Amy’s husband Ben makes a cameo in the intro and outro of this week’s episode...he hasn’t been on in a while (so if you’ve missed him...he’ll be back for an official “thing” soon). FIRST THING: Nicole Modic (@KaleJunkie) is back on to discuss the recovery side of her eating disorder and how she was able to heal her relationship with food. SECOND THING: Mom comparison is real. Working moms vs. stay at home moms. Amy shares a quick little post from Jessica Honegger’s instagram page (@JessicaHonegger) about how ALL MOMS matter...the working ones + the ones that are able to volunteer and do all the things at school because they don’t have a job. THIRD THING: Are you a YES PERSON??? Then you need to hear this. Amy talks with counselor + life coach, Kim Anderson, (@kim_anderson_life) about the power of saying no and creating boundaries in your life. It really is freeing. So listen to this and take notes. FORTH THING: Did you know that a group wrote songs for each enneagram??? Yep. Apparently, when you hear the song that is your number...you will get really emotional. Amy shares an email that she got about the songs and where you can hear them!
(Episode 36)
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, cast up little food for yourself life. Oh it's
pretty Bay, it's pretty beautiful. Laugh for a little mouth
(00:28):
your kicking. Four Welcome back to another episode of Four Things.
I'm your host, Amy Brown, and my husband actually just
walked in, so I made him sit down at the
mic to do the intro with me because you kind
of were my booking agent. You booked one of my guests. Yea,
how does that feels well? What do you mean? How
(00:49):
does it feel? How does it feel to have your
husband books something for you? I guess it feels good.
It would be nice if my husband could turn his
phone off. But I mean, I guess I did just
pull you in here. You don't even record. If y'all
heard that ding, it was my husband's phone. But um,
you know, I have four things each episode, so always
looking for content and what we can talk about. And
(01:10):
you booked one of the things. I'd pay you, but
we don't make money off of this, so yeah, I'm
still waiting for that. Yeah your fee? Will we get
to take me out to lunch? Oh? Man, that's a loss?
Isn't how a loss? Or a win? What? That's a win?
I mean, juice? We are going to go. I want
(01:32):
to go to this. I want to get avocado toast
something green. So basic of me right now, but I
mean I'm legit craving it and there's this new place
in town we want to go get it. So uh,
just quickly we'll run through the menu. Today's episode. Do
you want to hear what it is? So you know,
I mean, you'll you listen to my podcast right all
the time. Okay, so this is what you're going to
hear if you listen to today's episode. I've got part
(01:55):
two with my friend Nicole at kale Junkie on Instagram.
She was on last week talking about the start of
her eating disorder and kind of the roots of it
and how it came on she knows when she was
a kid, and then how it played a role later
in her life when it crept back up and she
was like, oh my gosh, it just got out of control. So,
you know, today is more of the recovery side, which
(02:18):
I think is important to touch on because she is
recovered and you know, thank goodness, um, but she was
on the path that I know a lot of people
gets get stuck on, and it's a vicious cycle and
it's just it's so it's such a dark, dark place,
and so I'm so thankful that Nicole came on with
us to get vulnerable and that today is like the
(02:40):
happier side, the recovery side, and hopefully you will listen
to that and know that there is hope and that
you can It can be in your past and not
that it doesn't like creep up from time to time,
like in your thoughts. But anyway, I'll let I'll let
Nicole do the talking. When you'll hear her segment, she'll
she'll be there for her. Oh, save it for thank you, honey,
thank you. I know I'm rambling. I'm kind of just
(03:02):
giving the menu, but I've got Jessica haniger Um I
pulled a post from her Instagram that she wrote about
moms and how we can kind of compare ourselves the
working mom versus the stay at home mom, you know,
like kind of she's a working mom, and so she
kind of had feelings about this one mom that was
always like volunteering and able to do everything at the
school and it's always at all her kids things and YadA, YadA, YadA,
(03:23):
and how that can be hard because if you're working,
you can't always do that, but that the stay at
home moms sometimes have feelings towards the working moms, and
then it comes this whole thing. But her post was
that talking about how we all are important, we all
play a role, and we all should just encourage each
other and be there for each other. Right, But I
love it. Then, Also, the girl you booked, your girl,
(03:44):
Kim Anderson, who's super awesome. She is the wife of
one of your friends, and we talk about that when
she's on. I've already interviewed her and we talked about
how you know her, but just shout out for booking her.
She is a counselor a life coach and she's got
a book coming out on a podcast coming out soon.
But um, she's just if you want to check her out.
Her website is Kim Anderson dot life and she'll be
(04:08):
on for about I think we did like four weeks
worth with her, and each week we're going to talk
touch on a different thing, and this week we're talking
about the power of no and how you should create
boundaries and be okay with saying no because some people
are just yes people, Like they say yes to everything
when they know it's like I should have said no,
but they don't know how to do it. And it's
(04:30):
sometimes you just need to be okay with saying no,
like it's okay, it's okay to give yourself that. Yeah,
and it's better to be good at a few things
and you know, try to do everything and that, and
then you're stressed out and not doing your best right
because when you say yes to everything, you're still saying
no to something somewhere, but it may be to you
to do it. Yeah, that's right. Thing we talked about,
(04:51):
to doing a good job, or to your family who
you feel like, oh, well, they'll be fine without me.
So I'm just going to say yes to another thing. Um,
So a big thank you to Kim for coming on.
And then the last thing is has to do with
the Instagram, but it's Instagram songs, Like there's a group
that wrote a song for each number and apparently like
(05:11):
when you listen to it, it like you'll feel connected.
So there's the menu. That's what's coming up on today's episode.
Did you guys give a shout out to Gravy? We did?
We did. That's that's Kim's husband. My husband wants to
make sure that her husband gets the shout out, but yes,
we talk about him and how y'all thatt in Afghanistan
and all the things like if you ever see like
(05:32):
a massive like pilot at the front door saying thanks
for flying here, that's yeah, who do you fly for? Now? United? Okay? Yeah,
because now he's out of the air Force or what
was in the navy? Oh, you're like shaking your head
like a navy guys are so competitive. Well, I mean
they're fine. I mean we're all we all fight together.
(05:54):
But then when we're obviously when we can argue against
each other, we will argue against each other. But just
to clarify, what branch do you think is the best
in the military? Yeah? All the way, do you all
have a saying like the what branch goes? Who raw?
Or that's army? Army? Do y'all this air force have one? No? No,
we're just normal people. We're just normal like an ACE.
(06:17):
Oh great, now all the army people listening, we need
to apologize because you're normal to my husband means no disrespect. No,
they'll say something like chair force. You're like, oh, I
thought you were in the military, or they'll say that's
how the army and be like, oh, you mean chair
force and were like, because that, you'll just sit in
a chair apparently and do nothing. Hey, we all have
(06:37):
our thing we make. It's fun enter back and forth.
Oh okay, Um, do you have anything you want to
say before we get started? Let's go eat? Oh okay,
I guess you're hungry for the avocado toast first. Kale
Junkie is back. We've gotten a coal on. She was
with us last week. If you missed her episode or
(07:00):
it was a little introduction into her past. She was
vulnerable with that shared about her eating disorder and we're
kind of on a little journey with her UM. Today
we're going to touch more on the recovery. But if
you miss that episode, it was last Thursday, May second,
so definitely go download that's that you're you're caught up.
But I asked Nicole to come back because I felt
(07:22):
like the recovery side was so important. We went into
where the eating disorder started, um, how when it when
it was at it's height, and then she had to
hit rock bottom to get better. And then now she
has this amazing UM website kale junkie dot com. Fabulous
recipes her Instagram is full of like the most yummy
things you've ever seen, and she's able to eat them.
(07:45):
She's able to cook them and eat them and not
go through any binges. And I was definitely curious, as
I'm sure a lot of you were listening, um, kind
of what that that chapter looked like of recovery from
or last binge and purge to now being able to
you know, put all this yummy food up online and
(08:06):
also consume it. So Nicole, I'll let you kind of
take it from there. Thanks for having me back, Amy. Um. Yeah,
this is such a know, an important topic to me.
I know we did talk about the eating disorder a
part and what that was actually like like gosh, let's
get to the good stuff and talk about like how
to get recovery. How I recovered and perhaps if you're
(08:26):
going through something like this or you know somebody that
um that is these are some practical things that I
did that really led me to, um where I am today. Um.
