the great eist, healer, refiner, challenger,
teacher of my life. I got pregnant with her after
four and a half years of infertility. She is such
a just a gift my life, so I am just
(24:11):
eternally grateful for her. I am grateful for um spring
coming up. I'm so excited about spring. It's my second
favorite season follow is my first favorite UM. But I'm
grateful for the beautiful weather that we've had lately. Even
though it's not so beautiful today, it will come back
so I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the cup
of coffee and my husband made me this morning. I
(24:33):
am grateful for every single person listening right now and
hopefully who's still listening. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful
that you asked me to come. Um, I'm grateful for
for this life. I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful
that I didn't die underneath that car. You know, I'm
grateful I'm still here, grateful for every day truly. Well,
I'm thankful for this too, and I too, and thankful
(24:55):
for every listener and sometimes even yes, as we get
towards the end, like I I host to fifth Thing
with Cat Defada. She's a licensed therapist here in Nashville,
And we were recording something the other day and we
were talking for a very long time, and we're like,
do you think people are still listening at this point?
Because I know how my life gets to and I'll
start podcast and I'll get halfway through and I'll think, Okay,
(25:17):
I'm gonna go back to that, and then something else,
and then another week goes by, so I just download
the next episode, and so, yeah, do you ever listen
to podcasts? On time and a half or speeds. No,
I never do. I listened to podcasts constantly, but not
on time and a hatch that life. I mean, it's
you can speed it up like to one point, well
(25:38):
some people five, and so then I get used to
people talking about like this. I have a friend who
listens to the Bobby Bones Show that way, and it's
almost like she gets used to us speaking at that
speed that when we talk normal, it's like like, are
you okay? Yeah, so this is my normal speed, but
(25:58):
it sounds like I'm talking like this because so much faster.
But that's how. Or if I'm listening to an audiobook
like our on Audible, I'll just put it up sort
of fast because I'm trying to get it in. But
then I wonder if I'm how much I'm really retaining
what you're taking huh. And So I was listening to
(26:21):
a book I want to go back to it, but
I'm probably about halfway through called Limitless, and it's about
the brain, and his recommendation for taking in his book
and anybody else's book is minutes max, like that's your
sit down and really focusing on those pages in there
and not trying to sit down and read for an hour,
(26:43):
but really to take in what you're reading, you have
to set a time and then when the time's up,
like be done with it for that moment, because then
what And so I'm like, oh, that's a really good point,
because sometimes I think I'm just trying to take in,
take and take in, take in, consume. Listen to this,
do you a book? Listen to the podcast, read this
book before bed, and I feel like I'm not getting enough.
But then it's like, oh, I don't know why I
(27:06):
think I have to read for forty five minutes to
be able to make it good. Like you can just
put it in the calendar, like I'm gonna go read
this twenty minutes and it'll be more beneficial if you've
carved out that twenty minutes then if you try to
read later. I so agree. And I also think that
your your approach in the way you're like, whether it's
a workout or you're sitting down to read something and
you want to learn. I think that it's it's all
(27:28):
about tuning your mind to a space of like I
get to do this. This is a treat for me.
Maybe pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa or your
favorite tea and get a heated blanket or something, I
don't know, make yourself really comfortable and roll up with
it and just sort of make a ritual. Make it
I I call there's another part of in the book
is um. I call it a nightly reward ritual. And
(27:50):
it's something where you're rewarding yourself for having lived through
another day on this earth, whether it's going for like
a sweaty, cathartic run or pouring yourself a bubbly back
or curling up with a delicious novel and and making it.
So when do we get to do that every night?
What's it called the nightly reward ritual? And then kids
(28:10):
like how do we? And I say that, Oh, trust me,
it could just be making your favorite tea. I mean
if you have two minutes. For example, when my days
are crazy because I have a toddler, sometimes it's just
I'm going to make it myself my favorite tea or
hot cocoa or something, and I'm gonna sip on it
while I'm giving my daughter a bath. But I'm still
viewing it through a place of rewarding myself nourishment. Yeah,
(28:34):
like like this is a way that I'm giving myself
a big, warm hug. If that makes sense. I think
it could probably be like I give myself the gift
of taking care of myself at night, like with my
skincare routine and my lathering up everything. If you're a
younger listening, you might not feel me on this, but
start moisturizing now, but I want to. It's not about
(28:56):
accomplishing anything or checking something off the list. Okay, yes,
you might check something offs and you might accomplish something
by doing it, awesome, all the better. But this it's
about kind of giving yourself the freedom to like not
you don't have to take something in, you don't have
to actually did a piece few years ago, right, I
interviewed this doctor, Dr Kevin gill Land. He's a psychologist
(29:18):
who has also become a dear friend. But I've interviewed
him from quite a few stories, but I interviewed him
a few years ago for a story about the effects
of social media on our mental health. As you know
the Gen Z, but Millennials and you know Gen X,
I mean really everybody. It's it's unique for every generation.
And we're in an age where human beings have more information,
(29:41):
more data hurled at us than ever before in history.
I mean, we are constantly having information learned. This this
is my you know, social media, like everybody's an expert,
there's constantly information just we become input junkies. And yes,
it's it's, it's there's it's wonderful because we have access
(30:02):
to so much information that can really serve us. But
I also think that it's important to carve out a
space for yourself every day, even if it's two minutes,
thirty minutes, whatever you can do or there's just no pressure.
If you are taking something in, great, but let it
come from a spirit of This is me celebrating myself.
(30:23):
This is me doing something kind for myself. This is
me feeling like you're creating a sanctuary inside of yourself
to just just rest a little bit. And if that
that involves taking information and maybe you there's a podcast
that you love to listen to. It brings you joy,
and it lights you up and it delights you, but
don't come to it from a place I've just got
to check this off list. I just got to get
(30:43):
this done. I just you know, I have to take
in information every day, carve out a space for yourself
to sort of slip away from the social media stage
the information bank. If that makes sense, I hope I'm
making sense. Yeah, how well, just quick question on how
you handle social media because you are so wise when
it comes to that and have had access to interviews
and information. Do you have certain boundaries you set with
(31:06):
yourself with your phone? What are those? And a lot
of them? I do, carve. I do set boundaries on
my phone, and that is a challenge. I do know
so much and I have a a strange I have
an interesting relationship with social media because there's so many
wonderful things. What I've sort of determined in my work,
because I've actually done several pieces now and on social
media and its effect on our mental health, emotional health
(31:26):
and relationships very interesting. Social Media is not the problem
per se. It's human error. It's the way we engage
with it. Shopping is not bad, but you can have
a problem. It can become a problem if you're you're
you're engaging with it in a negative way. So what
I do is I've made the decision, and I have
to constantly put myself in check. Because I am a
human on this earth. I have an ego. You know,
(31:49):
I don't seek validation on social media, and I don't
let it run my life, and I don't let it
be a metric for how I'm doing my worthiness. I
really invite social media to inspire my life. It should
inspire your life. It should make you, Oh, I want
to I want to go there. I'm going to add
that to my bucket list, or I'm going to try that,
(32:09):
or this is interesting this topic, I'm going to research that,
or this is awesome and I'm gonna screenshot this, and
I'm interested in this book. I'm going to add it
to my summer reading list or whatever. But we get
into trouble when it breeds authenticity. My gosh, we could
do an hour long podcast on the things that I
have seen having interviewed so many thought leaders, experts, I've
(32:30):
interviewed so many influencers celebrities for stories. I could seriously
give you like a tow our podcast on some of
the things that I've seen that have changed my relationship
on social media for the better. And and just to
tell you very briefly, it's it's about the dysfunction and
the and the the issues that we cause ourselves when
(32:52):
we engage with social media in a way that's an
authentic because if you do that, you might be convincing
your audience, but your higher self will always know the
phony game you're playing and it will not serve your
life long term. So I just try to be very authentic.
Authenticity does not mean telling everything you know at all.
We can have boundaries around that, but being authentic so
(33:14):
that I know that I'm good with myself with whatever
I say, whatever I release, whatever I create, I know
that I'm being lacy, I'm being me. Of course, there's
some things that will always be sacred or that I
may not feel like sharing. But I always try to
be authentic, and I try to just everything that I
that I follow and everything that I engage with. I
(33:35):
wanted to serve my life. I wanted to inspire my
life and invite me to live more vividly, more presently,
more gratefully, but never with this agenda to seek validation.
And I have to put myself in check forever, like
I have to be. Okay, wait a second, did I
think I want to post this because I want a
reaction or I want someone to say something, or am
(33:55):
I doing this from a place of what are what's
my intentions? So that's a very my very long winded
answer your very short question. It's being very honest with
yourself and not looking for social media to satiate all
of your relationship needs, your self worth needs, not searching
for worthiness validation on social media, because I promise you
(34:19):
you might get that rushed temporarily, but you will never
find what you're looking for one term. Ever. Yeah, well
maybe you will have to come back and we can
do Oh my gosh, I have so much science and
so much research and so much let's do that. I will.
I can break it down for you. Okay, so we'll
do that, Lacy, we'll be back on I think that
would be a fascinating episode and something that people would
(34:40):
be really interested and because yeah, we're we're we all
are on there, and so we're all trying to figure
out now how to navigate it because it's been this
many years and you keep hearing about the side effects.
But it's interesting too, like thinking of your your higher
self knowing how you're showing up on their But yeah,
using it for inspiration and connection, like it can be
(35:03):
used for good. I've met some really amazing people strictly
because of social media, so I'm very thankful for it,
but I kind of have a love hate and people
demonize social media, but it's not. It's not the demon.
It can act as one. So yeah, we'll talk about
that on the future. If so, Lacey will be back
for that. In the meantime, people can check out Lacy
(35:24):
Johnson dot com yes for more info on you. And
then speaking of social do you have your Instagram handle?