And when we have an eating disorder, it's when you're
on autopilot. A lot of times you don't know why
you why, what is the root issue? Um, A root
(08:48):
cause of doing these actions whatever you're restricting food, eating
too much, binging, purging, whatever it is. UM. So the
key for me UM was looking at Number one was
looking at my why Why am I doing this? One
of the things UM was I learned that, you know,
put the pressure to be thin, um because I got
(09:09):
validation from other people. So that was that was one
of the things. And then career unhappiness that I had
chosen a career path practicing law. UM, that was not
my calling that I did, you know, because my parents
pushed me down that path and I wanted to be
successful and I wasn't sure what else in life I
wanted to do. So I did it and I felt
(09:29):
very unfulfilled inside. So it was a combination. So identifying
the why, so the pressure to be thin and getting
and receiving validation from other people based on thinness, and gosh,
I feel absolutely miserable in my career. I feel really
stuck and I don't know how to get out because
what else can I do? UM in life? Now I
(09:49):
have a law degree, but I don't have anything else.
So those were the That was the UH, that was
the why. Once I identif fides the why, UM, I
immersed myself in therapy so I started going. I found
a really great UM psychiatrist and a psychologist, two different,
(10:10):
two different UM professionals that helped me in different ways.
UM and I at the height of my eating disorder,
I went twice a week, UM, sometimes three times a week,
just depending on where I was and how bad and
how extremes the binges were. And I know that that's
not you know, an option that's available to everybody because
(10:33):
of the cost involved. But you know, I urge you
to look online because and do your research because a
lot of doctors, like I was, you know, I couldn't
afford all of this, but a lot of doctors will
work on a fighting scale basis UM, if you know,
depending on what your financial status is. And that was
really helpful for me so that I could get the
(10:53):
help that I needed at the time I needed it most. UM.
In those sessions, you you come clean. I was instead
of just coming clean to my husband like I talked
about in the last episode, it was coming clean to
a stranger where nobody's going to judge you. UM. You
can talk all about the struggles that you're facing and
(11:15):
they give you some practical tools for dealing with it
in your in your life UM. And during that session,
I realized, UM, you know, I have a passion for
health and fitness and a wellness, but UM, how can
I channel turn that into a career. How can I
do something with that? Um, considering that I'm suffering from
(11:37):
an eating disorder. So I enrolled in a yoga teacher
training and never intending to be a yoga teacher, but
really because I wanted to immerse myself in community, and
I wanted to be around other people, and I wanted
to understand more about the mind body connection UM. And
that was that was huge. That was I spent UM.
(11:59):
I mek out of my law office early UM to
go to my teacher training. And that was the best
investment that I ever made, was you know, taking money
from my savings account and putting it into a yoga
teacher training, even knowing that I never was going to
practice yoga. But I felt like these little acts of
self care UM are more important than material things like
(12:24):
I can go buy purses and shoes and buy all
those things that provide temporary happiness, but really what I
needed was something that was intangible, and that was the
community and around being around other people and UM, learning
more about myself in that process. So my what what
(12:45):
my passion was might not be yours. So maybe it's
it could be joining a book club, because it's just
something that's out of your comfort zone that um that
will surround you with other people and that Britons community
to you and that lights up your life and brings
joy and helps you learn more about yourself in the process.
(13:06):
So it doesn't have to be Yeah, it doesn't have
to be something that you know cost money for you
to do. It has got to be something that you
know you enjoy. Maybe it's maybe it's going out in nature,
doing a weekly hike for something, like someplace where you
can tune in to yourself and and you know, bring
that mind body connection together. And so that was part
of the healing, like talk us through like when you
(13:29):
had your I'll go Oprah, here is she the one
that has the AHA moment where you're like, okay, like
this is this is what I needed. This is part
of like this is when it's going to stop and
I'm going to make this transition and not go back
and um be that person I know you have your
you named yourself critic Karen right, Yeah, that my my girlfriend,
(13:54):
who was participating in a talk that we held on
body love and here in San Francisco a few weeks ago.
We were talking about this inner critic, um that there's always,
no matter how body positive you are, no matter how
heals in this recovery are heals you are, there's always
this inner critic, this inner voice inside of you. She
named her as Karen. I name my Nancy, UM like Karen,
(14:20):
mine Nancy. Where it's like that that voice pops up
in your head, but it's it's knowing, just knowing that,
identifying and recognizing when it pops up and saying, you
know what, shut up, get in the back seat of
this car. You're not going to be the driver anymore.
When you're in the eating disorder. You Um, you let
(14:41):
that inner critic guide every decision that you make, and
then when you realize that no matter what, hey to
this day, those things still pop up in my mind,
but I recognize it now, and I'm like, Nancy, get
in the freaking back seat because you don't have any
place in my life anymore. UM. Oh I've yeah, I
love that too, because it's like people can call it
(15:03):
what they want, but you know, there is a part
of our brain that especially if you've been a part
of like any sort of um issue issue with food,
like there maybe if you've been restricting or dieting. Like
our bodies are very smart, and when you're in tune
with that, like you said, having that mind body connection,
(15:24):
if you're starting your body at some point, it's going
to be like okay, like you're gonna need to feed me,
and you might as well feed me a lot right
now because I don't know when the next time I'm
going to eat is because you like to starve me,
so then and you can call it whatever part of
your brain that's like okay, keep eating, keep eating, keep eating.
And then if you've if you want to compensate for it,
(15:45):
then you're like, oh, shoot, I ate way too much,
Like now I've binged, and then I need to figure
out a way to either get rid of this, like
by working out way too much or throwing up or
doing whatever. But you can get ahead of it, like
once you're in that recovery, like get ahead of it
by quieting that part of your brain like you said,
shut up, Nancy, yeah, exactly, getting that back feet because
(16:07):
you don't belong here anymore. And you know during that
time too, you know, if I can, um, I'm kind
of I like to understand the kind of person that
likes to understand why something is happening. UM and I
there was a book that really helped me tremendously during
this time and it's called Brain over Binge and it's
all about how you know, when you do eat certain foods,
(16:30):
they are they're trigger foods that it's there. It causes
some type of chemical imbalance in your brain where yes,
you know, your body does crave more and more of
you know, in my case it was sugar and refined sugar.
But there is there is that connection. There is really
a part of your brain that um, you know, like
like you said, if you're going to restrict, you're going
(16:52):
to crave more and more, or if you have too much,
you're still going to crave more and more. UM. So
understanding that and knowing that there's nothing wrong with you
as a person, that is something in our brains, the
way that we're wired to crave certain foods, whether you're
restricting and putting your body in a flight or flight
or fight mode, or consuming too much where it's like
(17:14):
you know, sugar is a drug like crack that your
body just keeps craving more and more of so understanding
that there's you're not flawed, there's nothing wrong with you
as a person, that this is just the way human
beings are wired. And now we're going to try to
reverse that, right, And our bodies are so amazing and
we can, we can, and our brains are so powerful
(17:36):
and strong, you can reverse it. You absolutely can. I mean,
I think, um, you know, I think I told you
in the last episode that I lost my period for
you know, over fifteen years as a result of this,
and I when I met Greg, my husband, I told him,
I was like, I don't know. I don't think I'm
gonna be able to have kids one day. I don't
have my period. I don't know what the you know,
(17:57):
what the future holds for us. And you know, luckily
for him it was okay whether we had kids or not.
But um, you know, I will tell you as I healed,
and as I started getting more comfortable with the fact
that my body is not comfortable being a hundred and
fifteen or twenty pounds. That is not for some people,
that's totally healthy. For me, that is not. That's not
(18:20):
healthy that's not an optical week for my particular bone
structure and body to feel its best. And when I
let go of that idea in my head and started,
you know, shifting over to like eating foods that are
nourishing and eating um, you know, eliminating really eliminating the
refined sugar um, and letting my body kind of settle
(18:41):
where it's meant to be and being okay, if you know,
I'm not going to have a rock hard body and
that's okay. But through that process and going through that
exercise and letting my body kind of settle out where
it's meant to be. I got my period back, and um,
you know, at are all those years of not having it,
(19:03):
and gosh, it was nice in some ways not to
have that every month, but you know, you you at
some point you start not to feel like a woman
and you start to feel like you're missing out on
you know, my hormones were lacking. I had no sex drive,
I had none of these things that normal women had. UM.
But you can reverse it. And so to your point,
our bodies are so um resilient, and you're gonna have
(19:27):
you have to do work like I had to. UM,
you know, re kind of reset my digestive system because
my gut was wrecked. I mean, I you know, sometimes
I'd go to the bathroom too much. Other times I
couldn't go at all. Um, you know, so there's you know,
a whole like protocol that I did to just heal
my gut lining from the binging and purging that I did.
But you can do it, And like that's like the
(19:50):
the the biggest takeaways that you can do it. You
have to want it bad enough more than anything in life,
and when you get to that point that you're gonna
you can take the steps to heal yourself. Wow. Okay, Well,
thank you for sharing more on your recovery and just
to to recap, I feel like highlights that you touched
on would be that, you know, you had to realize
(20:12):
that you had a problem. You were rock bottom. You're
like what can I do? And in the last episode
you shared that part of that was finding people that
care about you and will actually listen, not try to
fix you, but just let you share. Because I mean, again,
it was it's an embarrassing, shameful thing. It shouldn't be,
but it is. So you didn't and then you realize
the man you were going to marry happened to be
(20:33):
that person. And so then you found help in therapy.