Everything is the Lacy Johnson all the same at the
Lacy Johnson so so narcissistic, I promise you. I don't
think of myself as but Lacy Johnson was taken and
so yeah, you had to add. Yeah, it's either you
(35:44):
have to add to the or the underscore, or like
I had to do, Amy Brown was taken so that
I became radio Amy Perfect. So just you have to
get what's available. So thank you so much for coming
on to talk about this, and again Radical Life Renovation
will be linked in the show notes the workbook, and
then in about a year or so, you've had my
first heart back coming up next year another bike. Can't
(36:06):
talk about that yet, but I will soon and you'll
come back to talk about that. Too, so we already
have you booked now this episode, in two more and
then your next book. So thank you so much for
coming on today, and I hope everyone listening you'll have
an amazing rest of your day, and make sure that
tonight you give yourself your little your gratitude bath. You
need to give yourself your gratitude bath, and you can
(36:26):
get more information about that in my book. And you
need to reward yourself for having survived another day on
this earth where there's so many dangers and so many
things that could have taken you out, and you kept going.
And you need to reward yourself every single day. Treat yourself. Okay,
all right, thank you
A little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty Bay.
It was pretty beautiful. Thanks, beautiful laughs A little month
because your kicking four. I'm sitting across from Lacey Johnson,
which I first met Lacey. I guess it was a
(00:37):
couple of months ago. She came to my house to
interview me for an article that was being done for
Brentwood Lifestyle and Belt Meat Lifestyle. There's these lifestyle magazines
here and around Nashville that arrive in people's mailboxes. Depending
on where you live is which one you get. And
she wrote the kindest article ever, in fact, like some
(00:57):
of the adjectives that she chose to use. I was like,
you can't describe me as that, And then I realized too,
it's also not my place to say what you can
and cannot say about me because you are the writer.
So I'm sure that's also really annoying someone comes back
and says something you made the most really moving impression
upon me. I have to tell you, I have interviewed
(01:18):
probably three hundred people or more at this point, like
in my career for magazines and media sources, and you're
the only person I have ever interviewed who like was
so humble and wanted to like turn down the dial
on your fabulousness like I have normally people at fabulous. Seriously,
(01:40):
you were so humble and just so reserved in the
way that I described you, and it was really refreshing. Well,
in a world of opportunism and influence, it was very refreshing. Well,
we're not here to talk about me, You're here to
talk about you. Because as you were leaving, you shared
a little bit more about what you do. And of
course before the interview started, I knew that you had
(02:02):
articles published in Oprah magazine and I don't know you
nicked Marie Claire, like the list goes on your oprah
dot com. Like you're very into health, mental health, mind, body, spirit,
the whole connection. And somehow right when you walked out,
you said something like, oh, we'll have a book coming out,
and I was like, wait, what you have to come
on the podcast? So I would love for you to
(02:25):
just share with us the workbook, what that's all about,
your upcoming book, Why you're passionate about this, and I
know you have a very wild story of something that
happened to you. So I'm going to pass the mic
and let you share with us why you decided to
put penda paper, but like in an actual not just
an article, like something more for people to work with.
(02:48):
So I am passionate about mental health, you know, trauma, healing, grief.
I've worked with a lot of psychologists, neuroscientists, spiritual thought leaders,
a lot of experts and mental health. And it sort
of came about naturally in my journalism and my work
because I, from a very young age experienced an extremely
(03:09):
traumatic event. When I was six years old. My family
had a furniture store business, and there was a gas leak,
you know, there was an explosion, and my mom, my
two aunts, and my grandmother all passed away. So from
a very young age, my life was turned upside down.
And so I had just a really heaping dose of
(03:30):
what can happen when your life falls apart, when the
village gets burned down, so to speak. As I was
growing up, I I think I did a lot of,
I would say, not healthy things with my grief, with
my pain, with my trauma. And you know, I did
experience depression and anxiety, and I had an attachment issues
and had it made a lot of like trauma driven decisions,
(03:52):
and at some point it was sort of like something
has to change. And it was a right about the
time that I was finishing, you know, my education at
Belmont in journalism, and I was kind of like, what
vein of journalism am I going to go into. I
know that I don't want to do breaking news. And
as I was healing myself, I sort of realized, like,
I think we're here to teach what we're here to
(04:14):
learn in life. I knew that going into the realms
of of wellness, mental wellness, mind wellness was the best
place for me to be and really contribute and be
of service in my work. And so that's how it
came to be Okay, well, let's talk about radical life
for renovation, a guided program to heal the past, to
(04:36):
reclaim your power and build a future you love. Yes,
So this came about in in that year, I created
so much content because there was this huge demand for
mental health experts, and I mean I was so busy,
especially early in the pandemic, and so it was it
(04:57):
was really interesting time for me. So much pressure for
people needing guidance, people needing information to help them reconceptualize
what was going on, to make the best of it,
to maybe heal traumas that they hadn't faced in a
long time. When you're shoved away from your family, or
you're forced to give up the business that you built,
or your relationship dissolves because you guys have been isolated together.
(05:21):
I mean, everyone was going through something different. It truly
was a magnifier of the truth of what was going on.
And there was no escape. There was nowhere to run, right,
So I learned a lot, and in that year I
was like, I knew that I had a book in me,
and I had an idea of where I know I
had lots of books in me, but I had an idea. Well,
(05:42):
that fall in September, it was like the first day
that I think I had really taken my little girl
out out of the house much because it was such
a scary time. It was the first time that we
were going to go step foot in them all since
I think, I guess, before the pandemic had started. She
was eighteen months on this day. It was a beautiful day,
(06:04):
sort of like a soft breeze of a nearing falls,
really lovely day. I put her in her car seat
and drove her to the mall and pulled her out
and strapped her tightly into her stroller with her baby
doll in her sippy cup, and proceeded to push her
through the parking lot into the mall. And all of
a sudden, I felt this monstrous weight shoved me to
(06:27):
the pavement. I heard nothing, and there was no warning,
and I didn't even have time to think. The tires
of the car just ran over me. I mean I
was swallowed within seconds, completely swallowed by the car. The
back tire actually ran over my hair. I had to
like rip my hair to get out from underneath there.
But the back tire stopped about an inch and a
(06:49):
half according to the doctor, from my skull, and I
think an inch and a half from puncturing my lungs.
It went over my shoulder and my arm in hand
and over my hair. When I came to my daughter's
screams were filling the air. I had no idea what
I was going to see, and I I slithered like
a snake, help out from underneath the car and rushed
to her. And luckily, because I had her strapped in,
(07:12):
she was only had superficial scratches to her head. Of course,
we saw to have her examined. I was you know,
my my flesh was was hanging off of my shoulder
and my arm in my hand. I was bleeding all
over her. There are people rushing about. They thought that
they had just witnessed someone's mother be killed. As it
turns out, it was an unlicensed teenage seventeen year old
(07:34):
who was looking at her phone. Of course, I didn't
learn all of these details until later, but I was
taken away in an ambulance. And I share all this
because it does lead to the book, and its inspired
the book. But in the aftermath of that, I had
so many people coming at me, and I believe almost
all of them had beautiful intentions. They thought they were
being supportive, but they were just sort of combing through
(07:56):
their own rolodex of ideas and limitations and leafs around
what trauma will be and how I was supposed to
behave or feel. And obviously I was teeming with with
trauma and it was very acute and it was scary.
There were for days after I was like I had
to calmly tell myself, like breathe and calm my nervous
system down and tell myself, you know, this is just
(08:19):
your brain trying to protect you. This, you had a
very impactful experience, and um, you're not underneath that car anymore.
It's not coming for your skull. You're okay. But I
had people say things like, Oh, it's going to be
a long time before you can walk through a parking
lot again, or oh, you you know, you're never going
to be able to be in a car again, or
you're you know, every time you see tires, you're going
(08:41):
to you know, have a really bad reaction, or you
will have PTSD from this. And I believe this is
going to be more trauma, you know, people especially who
knew my story of what I've been through in my life.
This is going to be a whole new set of traumas.
And I knew that those that there was a lot
of merit and people telling me those things. But I
also knew and being in the realm of of doing
(09:02):
so much work and creating so much content and interviewing
so many incredible people, I know so much about the brain,
I know so much about human resilience and transformation process,
and I thought that might be their stories. But I
don't have to fold them into me. I don't have
to to own those stories. And so three days I
believe it was two or three days after the accident.
(09:26):
With my arm and shoulder and hand bandaged, I asked
my husband to drive me back there, and I was like,
I want to drive my car home. You know, I
want to not because I have anything to prove to anybody,
but because I know that I can write my own story.
I can decide what is true for me. And as
I was driving myself home, I thought about the year
(09:49):
that we were in and all the collection of stories
I had just interviewed, so many feature subjects and people experts,
but also just people going through just a vast range
of experiences that were so nuanced that are impossible to
really understand unless you're inside of it. And I had
(10:09):
heard so many stories of struggle and pain and loss
and grief and grieving the freedoms that we had taken
for granted and and grieving, you know, people who have
lost love, loved ones, people who had been forced to
move across the coast and leave a life that they love,
people who missed the comfort of office banter, you know,
being in that space with people that they had grown
to love it maybe they didn't even realize they loved.
(10:31):
And I knew that I had so much to offer
in terms of from my own life and the ways
that I had reconceptualized the way that I looked at
my experiences as well as I had this vault of
knowledge from these experts that I had interviewed. And so
what I did is I combed through mentally, combed through
(10:51):
that vault well and physically too. I went through my
my files, and I decided to create something that would
allow people to sort of get in to their inner
world and to reconceptualize their experiences, to learn to access
their personal power, not in a toxic positivity way that
denies anything. We're not denying anything, but allow them to
(11:15):
view their life through a lens of power and intention
and go through their their memories and their beliefs and
their patterns and their habits and their relationships and and
really own their life experience and reconceptualize it and reset
that climate. So, in addition to it being a book,
(11:44):
like you're calling it a workbook because of the exercises
version in the book, that can like a call to action,
like not just that you're reading this, but like is
there writing exercises or I do this? So there's lots
of stories. I actually plucked my interviews with with Dr
Deepak Chopra interviewed Damon john from Shark Tank. He's in there.