And then in therapy you realized, you know, maybe you
needed community and what could you dive into that was outside,
especially if you were in an unhappy workplace, and that
was a yoga teacher training, even though you didn't want
to be a yoga instructor, and for other people it
might be something else. But um, there was that. And
(20:56):
then you had the you know, you had the book
the what is it? Is it? Brain over bench? And
then um, you had uh kind of that that moment.
What would you say after that? Um? So after brain
over binge? Um, you know, just having that aha moment,
hitting rock bottom and um, continuing to tell people about
(21:18):
about it and not being ashamed anymore, so continuing to
be open and open about it, and then you just
get more comfortable with the recovery part. Well, you're very
brave and I appreciate it. And I know that this
is going to touch a lot of people listening for sure.
And I know in the last time you're on we
we shared your that they needed to check out your
(21:40):
life changing Um to he need chocolate chip cookies and
so I want you to share another recipe that people
need to go check out, Like if they were to
go to your blog and check out anything else besides
the cookies or what would that be. Yeah. So one
of the things that I hear a lot from readers
is that they don't want to make a big, you know,
a recipe that serves eight or ten people. They want
(22:01):
to stop a single serving dessert that they can just
come home and whip up in under five minutes. So
I have a paleo mug brownie cake and it is
literally um for ingredients that will I think will also
change your life because it's just it's basically like a
hug in a cup because it's a brownie and a
(22:21):
mug serving size one. Um, and you'll be surprised to
know that, Like the ingredients are super clean and healthy
and it feels like you're eating some decadent you know,
a really decadent brownie, but it's actually good for you. Awesome.
I love it. Well, thank you, Nicole. And just just
to clarify, even though I feel like I'm saying it
a lot, but kal junkie dot com is where you
(22:43):
can find the recipe and then at Kale Junkie on Instagram,
and I just think that you're awesome and I I
am so happy to have you part of the podcast
and have you on as a regular. I feel like
you're going to be You're You're good for people. You're good.
Thank you so much. So this next thing is a
Instagram post that I saw my friend Jessica Huniger put up.
(23:07):
She's the founder of Noonday Collection and she's been a
friend of mine for a long time. She lives in
Austin with her family as adopted kids, and her company,
Noonday Collection, is all started because of her adoption and
has grown. So she's this like awesome businesswoman doing all
the things. Um. She's written a book called Imperfect Courage,
(23:27):
and I've been on her podcast. I definitely want to
have her on here. But I just saw this Instagram
post and I was like, Okay, I don't have time
to schedule her for this Specifically, I want to get
this out there because I think it's important, whether you're
a working mom or stay at home mom. This little
Instagram post is going to resonate with you and remind
us that we're all important. We all play a role
(23:48):
no matter what we do. And you know we all
make it go around. So I'm going to share this
from Jessica and just know that eventually she will be
a future guest on the podcast. Just got to work
this out, but here is what she put up. I've
been thinking about the working mom thing lately, maybe because
I get my paintings in awad this time of year,
teacher gifts performances, end of school mayhem. Now this is
(24:12):
a photo of me reading a chapter of Imperfect Courage
during the book tour, and those two boys in the front,
they are mine and they are proud. That night, I
read a chapter about running into the Queen be Mom
at my kids school at Starbucks one morning on the
way to work. What I didn't know is that Mom
was there at my book launch that night. The story
(24:32):
goes like this, It was one of those glorious mornings
where I actually had blown my hair dry and could
grab a coffee and still be on time for work.
But when I walked inside, I saw that mom, the
one who led the Spanish outreach program, chaperoned all the
field trips, and both dropped off and picked up her
kids from school. I pretended like I didn't see her,
(24:55):
but right before I let myself sink into comparison, I
decided to connect with her and sheepishly said, hello, your
office is so close to here, right, She said, Jessica, seriously,
how do you do it all? This is the question
that usually had me telling myself the story that goes
you must be dropping a lot of balls at home.
But instead of defensiveness, a new compassionate voice emerged. I replied,
(25:19):
the reason I'm able to do it all is because
of you. Thank you for serving our school and being present. Said, then,
when I'm not around, our kids still thrive. Well after
finishing the story, I noticed Starbucks mom crying in the corner.
She came up to me afterwards and said, the first
day of school is tomorrow. I feel shame that I
don't have a job. I dropped them off tomorrow and
(25:40):
then what This reminded me that I don't need to
earn an income to matter. I do matter. And this
is back to Jessica talking mama's. It takes all of
us to be a wee. For those of you that
are tired mamas who spent countless hours up at our
kids school, this see her, thank you for those of
your mama's working to support your families and doing what
you can at school. Thank you as we see the
(26:02):
finish line to get another year. Let our biggest gift
be to celebrate one another. So anyway, I just loved
this post so much. Shout out to my friend Jessica
for being an encouragement to all of us moms out
there are the ones that are the working moms and
the ones that are the stay at home moms that
can also do a lot of the heavy lifting at
school with our kids and the volunteering and all the things,
(26:25):
and we all play a part, and it's it's all
important that we encourage each other and like Jessica said,
celebrate each other. Okay said in the intro that I've
got kim coming on, which you know is awesome Kimmy Anderson,
(26:47):
because I feel like my husband sort of arranged this.
He's like my podcast booking agent. So fun fact is
that Kim's husband and my husband flew together in Afghanistan.
So they met over there and he was like, you
live in Nashville. He's like, you live in Nashville. Like
what a small world. They had to go halfway around
the world to find out that they lived. You know,
(27:09):
thirty minutes apart, and I think we both just moved
here pretty instantly, right, Nashville's still yeah, it's very new.
So that was that was a fun thing, right when
we moved here. For my husband or like he was deployed.
To get a call, he's like, you're never going to
guess I just met somebody that lives in Nashville. And
then the guy that sings my theme song for the
podcast is Walker Hayes, who your husband is also friends with.
(27:31):
My husband gets around, he's got a lot of a
lot of a lot of friends. And do you ever
say his nickname on the publicly? Absolutely? So. His nickname
is Gravy And I have no idea why, honestly, is
it because he's so like I mean, he's like the
fact that he's a pilot and he can like fit
in a cockpit is funny to me. Or a flight
dick or whatever you wanna call it, because he's massive. Yeah,
(27:52):
and you know, he exceeded the objection seat limit. Um
when he was flying. I probably shouldn't say that I'm
gonna get somebody trouble, but um, but yeah, so if
he ejected, I don't know that he would have made
it out of the plane. But yes, that's how massive
he is. So I know it's a long story. So
he's been Gravy forever. But it came from the Naval
Academy when he graduated. Um, there is a book called
(28:15):
Reef Points, and um, there's a minimum g p A
to graduate, and he just went over that minimum g
p A, which he shares publicly. I'm not trying to
shame him. Um, he played football at the academy and
he just had football grades. Um. And so that Gravy
was just that little bit that he worked too hard for.
He didn't need it to actually graduate. So that's his nickname.
(28:38):
That's so funny. I don't think I ever knew that
that's where that came from. It. I love it. And
you know, my husband's an academy guy too, but Air
Force a little bit of rival. And he was on
the football team his freshman year but was not he
wasn't um. He was just a walk on. Like he
wasn't like not drafted credit draft. The draft is on
(29:01):
my brain because the NFL draft just ended. But he
was it wasn't like recruited recruited to go play there.
So it wasn't pretty, but I mean, yeah, he probably
would have had gravy grades too, because it was so
much balancing being a cadet and trying to play football
and keep your grades up and sleep and sleep. Like
he he ended up being like, you know what my
dream would be to play football selfishly because how amazing
(29:22):
that I even got the chance to walk on. But
it's killing me, like I will not make it out
of here, I won't graduate. And that was his and
he wanted to be able almost so super cool. So
y'all got to hear him, and I just like, you know,
share some stuff here with y'all. But um, that's that's
what it's all about. And I love that our husbands
brought us together for this because Kim's going to come
(29:43):
on and do a series of podcasts like the next
I would say, the next four or five four Things episodes.
You're going to be one of the things because you
have a couple of different areas we want to touch on.
And if y'all, you know throughout if you'll have question
ens while she's on, I think I'll just go and
throw this out there since you know she's on now
(30:04):
and she's going to be coming back, or maybe I
could reach out to her and maybe in a Q
and a answer something. But if you hear this and
you've got a question, send it to me and that
way I can try to find it out from from Kim.
But today we're going to talk about the power of
saying no and boundaries, because I feel like sometimes we
end up being a bunch of yes people and we
(30:25):
don't know how to not be that person. Um, we
don't know how to give ourselves permission to just say no.