(12:05):
Betsy Johnson knowledge that from her doctor Caroline Leave. She's
a neuroscientist Dr Edith Eager. She's a Holocaust survivor and
brilliant author of the book The Gift, and has become
like a friend. She's just so lovely. She's like a mentor. Really,
I've combed through my interviews with him and some of
the most profound and impactful lessons and takeaways. I'm also
(12:27):
you know, illuminating a lot of my stories, angles of
my stories. But I almost like to think if the
book is like a sanctuary you can learn and you
can ruminate and dream and examine and be very safe.
It's almost like a guardian angel on your nightstand, but
also sort of like a sanctuary where you can you
can just really lay it all down, everything inside of you,
(12:49):
and rebuild and reimagined. So there's four sections, four phases.
Really that's where you kind of comb through your mental
house and decide what is not working, what needs to go.
You can like comb through your attict of experiences, things
that you shoved into hiding and your mental closets and decide,
you know, this relationship isn't working, this compulsion isn't working,
(13:10):
this habit, this belief. And then the second phase is reimagined,
and that's sort of where you take ownership of like,
perhaps things haven't worked out the way that you originally envisioned,
But what are you going to do with this life now?
What are you going to do with what you have? Now?
Can you reimagine perhaps something even more enriching, you know,
something more powerful, something that allows you to champion your
(13:32):
gifts in a way that that exceeds what you originally
like maybe the ideas that you inherited about yourself. Then
phase three is let the light and wonder in And
that's where I very strategically, with a lot of empowering
science to support all of the stories and the exercises,
I sort of invite you to re access your sense
(13:53):
of childlike wonder and return to that and remember your
your gifts and and what lights you up. We do
some things where we we tap into you know, your
your senses, because that truly is the gateway to your soul.
And then the fourth part is build a beautiful future.
And that's where I take you through a series of
exercises to where I we create something called your abundance Blueprint.
(14:17):
Really there's a lot of science to support it. Well, yes,
I love that you want to back everything up with that.
You're not just like putting this out there, but being
that you have had all this access to so many
people that have studied the brain and the neuroplasticity, and
I mean, it's completely fascinating. And I haven't even barely
begun to dip my toe into that world and haven't
(14:38):
had access to have conversations with some of the people
like you have. I mean, of course they have tools
and resources and books and things out there that we
can read, but yeah, I can't imagine the wealth of
knowledge that you have just from sitting down with certain people.
I think sometimes it's hard for people, if they haven't
thought of our brains in that way, to really think
that you can rewire it. What the point is is,
(15:00):
it's I'm really pointing people down a pathway of possibility
and responsibility from the very beginning. I it's about taking
radical responsibility for your life, radical accountability for all of
your results, and also knowing that if your brain can
be wired in a way that can create a lot
of destruction, it can also be rewired in a way
(15:21):
that can create a lot of beauty. So there's just
a lot of of coming to it from a place
of celebration, celebrating your life, celebrating your body, your your
existence on this planet, which is invaluable, truly, you know,
it's not the events and the things that happened to
us that create our lives. We have a lot of
(15:44):
broken systems in our society, and people as a result
have come to believe that we are we are victims,
and that's just not true. It's not the events, the
things that happen to you, the ways you've been violated,
the ways you've been at your heartbroken, been mistreated, abused, wronged. Yes,
those things happen, and there are things that have happened
(16:05):
to you that are not your fault. They will never
be your fault. Uh, And you didn't deserve them and
you will never have deserved them, and they were wrong.
What you do with them will always be your responsibility.
So it's it's it's the things that happened to you,
and it's your response to those things that creates the
story that you're living, that creates the movie of your life.
(16:26):
One example, my grandfather lost his business. He had to
go home to a big empty house and watch in
his recliner and glance around at at a totems of
a former life. His daughter died, had died tragically, his
wife had died tragically, his two sons had lost their wives.
All of his grandkids were suddenly motherless, almost all of them.
(16:48):
And still I watched my grandfather in the years later
grieve but also make the decision to find the son again,
to find joy again. Went on to live until he
was ninety four, uh thirty more years, and he filled
his life with so much beauty and I'm sure grief
(17:08):
and pain that I will will never know. But that's
that's not the point. We We can take our experiences
and we can use them as sort of I call
it like your mental toolbox, your power tools, and you
can you can take the things that you've gone through
in your life and you can make beautiful things with them,
and you can find the joy in the sun again. Well,
(17:41):
I'm linking radical life renovation, which is again a guided
program to heal the past or claim your power and
build a future that you love. It will be in
the show notes, so you can find it there if
you want to check it out. It's also on Amazon
and go over the four parts of the book again.
So purge is part one. That's why we're sort of
them through your life and you decide what isn't working,
(18:03):
you know, what needs to be aired out, what you've
been and so is this like purge You mentioned it
a minute ago that a lot of it was like
mental but could some of that be purging out like
in your physical space? And this is so important. We
really can't separate our emotional self from our mental self
from our physical self. We think we can. That's an illusion.
(18:25):
So when you are working on one, you're really working
on all, on it all, and that's really what I
work on in this program to Okay, Yeah, so you
might need to purge some things from home, absolutely, because
that's where you start. I mean, you think about if
you're going to renovate your home, does this wall need
to be knocked down? Do we need to clean out
these closets? Do we need to get rid of this clutter?
(18:46):
And the thing is it's really important and I always
tell people this it's not the most fun part of
the program. It's not the most fun part of the
book because sometimes you find old stuff, like old keepsakes
or things that you've forgotten about. But it's it's important
to get out so that you can then build something
that you can build a life that you don't have
to hide from you don't you know what I mean.
So the first part is perched, and there's reimagine. That's
(19:08):
where I take you through a series of stories and
exercises and rituals and prompts to reimagine your future. Like
even if if you're in the midst of ruin, you
are at a mean transformation your new life is. You know,
ruin is the birthplace of your new start. So we
start there and then let the light and wonder in.
So we really sort of invite you back to what
(19:31):
wakes you up, what calls to you, what what delights you,
What what excited you when you were little, that the
truest parts of you, that just make you, that just
illuminate the best of you. When you did this as
your process, what is something you realized maybe from your childhood,
what got you curious about I mean, just things that
I when I when I was a little girl. Yeah,
(19:52):
like if when you when you went back to that,
because I think like as children were naturally more curious,
and then we are adults. I mean, some people grow
into being just curious people seven, but sometimes, based on
certain life events, curiosity may fade. So I didn't know
if there's anything that you, as an adult then got
(20:13):
curious about that you were curious about as a child,
or what did you learn about yourself? I would say
less learning, because I've always been sort of a student
of myself, more embracing parts of myself that maybe I
hadn't accepted. What I say, a lot of my title
is journalist or author, a writer, but I feel like
I illuminate the human experience in a way that hopefully
(20:34):
allow that invites people to live more vividly and empowered
and in celebration of their life, their existence. And maybe
that comes from just having linked arms or like danced
in the arms of of life's fragility so many times,
you know, experiencing death at a young age, I was
actually like witnessed the building burning, I was outside of it.
(20:56):
Having had a near death experience and being I would
say I've always always just been very in touch with
the fragility of life. But to answer your question, I
have always been so curious about other human beings and
so in love with other people's stories. Like I really
do love people a lot, And from a very young age,
(21:19):
I was such an observer of people and just I
used to get in trouble for for asking too many questions,
you know, but it was came from a place of
sincere curiosity, not nosiness, but just being so fascinated with
how we work and why we respond the way we do,
why we react the way we do, why we withhold
(21:39):
the way we do. So now I think I've I
embraced that in my adult life and and have hopefully
taken that natural inclination of mine and I'm doing positive
things with it. Where you are, yeah, thank you so much. Okay,
So where are we at the purge? Yeah? Um, let
the light and wonder in and then build a beautiful future.
(22:00):
So that's the final that's the that's that's the final piece. Yeah, well,
that makes sense that you would take those steps and
then the future awaits and if you're doing those things
that will help set you up. All of these steps
are taking that next right step which I will acknowledge
for some of you listening right now, it might be
daunting or seem daunting like because it does take work
(22:24):
and you can't hide. I don't really allow you to
trauma block anymore. I really allow you force you to
face yourself. But here's the beautiful part, this is the
fun part. So many mental health and self help books
out there I really want. I mean, there's a lot
of beautiful content out there, but I feel like there
is a lot of content that wants to like either
just put a glossy coat of positivity just you know,
(22:46):
be positive, or or they focus too much on what's
wrong about you. Yes, we do need to look at
what's not working. But in my my work in general,
I want to wake you up. I want to unlock
what's right about you so that that can be free
and you can build something a beautiful life with that.
I can just tell sending across from you that you, Yeah,
(23:07):
you're genuine curiosity about people as a childhood is now coming.
It's met you as an adult and your life genuinely curious.
But you're also genuinely care about using everything that you've
learned and sharing with others. Because you've seen it work
in your own life, and yes, you've been through a lot,
and you you know the work that it took, and
(23:28):
you genuinely care about other people finding what you found.
I can feel it. Oh, thank you so much for
saying that, because I do. I really want to be
in service. I don't want to just take somebody's money ever,
in any area of my work. I wanted to be
some of the best money they've ever spent. Well, thank
you for coming on to talk about it, Lacy, and
I would love to hear four things that you're thankful
(23:50):
for right now. They can be big or small. I
am grateful for my gorgeous daughter, who is the great eist, healer, refiner, challenger,
teacher of my life. I got pregnant with her after
four and a half years of infertility. She is such
a just a gift my life, so I am just
(24:11):
eternally grateful for her. I am grateful for um spring
coming up. I'm so excited about spring. It's my second
favorite season follow is my first favorite UM. But I'm
grateful for the beautiful weather that we've had lately. Even
though it's not so beautiful today, it will come back
so I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the cup
of coffee and my husband made me this morning. I
(24:33):
am grateful for every single person listening right now and
hopefully who's still listening. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful
that you asked me to come. Um, I'm grateful for
for this life. I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful
that I didn't die underneath that car. You know, I'm
grateful I'm still here, grateful for every day truly. Well,
I'm thankful for this too, and I too, and thankful
(24:55):
for every listener and sometimes even yes, as we get
towards the end, like I I host to fifth Thing
with Cat Defada. She's a licensed therapist here in Nashville,
And we were recording something the other day and we
were talking for a very long time, and we're like,
do you think people are still listening at this point?