And I know that you say, there's a lot of
freedom and being able to say no. Which my friend
just saw burn a Brown speak last weekend at a
mother's conference, and she put on Instagram that she had
(30:45):
a busy Saturday, she was supposed to go out that night,
and she was hugging her son goodbye and got on
the floor with him and he like really did not
want to let go. And whatever she was going to
she was really excited about it. It It was like, you know,
it had been on the calendar, like she was leaving.
But then she ended up just being like, you know, what,
is this a moment where I just say no to
(31:06):
that and lay here with my son And so she
said she did. And you know, there's the fomo fear
of missing out. And then I don't know if you've
seen joemos, but as I have a lot of friends
that experienced joemo, I do not, but a lot of
my phone I experienced it like crazy. So it's the
joy of missing out. And I commented on her Instagram
and I was like, Joemo, because yeah, you missed out
(31:30):
on whatever you were doing, but because you said no,
you had that quality time with your son. And well,
every time we're saying yes to something, we're saying no
to something else, right, and so that really becomes what
we've got to do. Um, you know, in in our
lives daily is just says is this the most important thing? Yeah? Okay,
So talk to us a little bit about the power
(31:52):
of no, like if you were giving a little mini
pep talk to people on the power of saying no.
That's what this is. That that's what we're doing right now.
Absolutely well. I had to get here because I call
myself for recovering people. Please are okay? So for years
I said yes to everything. Um, you know, Dave would
be deployed, I would say yes to this, I would
say yes to that um. And at the end of
(32:14):
the day, I would feel exhausted, I'd feel resentful. Um,
I would feel like it was about to cry. Um.
And it took Actually, you know, I'm a therapist, but
before that, I did coaching. Um. I do both now,
but I did my coach training first, and there was
a series where we got coached ourselves and there was
a boundaries unit. And it took that boundaries unit for
(32:37):
me to look and really assess my life and where
I had weak boundaries. And it was just like this
huge light bulb moment for me. Um. Just the cost,
the cost of letting everybody else run the show for
me or put their expectations on me. So UM, that's
part of really what moved me into the work that
I do with women, is because I have so many
people coming to me just um, carrying that weight and
(33:01):
carrying that resentment and not really feeling free. Right. Um.
And so when we look at boundaries, I love to
use a castle metaphor, so we all as adults have
our own castle. Imagine that, um, And we've got this
moat around the castle with ferocious alligators to protect us
and keep us safe. And we've got a sign on
(33:22):
the other side of our castle that has the rules right.
So in my in my castle, it would be we
go to bed really early because leaps so important to me. Um,
And there's a lot of things that I would have
on that sign. Um. But we have to know how
to lower the drawbridge and raise the drawbridge so that
we can let the good in and keep the bad
(33:43):
out right. So I'm speaking really kind of stereotypically in
good and bad here, But um, but what works for us,
what doesn't work for us, what builds us up, what
doesn't build us up but tears us down? And some
people grow up in homes where they learn that you
just have to keep the drawbridge shut, no matter what
(34:03):
the world is bad, keep it shut. And then other
people grew up in homes where they learn to keep
the drawbridge down, and so anybody can come in and
invade their castle any time of the night. Metaphorically, they
don't have control over protecting themselves. And so as adults,
what we want to be able to do is make
sure that we are able to raise and lower the
(34:26):
drawbridge accordingly. But most importantly, we've got to be able
to put our rules and have it clear on the
sign on the other side of the moat, and that's
where we go so wrong? Is well, yeah, because it
seems like I don't know, I couldn't imagine. I mean,
I don't know. I guess I know this is a metaphor.
But when you say have the rules are is it
(34:47):
rules that are clear to yourself? Not necessarily rules that
are clear. I couldn't imagine myself like proclaiming my rules
to other people, but these are the rules to yourself.
What what is going to work in this castle? Right?
Completely metaphor really right? And so, um, what we do
so often as we expect people to know our boundaries
without really setting them right, and so the rules become
(35:09):
the boundaries. Sometimes, Um, they need to be super clear
if we've got people that have been violating them for
a long time. Um. Sometimes we attract people who respect
them and they don't have to be as harsh or
as clear, but regardless, it's our responsibility to communicate them. Okay,
that makes sense. Yeah, Like we've got to be able
to put them out there. Um. And and so often
(35:32):
we're so afraid of disappointing other people that we don't
create clear boundaries in the first place. And The biggest
lesson for me was learning it's okay to disappoint people right,
and that was a big struggle. So because I mean,
now I'm thinking because I gave my friend as an example,
because it seems like something so trivial, like saying no
to whatever she had that Saturday night, for saying no
(35:53):
to that, but in a way, you know, you know,
all along, maybe she would have been saying yes to it,
which she said no to being home for the night.
Either way is it? And then ultimately her son showed
her like, please don't go, and that tugged at her.
But maybe if she hadn't, she still would have been
saying yes to the event and no to being home.
(36:15):
And I keep thinking of like our home life, and
how sometimes have you found is it easier for people
to say yes to like strangers and things that really
don't matter, and say no to the family just because
it's comfortable. You know they're going to love you no
matter what, so you can say no, no, no, no no,
And then there's anny moments where it catches up. And
I'm not saying that's what my friend does, but it
(36:36):
just made me think of her example, and then how
I often do that. Even with my husband, I would
have a much easier time telling him no, and my
family know, so that I can go please somebody that
I barely know, because it's like I want them to
think to not be disapointed disappointed it right, Yeah, And
so we hold everybody's expectations up, you know, so to
(36:59):
speak on these matters. But then we dropped the platters
of the ones that really matter to us, right, the
people that really matter to us. And it's easy to do.
And so we've got to think about the difference between
loving and pleasing. Right, So, if somebody puts demands on us, Um,
it's not our responsibility to please them, it's our responsibility
(37:19):
to love them. And sometimes loving people, um might be
disappointing them if it doesn't work for us. Right, And
it gets tricky at times. Yeah, Um, what was it
like whenever you decided to become not yes so hard?
I actually had to put us I mean this was
(37:39):
years ago when I had a big monitor on my
desk and I put a sticky note up on top
of my computer screen that said it's okay to disappoint people.
Do you know every time I read it, I would
still cringe a little bit because it took a long
time for me to give myself that freedom and that permission.
But the minute that I did, I mean, it was
just so freeing to not feel like I was in
(38:03):
bondage at what everybody else was expecting of me. Yeah. Right,
But if we grew up in a home where there's
shame or guilt for no, you know a lot of
times we grew up in places where if we say no,
we're met with shame or guilt. Um, It's it's pretty difficult, right, Yeah.
It's also a lot of times too, Yeah, where you
came from or what you've the environment you've created for
so long, that's just becomes habit and you don't even
(38:25):
realize it. So there's some truths that you have that
I want to go over. And the first one is
interesting to me. Um, no is a sentence? It is,
so can you explain that? I mean, I think I
can gather what it means. I've never heard no as
a sentence, But sometimes we feel like is it because
you feel like you have to say no? And here's why,
here's why no, here's why, and I'll do this instead. Um,
(38:46):
which sometimes is fine. Sometimes that is the no, I
can't do this, but I can do this right. But
typically no is oh, I'm a bad person for saying no, right, right,
and and um, but we we should. But just know
that no, no, ene, It's okay. You can only make
so many cupcakes for the school, right, you can only
(39:07):
volunteer so many times. Volunteering is wonderful, it's serving. Serving
is important that there are times when it doesn't work out,
and that's okay. Another truth you have is other's disappointments
are their own, um or oh sorry, others disappointments are
their's to own, And it's okay for people to be disappointed,
so that's their responsibility. My feelings are my responsibility, not
(39:30):
somebody else's. Right, and my disappointments my responsibility too. And
it's okay for me to be disappointed. Right we talked
about Um, it's okay for others to be disappointed. But
often times we don't want to feel disappointed, and we
can have adult temper tantrums, you know, if we don't
get our way, And it's my responsibility again to accept no,
just as as important as is to give knows. Another
(39:53):
truth here is you are the only one who can
protect your boundaries. No one else will do it for you.
So you're the one the controls to the drawbridge and
putting the rules up. And guess what do you think
happens when we have a castle and we leave the
drawbridge down. We attract all kinds of people that are
boundary violators. Right. They love to come into that castle
(40:14):
because they can just go right in. And so the
minute that somebody learns to close the drawbridge when it's appropriate,
not always, but when it's appropriate. Um, what do you
think is going to happen to those people who've had
the had free access to your castle this whole time? Yeah,
they're not gonna like it, right, So boundaries always get worse,
or that the issue gets worse before it gets better
(40:36):
once we've established the boundary because they're not gonna like it. Yeah.