Because I know how my life gets to and I'll
start podcast and I'll get halfway through and I'll think, Okay,
(25:17):
I'm gonna go back to that, and then something else,
and then another week goes by, so I just download
the next episode, and so, yeah, do you ever listen
to podcasts? On time and a half or speeds. No,
I never do. I listened to podcasts constantly, but not
on time and a hatch that life. I mean, it's
you can speed it up like to one point, well
(25:38):
some people five, and so then I get used to
people talking about like this. I have a friend who
listens to the Bobby Bones Show that way, and it's
almost like she gets used to us speaking at that
speed that when we talk normal, it's like like, are
you okay? Yeah, so this is my normal speed, but
(25:58):
it sounds like I'm talking like this because so much faster.
But that's how. Or if I'm listening to an audiobook
like our on Audible, I'll just put it up sort
of fast because I'm trying to get it in. But
then I wonder if I'm how much I'm really retaining
what you're taking huh. And So I was listening to
(26:21):
a book I want to go back to it, but
I'm probably about halfway through called Limitless, and it's about
the brain, and his recommendation for taking in his book
and anybody else's book is minutes max, like that's your
sit down and really focusing on those pages in there
and not trying to sit down and read for an hour,
(26:43):
but really to take in what you're reading, you have
to set a time and then when the time's up,
like be done with it for that moment, because then
what And so I'm like, oh, that's a really good point,
because sometimes I think I'm just trying to take in,
take and take in, take in, consume. Listen to this,
do you a book? Listen to the podcast, read this
book before bed, and I feel like I'm not getting enough.
But then it's like, oh, I don't know why I
(27:06):
think I have to read for forty five minutes to
be able to make it good. Like you can just
put it in the calendar, like I'm gonna go read
this twenty minutes and it'll be more beneficial if you've
carved out that twenty minutes then if you try to
read later. I so agree. And I also think that
your your approach in the way you're like, whether it's
a workout or you're sitting down to read something and
you want to learn. I think that it's it's all
(27:28):
about tuning your mind to a space of like I
get to do this. This is a treat for me.
Maybe pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa or your
favorite tea and get a heated blanket or something, I
don't know, make yourself really comfortable and roll up with
it and just sort of make a ritual. Make it
I I call there's another part of in the book
is um. I call it a nightly reward ritual. And
(27:50):
it's something where you're rewarding yourself for having lived through
another day on this earth, whether it's going for like
a sweaty, cathartic run or pouring yourself a bubbly back
or curling up with a delicious novel and and making it.
So when do we get to do that every night?
What's it called the nightly reward ritual? And then kids
(28:10):
like how do we? And I say that, Oh, trust me,
it could just be making your favorite tea. I mean
if you have two minutes. For example, when my days
are crazy because I have a toddler, sometimes it's just
I'm going to make it myself my favorite tea or
hot cocoa or something, and I'm gonna sip on it
while I'm giving my daughter a bath. But I'm still
viewing it through a place of rewarding myself nourishment. Yeah,
(28:34):
like like this is a way that I'm giving myself
a big, warm hug. If that makes sense. I think
it could probably be like I give myself the gift
of taking care of myself at night, like with my
skincare routine and my lathering up everything. If you're a
younger listening, you might not feel me on this, but
start moisturizing now, but I want to. It's not about
(28:56):
accomplishing anything or checking something off the list. Okay, yes,
you might check something offs and you might accomplish something
by doing it, awesome, all the better. But this it's
about kind of giving yourself the freedom to like not
you don't have to take something in, you don't have
to actually did a piece few years ago, right, I
interviewed this doctor, Dr Kevin gill Land. He's a psychologist
(29:18):
who has also become a dear friend. But I've interviewed
him from quite a few stories, but I interviewed him
a few years ago for a story about the effects
of social media on our mental health. As you know
the Gen Z, but Millennials and you know Gen X,
I mean really everybody. It's it's unique for every generation.
And we're in an age where human beings have more information,
(29:41):
more data hurled at us than ever before in history.
I mean, we are constantly having information learned. This this
is my you know, social media, like everybody's an expert,
there's constantly information just we become input junkies. And yes,
it's it's, it's there's it's wonderful because we have access
(30:02):
to so much information that can really serve us. But
I also think that it's important to carve out a
space for yourself every day, even if it's two minutes,
thirty minutes, whatever you can do or there's just no pressure.
If you are taking something in, great, but let it
come from a spirit of This is me celebrating myself.