And this last truth we sort of touched on. Um,
there is a difference between loving and pleasing, absolutely, yeah,
and so we're called to love, right, and so that
is important. But again, if it's not what the other
person wants, it's okay. Yeah, as long as you're being kind. Yeah, okay,
(40:58):
Well I love it. I mean I think that's Oh,
I love that you said, as long as you're being
kind because you don't have to. Maybe I'm maybe I'm
just picturing if people feel like they have to say no,
then suddenly they put up some like guard or defense
of like okay, just no, I can't do it, I
don't want to deal with it whatever, and it comes
off as rude. But really, just make sure you know
(41:20):
you're making a healthy decision for yourself and you don't
need to have that guard or that defense up or
that like frustrated nous with the no. Just own the
know except the no, find freedom in the know, and
then it'll genuinely come off as yes as a no
that is also kind. Yeah, I mean it can sound
like this, thank you so much for that opportunity. I'm
(41:42):
not able to do it right now, but I will
definitely keep it in mind for the future. Yeah that's new.
Yeah awesome. Okay, Well, so this is this was a
quick talk on you know, learning to say no. I
hopefully I hope that it resonated with some of you listening.
I know I'm not. I've never been a people pleaser really,
so I mean there's some things my sister is, so
(42:05):
she may be listening to this and like find out.
But yeah, I mean, obviously I don't want to let
people down, but I don't think I've had a problem
with saying no, it don't. But I wonder sometimes if
I've been like an invader of other people that and
that's what I'm now I'm evaluating that in my head.
I'm like, have I ever been like taken an advantage
of somebody's drawbridge that was down, you know, and making
(42:28):
sure I think if you're if you're listening and you're
like me, like looking at all sides of it, like
maybe you need to be. There are definitely times where
I've been a yes person of people who's there. I
think we all have that, but it's I wasn't like
a chronic yes, yes, yes, like like if if I
couldn't bake the cupcakes or whatever, I have no issue
being like I cannot bake a cupcakes, I'm so sorry,
like good luck, and there is such freedom and that, yeah,
(42:50):
there is. Like you're saying that responsibility lies on those sides. Rights,
it lies on both sides. But evaluate yourself too and
make sure that you're not if you sent someone in
your life it is a yes person in um, you know,
and I'm kind of thinking of people in my life
that I know are like, WHOA, I need to step back?
Have I ever taken advantage of that? Or have I
ever come in when maybe they probably needed some space?
(43:11):
Because and and it's nobody. I think it's just being
aware of your relationships and your surroundings. I don't know
that it's it's nobody's fault and all of this. It's
just being more aware of yourself and others. And so
since I'm self aware that I know I'm not chronic
people pleaser, I need to also be aware have I
(43:31):
taken advantage of chronic people pleasers in my life? Because
I'm sure that I have. Well, I mean, it happens
all the time. And you know on both sides again
that it's you know, it's also their responsibility to say
to step up and say it doesn't work right, okay,
just knowing it right, like I said, being aware Okay.
And then I think my favorite takeaway from this, so
I'll recap it is no as a sentence. Yeah, even
(43:52):
though I don't have a problem saying no, I give
a note with like five reasons why, because I don't.
I want it to be clear, like I'm yeah, and
then that almost seems like not authentic right right? What
you sound like we're make up here, but but but
but just leave it up, you know, I'm like simple
and no can be the sentence. So, Kim, since this
(44:14):
is your first time on UM, something I'm doing with
guests that come on is giving them It's the Four
Things podcast and we have these four Things totes that
support Haiti and we went over this before we started.
So I got Kim's four things. Well, she actually was
going to give me a different set of four things,
but then she saw my tote, so I was like,
(44:34):
I like that. Yes, I'm carrying out with mom goals tote.
So um, Kim, you can read them so and why
you think that they are good for you? Yeah? Love hard,
have grace, laughed often, and get sleep and those are
all I love hard. I just I live hard, love hard,
grace is everything. We've got to give it to ourselves
(44:55):
into others. Life's born without laughter. We can't take ourselves
too serious. Slan, we do, and anybody that does life
with me knows I'm neurotic about sleep. Yeah, no, that's amazing.
I love that you were I mean originally you're like, okay,
I think I'll say something like you know, faith, family fund,
something to that, and then I showed you this mom
GOLs when you're like okay, yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah,
(45:17):
I love it. Awesome. So well, thank you for coming
on and we will um definitely have you back to
talk about other areas in our life that we could
be working on. But I appreciate the boundaries talk because
I feel like a lot of people, I hope a
lot of yes people are listening right now and they're like, Okay,
it's okay, I need to put the bridge up just
for a little bit. So for this last thing, I
(45:46):
want to talk about iniagram numbers and songs. So I've
had Hunter, my Intagram expert, on a couple of episodes,
and he's going to come back and talk more and
more about the intiagram. And I know a lot of
you are into it. Some of you are like, what
the heck is it? But I mean it's just a
way to learn more about your personality and a number
defines some of your characteristics and your traits and why
(46:08):
you are the way that you are, and it helps
you with relationships and working with people. So anyway, Hannah. Hannah,
if you're listening, thank you so much for this email.
I think it's super cool. She was listening and decided
to send me this email because she wanted me to
share it with all of y'all that there's this group
that now has songs out about about each number. The
only problem is depending on when you're listening to this.
(46:30):
When I'm recording it right now, there's there's one through
nine numbers on the angiogram, but they've only recorded eight songs,
so the nine number nine song isn't out yet. So
if you're nine, it's like, well, well, you don't get
to hear your song yet, but hopefully soon. So here
is what Hannah wrote. Hey, Amy, I'm somewhat new to
the anagram world, but so many people around me are
really loving it. I'm still trying to discover what number
(46:51):
I am. In the process of figuring it out, my
mom showed me this playlist from the group Sleeping at Last.
It's a playlist of eight single song releases. They haven't
released nine yet. They wrote a song for each insiogram number,
and it is so cool. Usually when people hear their song,
they get very emotional about it. I thought this might
be something that you would be interested in and might
(47:12):
want to share with others. All you gotta do is
go to Sleeping at Last dot com. All the songs
are called Atlas one, Atlas two, at Last three, et cetera.
So it's super cool. So I went and this is
like one of the songs that I pulled, So this
is kind of what they sound like. But I could
imagine if you want to listen to it, you just
(47:34):
turn on a song, maybe go to the number you
think is yours, and if you don't know your number,
maybe listen to them all. But take time to be quiet,
turn on the song, close your eyes, lay there and
then really taken what is being said and see if
you resonate with it and if you connect to it
(47:56):
is like or you get emotional like Hannah was saying.
She said, you really when people hear their song, they
get very emotional about it. So I have to admit
I thought I would have time to listen to my
song before I came on to record this with you guys.
But I'm still not convinced of my number. Instagram hunter.
He says, I'm a three, but I don't really know
(48:19):
for sure for sure if I'm at three, we're still
working through that, but this this song is actually three.
That's the one that I pulled because I am going
to listen to it and I'll update you' all if
I really feel that connection. And I'm gonna even ask
Hunter about these songs too, to see if he's listened
to them, to see, you know, if he's heard if
people have really connected in that way. But it could
(48:39):
be cool, It could be cool for you, so definitely
check it out against Sleeping at Last dot com is
where you can find the songs. And then you know,
Hunter is going to be back on to discuss some
more Instagram things because I think you are really liking
that stuff. We're going to talk about like how to
use the Instagram in relationships, how each number moves toward
another number in times of stress us and in times
(49:01):
of security. And then also we'll get into like what
you do once you know your indiogram number. Maybe you're
just now finding it out and you're like, now what.
So I'll have him on a couple of different episodes
to break down some of that stuff. So Hannah shout out,
thank you for um this little note to me and
everybody else that might be into the indiogram, so now
we can like check out our song. Alright, cool, Thanks, Okay,
(49:27):
that's a wrap on today's episode. Hope you guys really
enjoyed it. If you'll ever have thoughts or questions after
you hear an episode, make sure you send everything to
four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com, and
then we'll be back on Tuesday with another Q and
a episode with some of your thoughts and questions and
maybe you just have something you want to share. I
(49:48):
also do email shout outs at the end of every
four Things episode on Thursday, So that's what I'm gonna
get into right now. And the email is from Tracy. Hey, Amy,
I've been a listener of the Bobby Bones Show for
several years out and recently started listening to your podcast,
which I thoroughly enjoy as a native of Fayetteville, North
Carolina and a teacher at the high School and Southern Pines.
(50:09):
Shout out, Hey, Honey, my husband's in here as I'm
reading this, Honey, Southern Pines. That's where we lived. Shout
out when my husband was stationed at Fort Bragg. We
lived in Southern Pines for five years and it's like
the cutest, quaintest little town and she teaches at high school.
That's great. Yeah, back to the email. I feel like
I have grown to learn more about you and love
(50:30):
being able to connect with you on a personal level.
Our school has started a kindness movement at lunch and
students have used sidewalk chalk to write sweet notes around
the school. Since your motto is Choose Joy, I thought
you would love to see what our students are doing.
I can't wait to listen every week, and I hope
I can be an ambassador of joy in my classroom
(50:50):
every day. Thank you for your mission and sharing your
joy with us, Tracy. And then she attached a picture
of like the sidewalk art and like the choose Joy
boy written all over the place, and it was just
so cool, And I thought that that was a neat thing,
because if I've got any teachers listening, maybe this is
something you can implement in your classroom or if your
school allows sidewalk chalk, I mean in our neighborhood, honey,
(51:11):
we sometimes people write on like the graffiti on the sidewalk,
like nice notes. I like that because then when you're
walking like your kids or your dog or whatever and
you look down. You're like, I'm beautiful, I'm smart. Choose joy,
be kind, laugh a lot. Do you know the fourth
thing of my song? Be kind Choose joy, laugh a lot?
(51:34):
Oh you do listen? Okay, you've asked the test um.
Well that's also I have that on a toe and
a pull over and your computer and my computer. Oh
you just cheated. It's literally I have a Joy Secret
decal on my computer. I think we're sold out of
those though. I know that's what I was trying to
(51:55):
get you to pull it from. But then I realized
we have it like all over in our lives because
of all the SPA stuff. So okay, thank you Tracy
for the email. Thank you everyone for listening, and we
hope you have a great day. Don't we began? Be kind?
Never laugh cass up broad than little food for yourself life, ain't.
(52:26):
Oh it's pretty bad. Hey, it's pretty beautiful. Thanks beautiful
laugh a little mouth tightening up. Cose said he can't cut.
You're kicking with four with Amy Brown
Okay, cast up little food for yourself life. Oh it's
pretty Bay, it's pretty beautiful. Laugh for a little mouth
(00:28):
your kicking. Four Welcome back to another episode of Four Things.
I'm your host, Amy Brown, and my husband actually just
walked in, so I made him sit down at the
mic to do the intro with me because you kind
of were my booking agent. You booked one of my guests. Yea,
how does that feels well? What do you mean? How
(00:49):
does it feel? How does it feel to have your
husband books something for you? I guess it feels good.
It would be nice if my husband could turn his
phone off. But I mean, I guess I did just
pull you in here. You don't even record. If y'all
heard that ding, it was my husband's phone. But um,
you know, I have four things each episode, so always
looking for content and what we can talk about. And
(01:10):
you booked one of the things. I'd pay you, but
we don't make money off of this, so yeah, I'm
still waiting for that. Yeah your fee? Will we get
to take me out to lunch? Oh? Man, that's a loss?
Isn't how a loss? Or a win? What? That's a win?
I mean, juice? We are going to go. I want
(01:32):
to go to this. I want to get avocado toast
something green. So basic of me right now, but I
mean I'm legit craving it and there's this new place
in town we want to go get it. So uh,
just quickly we'll run through the menu. Today's episode. Do
you want to hear what it is? So you know,
I mean, you'll you listen to my podcast right all
the time. Okay, so this is what you're going to
hear if you listen to today's episode. I've got part
(01:55):
two with my friend Nicole at kale Junkie on Instagram.
She was on last week talking about the start of
her eating disorder and kind of the roots of it
and how it came on she knows when she was
a kid, and then how it played a role later
in her life when it crept back up and she
was like, oh my gosh, it just got out of control. So,
you know, today is more of the recovery side, which
(02:18):
I think is important to touch on because she is
recovered and you know, thank goodness, um, but she was
on the path that I know a lot of people
gets get stuck on, and it's a vicious cycle and
it's just it's so it's such a dark, dark place,
and so I'm so thankful that Nicole came on with
us to get vulnerable and that today is like the
(02:40):
happier side, the recovery side, and hopefully you will listen
to that and know that there is hope and that
you can It can be in your past and not
that it doesn't like creep up from time to time,
like in your thoughts. But anyway, I'll let I'll let
Nicole do the talking. When you'll hear her segment, she'll
she'll be there for her. Oh, save it for thank you, honey,
thank you. I know I'm rambling. I'm kind of just
(03:02):
giving the menu, but I've got Jessica haniger Um I
pulled a post from her Instagram that she wrote about
moms and how we can kind of compare ourselves the
working mom versus the stay at home mom, you know,
like kind of she's a working mom, and so she
kind of had feelings about this one mom that was
always like volunteering and able to do everything at the
school and it's always at all her kids things and YadA, YadA, YadA,
(03:23):
and how that can be hard because if you're working,
you can't always do that, but that the stay at
home moms sometimes have feelings towards the working moms, and
then it comes this whole thing. But her post was
that talking about how we all are important, we all
play a role, and we all should just encourage each
other and be there for each other. Right, But I
love it. Then, Also, the girl you booked, your girl,
(03:44):
Kim Anderson, who's super awesome. She is the wife of
one of your friends, and we talk about that when
she's on. I've already interviewed her and we talked about
how you know her, but just shout out for booking her.
She is a counselor a life coach and she's got
a book coming out on a podcast coming out soon.
But um, she's just if you want to check her out.
Her website is Kim Anderson dot life and she'll be
(04:08):
on for about I think we did like four weeks
worth with her, and each week we're going to talk
touch on a different thing, and this week we're talking
about the power of no and how you should create
boundaries and be okay with saying no because some people
are just yes people, Like they say yes to everything
when they know it's like I should have said no,
but they don't know how to do it. And it's
(04:30):
sometimes you just need to be okay with saying no,
like it's okay, it's okay to give yourself that. Yeah,
and it's better to be good at a few things
and you know, try to do everything and that, and
then you're stressed out and not doing your best right
because when you say yes to everything, you're still saying
no to something somewhere, but it may be to you
to do it. Yeah, that's right. Thing we talked about,
(04:51):
to doing a good job, or to your family who
you feel like, oh, well, they'll be fine without me.
So I'm just going to say yes to another thing. Um,
So a big thank you to Kim for coming on.
And then the last thing is has to do with
the Instagram, but it's Instagram songs, Like there's a group
that wrote a song for each number and apparently like
(05:11):
when you listen to it, it like you'll feel connected.
So there's the menu. That's what's coming up on today's episode.
Did you guys give a shout out to Gravy? We did?
We did. That's that's Kim's husband. My husband wants to
make sure that her husband gets the shout out, but yes,
we talk about him and how y'all thatt in Afghanistan
and all the things like if you ever see like
(05:32):
a massive like pilot at the front door saying thanks
for flying here, that's yeah, who do you fly for? Now? United? Okay? Yeah,
because now he's out of the air Force or what
was in the navy? Oh, you're like shaking your head
like a navy guys are so competitive. Well, I mean
they're fine. I mean we're all we all fight together.
(05:54):
But then when we're obviously when we can argue against
each other, we will argue against each other. But just
to clarify, what branch do you think is the best
in the military? Yeah? All the way, do you all
have a saying like the what branch goes? Who raw?
Or that's army? Army? Do y'all this air force have one? No? No,
we're just normal people. We're just normal like an ACE.
(06:17):
Oh great, now all the army people listening, we need
to apologize because you're normal to my husband means no disrespect. No,
they'll say something like chair force. You're like, oh, I
thought you were in the military, or they'll say that's
how the army and be like, oh, you mean chair
force and were like, because that, you'll just sit in
a chair apparently and do nothing. Hey, we all have
(06:37):
our thing we make. It's fun enter back and forth.
Oh okay, Um, do you have anything you want to
say before we get started? Let's go eat? Oh okay,
I guess you're hungry for the avocado toast first. Kale
Junkie is back. We've gotten a coal on. She was
with us last week. If you missed her episode or
(07:00):
it was a little introduction into her past. She was
vulnerable with that shared about her eating disorder and we're
kind of on a little journey with her UM. Today
we're going to touch more on the recovery. But if
you miss that episode, it was last Thursday, May second,
so definitely go download that's that you're you're caught up.
But I asked Nicole to come back because I felt
(07:22):
like the recovery side was so important. We went into
where the eating disorder started, um, how when it when
it was at it's height, and then she had to
hit rock bottom to get better. And then now she
has this amazing UM website kale junkie dot com. Fabulous
recipes her Instagram is full of like the most yummy
things you've ever seen, and she's able to eat them.
(07:45):
She's able to cook them and eat them and not
go through any binges. And I was definitely curious, as
I'm sure a lot of you were listening, um, kind
of what that that chapter looked like of recovery from
or last binge and purge to now being able to
you know, put all this yummy food up online and
(08:06):
also consume it. So Nicole, I'll let you kind of
take it from there. Thanks for having me back, Amy. Um. Yeah,
this is such a know, an important topic to me.