(30:23):
This is me doing something kind for myself. This is
me feeling like you're creating a sanctuary inside of yourself
to just just rest a little bit. And if that
that involves taking information and maybe you there's a podcast
that you love to listen to. It brings you joy,
and it lights you up and it delights you, but
don't come to it from a place I've just got
to check this off list. I just got to get
(30:43):
this done. I just you know, I have to take
in information every day, carve out a space for yourself
to sort of slip away from the social media stage
the information bank. If that makes sense, I hope I'm
making sense. Yeah, how well, just quick question on how
you handle social media because you are so wise when
it comes to that and have had access to interviews
and information. Do you have certain boundaries you set with
(31:06):
yourself with your phone? What are those? And a lot
of them? I do, carve. I do set boundaries on
my phone, and that is a challenge. I do know
so much and I have a a strange I have
an interesting relationship with social media because there's so many
wonderful things. What I've sort of determined in my work,
because I've actually done several pieces now and on social
media and its effect on our mental health, emotional health
(31:26):
and relationships very interesting. Social Media is not the problem
per se. It's human error. It's the way we engage
with it. Shopping is not bad, but you can have
a problem. It can become a problem if you're you're
you're engaging with it in a negative way. So what
I do is I've made the decision, and I have
to constantly put myself in check. Because I am a
human on this earth. I have an ego. You know,
(31:49):
I don't seek validation on social media, and I don't
let it run my life, and I don't let it
be a metric for how I'm doing my worthiness. I
really invite social media to inspire my life. It should
inspire your life. It should make you, Oh, I want
to I want to go there. I'm going to add
that to my bucket list, or I'm going to try that,
(32:09):
or this is interesting this topic, I'm going to research that,
or this is awesome and I'm gonna screenshot this, and
I'm interested in this book. I'm going to add it
to my summer reading list or whatever. But we get
into trouble when it breeds authenticity. My gosh, we could
do an hour long podcast on the things that I
have seen having interviewed so many thought leaders, experts, I've
(32:30):
interviewed so many influencers celebrities for stories. I could seriously
give you like a tow our podcast on some of
the things that I've seen that have changed my relationship
on social media for the better. And and just to
tell you very briefly, it's it's about the dysfunction and
the and the the issues that we cause ourselves when
(32:52):
we engage with social media in a way that's an
authentic because if you do that, you might be convincing
your audience, but your higher self will always know the
phony game you're playing and it will not serve your
life long term. So I just try to be very authentic.
Authenticity does not mean telling everything you know at all.
We can have boundaries around that, but being authentic so
(33:14):
that I know that I'm good with myself with whatever
I say, whatever I release, whatever I create, I know
that I'm being lacy, I'm being me. Of course, there's
some things that will always be sacred or that I
may not feel like sharing. But I always try to
be authentic, and I try to just everything that I
that I follow and everything that I engage with. I
(33:35):
wanted to serve my life. I wanted to inspire my
life and invite me to live more vividly, more presently,
more gratefully, but never with this agenda to seek validation.
And I have to put myself in check forever, like
I have to be. Okay, wait a second, did I
think I want to post this because I want a
reaction or I want someone to say something, or am
(33:55):
I doing this from a place of what are what's
my intentions? So that's a very my very long winded
answer your very short question. It's being very honest with
yourself and not looking for social media to satiate all
of your relationship needs, your self worth needs, not searching
for worthiness validation on social media, because I promise you
(34:19):
you might get that rushed temporarily, but you will never
find what you're looking for one term. Ever. Yeah, well
maybe you will have to come back and we can
do Oh my gosh, I have so much science and
so much research and so much let's do that. I will.
I can break it down for you. Okay, so we'll
do that, Lacy, we'll be back on I think that
would be a fascinating episode and something that people would
(34:40):
be really interested and because yeah, we're we're we all
are on there, and so we're all trying to figure
out now how to navigate it because it's been this
many years and you keep hearing about the side effects.
But it's interesting too, like thinking of your your higher
self knowing how you're showing up on their But yeah,
using it for inspiration and connection, like it can be
(35:03):
used for good. I've met some really amazing people strictly
because of social media, so I'm very thankful for it,
but I kind of have a love hate and people
demonize social media, but it's not. It's not the demon.
It can act as one. So yeah, we'll talk about
that on the future. If so, Lacey will be back
for that. In the meantime, people can check out Lacy
(35:24):
Johnson dot com yes for more info on you. And
then speaking of social do you have your Instagram handle?
Everything is the Lacy Johnson all the same at the
Lacy Johnson so so narcissistic, I promise you. I don't
think of myself as but Lacy Johnson was taken and
so yeah, you had to add. Yeah, it's either you
(35:44):
have to add to the or the underscore, or like
I had to do, Amy Brown was taken so that
I became radio Amy Perfect. So just you have to
get what's available. So thank you so much for coming
on to talk about this, and again Radical Life Renovation
will be linked in the show notes the workbook, and
then in about a year or so, you've had my
first heart back coming up next year another bike. Can't
(36:06):
talk about that yet, but I will soon and you'll
come back to talk about that. Too, so we already
have you booked now this episode, in two more and
then your next book. So thank you so much for
coming on today, and I hope everyone listening you'll have
an amazing rest of your day, and make sure that
tonight you give yourself your little your gratitude bath. You
need to give yourself your gratitude bath, and you can
(36:26):
get more information about that in my book. And you
need to reward yourself for having survived another day on
this earth where there's so many dangers and so many
things that could have taken you out, and you kept going.
And you need to reward yourself every single day. Treat yourself. Okay,
all right, thank you
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
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Amy Brown
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