I know we did talk about the eating disorder a
part and what that was actually like like gosh, let's
get to the good stuff and talk about like how
to get recovery. How I recovered and perhaps if you're
(08:26):
going through something like this or you know somebody that
um that is these are some practical things that I
did that really led me to, um where I am today. Um.
And when we have an eating disorder, it's when you're
on autopilot. A lot of times you don't know why
you why, what is the root issue? Um, A root
(08:48):
cause of doing these actions whatever you're restricting food, eating
too much, binging, purging, whatever it is. UM. So the
key for me UM was looking at Number one was
looking at my why Why am I doing this? One
of the things UM was I learned that, you know,
put the pressure to be thin, um because I got
(09:09):
validation from other people. So that was that was one
of the things. And then career unhappiness that I had
chosen a career path practicing law. UM, that was not
my calling that I did, you know, because my parents
pushed me down that path and I wanted to be
successful and I wasn't sure what else in life I
wanted to do. So I did it and I felt
(09:29):
very unfulfilled inside. So it was a combination. So identifying
the why, so the pressure to be thin and getting
and receiving validation from other people based on thinness, and gosh,
I feel absolutely miserable in my career. I feel really
stuck and I don't know how to get out because
what else can I do? UM in life? Now I
(09:49):
have a law degree, but I don't have anything else.
So those were the That was the UH, that was
the why. Once I identif fides the why, UM, I
immersed myself in therapy so I started going. I found
a really great UM psychiatrist and a psychologist, two different,
(10:10):
two different UM professionals that helped me in different ways.
UM and I at the height of my eating disorder,
I went twice a week, UM, sometimes three times a week,
just depending on where I was and how bad and
how extremes the binges were. And I know that that's
not you know, an option that's available to everybody because
(10:33):
of the cost involved. But you know, I urge you
to look online because and do your research because a
lot of doctors, like I was, you know, I couldn't
afford all of this, but a lot of doctors will
work on a fighting scale basis UM, if you know,
depending on what your financial status is. And that was
really helpful for me so that I could get the
(10:53):
help that I needed at the time I needed it most. UM.
In those sessions, you you come clean. I was instead
of just coming clean to my husband like I talked
about in the last episode, it was coming clean to
a stranger where nobody's going to judge you. UM. You
can talk all about the struggles that you're facing and
(11:15):
they give you some practical tools for dealing with it
in your in your life UM. And during that session,
I realized, UM, you know, I have a passion for
health and fitness and a wellness, but UM, how can
I channel turn that into a career. How can I
do something with that? Um, considering that I'm suffering from
(11:37):
an eating disorder. So I enrolled in a yoga teacher
training and never intending to be a yoga teacher, but
really because I wanted to immerse myself in community, and
I wanted to be around other people, and I wanted
to understand more about the mind body connection UM. And
that was that was huge. That was I spent UM.
(11:59):
I mek out of my law office early UM to
go to my teacher training. And that was the best
investment that I ever made, was you know, taking money
from my savings account and putting it into a yoga
teacher training, even knowing that I never was going to
practice yoga. But I felt like these little acts of
self care UM are more important than material things like
(12:24):
I can go buy purses and shoes and buy all
those things that provide temporary happiness, but really what I
needed was something that was intangible, and that was the
community and around being around other people and UM, learning
more about myself in that process. So my what what
(12:45):
my passion was might not be yours. So maybe it's
it could be joining a book club, because it's just
something that's out of your comfort zone that um that
will surround you with other people and that Britons community
to you and that lights up your life and brings
joy and helps you learn more about yourself in the process.
(13:06):
So it doesn't have to be Yeah, it doesn't have
to be something that you know cost money for you
to do. It has got to be something that you
know you enjoy. Maybe it's maybe it's going out in nature,
doing a weekly hike for something, like someplace where you
can tune in to yourself and and you know, bring
that mind body connection together. And so that was part
of the healing, like talk us through like when you
(13:29):
had your I'll go Oprah, here is she the one
that has the AHA moment where you're like, okay, like
this is this is what I needed. This is part
of like this is when it's going to stop and
I'm going to make this transition and not go back
and um be that person I know you have your
you named yourself critic Karen right, Yeah, that my my girlfriend,
(13:54):
who was participating in a talk that we held on
body love and here in San Francisco a few weeks ago.
We were talking about this inner critic, um that there's always,
no matter how body positive you are, no matter how
heals in this recovery are heals you are, there's always
this inner critic, this inner voice inside of you. She
named her as Karen. I name my Nancy, UM like Karen,
(14:20):
mine Nancy. Where it's like that that voice pops up
in your head, but it's it's knowing, just knowing that,
identifying and recognizing when it pops up and saying, you
know what, shut up, get in the back seat of
this car. You're not going to be the driver anymore.
When you're in the eating disorder. You Um, you let
(14:41):
that inner critic guide every decision that you make, and
then when you realize that no matter what, hey to
this day, those things still pop up in my mind,
but I recognize it now, and I'm like, Nancy, get
in the freaking back seat because you don't have any
place in my life anymore. UM. Oh I've yeah, I
love that too, because it's like people can call it
(15:03):
what they want, but you know, there is a part
of our brain that especially if you've been a part
of like any sort of um issue issue with food,
like there maybe if you've been restricting or dieting. Like
our bodies are very smart, and when you're in tune
with that, like you said, having that mind body connection,
(15:24):
if you're starting your body at some point, it's going
to be like okay, like you're gonna need to feed me,
and you might as well feed me a lot right
now because I don't know when the next time I'm
going to eat is because you like to starve me,
so then and you can call it whatever part of
your brain that's like okay, keep eating, keep eating, keep eating.
And then if you've if you want to compensate for it,
(15:45):
then you're like, oh, shoot, I ate way too much,
Like now I've binged, and then I need to figure
out a way to either get rid of this, like
by working out way too much or throwing up or
doing whatever. But you can get ahead of it, like
once you're in that recovery, like get ahead of it
by quieting that part of your brain like you said,
shut up, Nancy, yeah, exactly, getting that back feet because
(16:07):
you don't belong here anymore. And you know during that
time too, you know, if I can, um, I'm kind
of I like to understand the kind of person that
likes to understand why something is happening. UM and I
there was a book that really helped me tremendously during
this time and it's called Brain over Binge and it's
all about how you know, when you do eat certain foods,
(16:30):
they are they're trigger foods that it's there. It causes
some type of chemical imbalance in your brain where yes,
you know, your body does crave more and more of
you know, in my case it was sugar and refined sugar.
But there is there is that connection. There is really
a part of your brain that um, you know, like
like you said, if you're going to restrict, you're going
(16:52):
to crave more and more, or if you have too much,
you're still going to crave more and more. UM. So
understanding that and knowing that there's nothing wrong with you
as a person, that is something in our brains, the
way that we're wired to crave certain foods, whether you're
restricting and putting your body in a flight or flight
or fight mode, or consuming too much where it's like
(17:14):
you know, sugar is a drug like crack that your
body just keeps craving more and more of so understanding
that there's you're not flawed, there's nothing wrong with you
as a person, that this is just the way human
beings are wired. And now we're going to try to
reverse that, right, And our bodies are so amazing and
we can, we can, and our brains are so powerful
(17:36):
and strong, you can reverse it. You absolutely can. I mean,
I think, um, you know, I think I told you
in the last episode that I lost my period for
you know, over fifteen years as a result of this,
and I when I met Greg, my husband, I told him,
I was like, I don't know. I don't think I'm
gonna be able to have kids one day. I don't
have my period. I don't know what the you know,
(17:57):
what the future holds for us. And you know, luckily
for him it was okay whether we had kids or not.
But um, you know, I will tell you as I healed,
and as I started getting more comfortable with the fact
that my body is not comfortable being a hundred and
fifteen or twenty pounds. That is not for some people,
that's totally healthy. For me, that is not. That's not
(18:20):
healthy that's not an optical week for my particular bone
structure and body to feel its best. And when I
let go of that idea in my head and started,
you know, shifting over to like eating foods that are
nourishing and eating um, you know, eliminating really eliminating the
refined sugar um, and letting my body kind of settle
(18:41):
where it's meant to be and being okay, if you know,
I'm not going to have a rock hard body and
that's okay. But through that process and going through that
exercise and letting my body kind of settle out where
it's meant to be. I got my period back, and um,
you know, at are all those years of not having it,
(19:03):
and gosh, it was nice in some ways not to
have that every month, but you know, you you at
some point you start not to feel like a woman
and you start to feel like you're missing out on
you know, my hormones were lacking. I had no sex drive,
I had none of these things that normal women had. UM.
But you can reverse it. And so to your point,
our bodies are so um resilient, and you're gonna have
(19:27):
you have to do work like I had to. UM,
you know, re kind of reset my digestive system because
my gut was wrecked. I mean, I you know, sometimes
I'd go to the bathroom too much. Other times I
couldn't go at all. Um, you know, so there's you know,
a whole like protocol that I did to just heal
my gut lining from the binging and purging that I did.
But you can do it, And like that's like the
(19:50):
the the biggest takeaways that you can do it. You
have to want it bad enough more than anything in life,
and when you get to that point that you're gonna
you can take the steps to heal yourself. Wow. Okay, Well,
thank you for sharing more on your recovery and just
to to recap, I feel like highlights that you touched
on would be that, you know, you had to realize
(20:12):
that you had a problem. You were rock bottom. You're
like what can I do? And in the last episode
you shared that part of that was finding people that
care about you and will actually listen, not try to
fix you, but just let you share. Because I mean, again,
it was it's an embarrassing, shameful thing. It shouldn't be,
but it is. So you didn't and then you realize
the man you were going to marry happened to be
(20:33):
that person. And so then you found help in therapy.
And then in therapy you realized, you know, maybe you
needed community and what could you dive into that was outside,
especially if you were in an unhappy workplace, and that
was a yoga teacher training, even though you didn't want
to be a yoga instructor, and for other people it
might be something else. But um, there was that. And
(20:56):
then you had the you know, you had the book
the what is it? Is it? Brain over bench? And
then um, you had uh kind of that that moment.
What would you say after that? Um? So after brain
over binge? Um, you know, just having that aha moment,
hitting rock bottom and um, continuing to tell people about
(21:18):
about it and not being ashamed anymore, so continuing to
be open and open about it, and then you just
get more comfortable with the recovery part. Well, you're very
brave and I appreciate it. And I know that this
is going to touch a lot of people listening for sure.
And I know in the last time you're on we
we shared your that they needed to check out your
(21:40):
life changing Um to he need chocolate chip cookies and
so I want you to share another recipe that people
need to go check out, Like if they were to
go to your blog and check out anything else besides
the cookies or what would that be. Yeah. So one
of the things that I hear a lot from readers
is that they don't want to make a big, you know,
a recipe that serves eight or ten people. They want
(22:01):
to stop a single serving dessert that they can just
come home and whip up in under five minutes. So
I have a paleo mug brownie cake and it is
literally um for ingredients that will I think will also
change your life because it's just it's basically like a
hug in a cup because it's a brownie and a
(22:21):
mug serving size one. Um, and you'll be surprised to
know that, Like the ingredients are super clean and healthy
and it feels like you're eating some decadent you know,
a really decadent brownie, but it's actually good for you. Awesome.
I love it. Well, thank you, Nicole. And just just
to clarify, even though I feel like I'm saying it
a lot, but kal junkie dot com is where you
(22:43):
can find the recipe and then at Kale Junkie on Instagram,
and I just think that you're awesome and I I
am so happy to have you part of the podcast
and have you on as a regular. I feel like
you're going to be You're You're good for people. You're good.
Thank you so much. So this next thing is a
Instagram post that I saw my friend Jessica Huniger put up.
(23:07):
She's the founder of Noonday Collection and she's been a
friend of mine for a long time. She lives in
Austin with her family as adopted kids, and her company,
Noonday Collection, is all started because of her adoption and
has grown. So she's this like awesome businesswoman doing all
the things. Um. She's written a book called Imperfect Courage,
(23:27):
and I've been on her podcast. I definitely want to
have her on here. But I just saw this Instagram
post and I was like, Okay, I don't have time
to schedule her for this Specifically, I want to get
this out there because I think it's important, whether you're
a working mom or stay at home mom. This little
Instagram post is going to resonate with you and remind
us that we're all important. We all play a role
(23:48):
no matter what we do. And you know we all
make it go around. So I'm going to share this
from Jessica and just know that eventually she will be
a future guest on the podcast. Just got to work
this out, but here is what she put up. I've
been thinking about the working mom thing lately, maybe because
I get my paintings in awad this time of year,
teacher gifts performances, end of school mayhem. Now this is
(24:12):
a photo of me reading a chapter of Imperfect Courage
during the book tour, and those two boys in the front,
they are mine and they are proud. That night, I
read a chapter about running into the Queen be Mom
at my kids school at Starbucks one morning on the
way to work. What I didn't know is that Mom
was there at my book launch that night. The story
(24:32):
goes like this, It was one of those glorious mornings
where I actually had blown my hair dry and could
grab a coffee and still be on time for work.
But when I walked inside, I saw that mom, the
one who led the Spanish outreach program, chaperoned all the
field trips, and both dropped off and picked up her
kids from school. I pretended like I didn't see her,
(24:55):
but right before I let myself sink into comparison, I
decided to connect with her and sheepishly said, hello, your
office is so close to here, right, She said, Jessica, seriously,
how do you do it all? This is the question
that usually had me telling myself the story that goes
you must be dropping a lot of balls at home.
But instead of defensiveness, a new compassionate voice emerged. I replied,
(25:19):
the reason I'm able to do it all is because
of you. Thank you for serving our school and being present. Said, then,
when I'm not around, our kids still thrive. Well after
finishing the story, I noticed Starbucks mom crying in the corner.
She came up to me afterwards and said, the first
day of school is tomorrow. I feel shame that I
don't have a job. I dropped them off tomorrow and
(25:40):
then what This reminded me that I don't need to
earn an income to matter. I do matter. And this
is back to Jessica talking mama's. It takes all of
us to be a wee. For those of you that
are tired mamas who spent countless hours up at our
kids school, this see her, thank you for those of
your mama's working to support your families and doing what
you can at school. Thank you as we see the
(26:02):
finish line to get another year. Let our biggest gift
be to celebrate one another. So anyway, I just loved
this post so much. Shout out to my friend Jessica
for being an encouragement to all of us moms out
there are the ones that are the working moms and
the ones that are the stay at home moms that
can also do a lot of the heavy lifting at
school with our kids and the volunteering and all the things,
(26:25):
and we all play a part, and it's it's all
important that we encourage each other and like Jessica said,
celebrate each other. Okay said in the intro that I've
got kim coming on, which you know is awesome Kimmy Anderson,
(26:47):
because I feel like my husband sort of arranged this.
He's like my podcast booking agent. So fun fact is
that Kim's husband and my husband flew together in Afghanistan.
So they met over there and he was like, you
live in Nashville. He's like, you live in Nashville. Like
what a small world. They had to go halfway around
the world to find out that they lived. You know,
(27:09):
thirty minutes apart, and I think we both just moved
here pretty instantly, right, Nashville's still yeah, it's very new.
So that was that was a fun thing, right when
we moved here. For my husband or like he was deployed.
To get a call, he's like, you're never going to
guess I just met somebody that lives in Nashville. And
then the guy that sings my theme song for the
podcast is Walker Hayes, who your husband is also friends with.
(27:31):
My husband gets around, he's got a lot of a
lot of a lot of friends. And do you ever
say his nickname on the publicly? Absolutely? So. His nickname
is Gravy And I have no idea why, honestly, is
it because he's so like I mean, he's like the
fact that he's a pilot and he can like fit
in a cockpit is funny to me. Or a flight
dick or whatever you wanna call it, because he's massive. Yeah,
(27:52):
and you know, he exceeded the objection seat limit. Um
when he was flying. I probably shouldn't say that I'm
gonna get somebody trouble, but um, but yeah, so if
he ejected, I don't know that he would have made
it out of the plane. But yes, that's how massive
he is. So I know it's a long story. So
he's been Gravy forever. But it came from the Naval
Academy when he graduated. Um, there is a book called
(28:15):
Reef Points, and um, there's a minimum g p A
to graduate, and he just went over that minimum g
p A, which he shares publicly. I'm not trying to
shame him. Um, he played football at the academy and
he just had football grades. Um. And so that Gravy
was just that little bit that he worked too hard for.
He didn't need it to actually graduate. So that's his nickname.
(28:38):
That's so funny. I don't think I ever knew that
that's where that came from. It. I love it. And
you know, my husband's an academy guy too, but Air
Force a little bit of rival. And he was on
the football team his freshman year but was not he
wasn't um. He was just a walk on. Like he
wasn't like not drafted credit draft. The draft is on
(29:01):
my brain because the NFL draft just ended. But he
was it wasn't like recruited recruited to go play there.
So it wasn't pretty, but I mean, yeah, he probably
would have had gravy grades too, because it was so
much balancing being a cadet and trying to play football
and keep your grades up and sleep and sleep. Like
he he ended up being like, you know what my
dream would be to play football selfishly because how amazing
(29:22):
that I even got the chance to walk on. But
it's killing me, like I will not make it out
of here, I won't graduate. And that was his and
he wanted to be able almost so super cool. So
y'all got to hear him, and I just like, you know,
share some stuff here with y'all. But um, that's that's
what it's all about. And I love that our husbands
brought us together for this because Kim's going to come
(29:43):
on and do a series of podcasts like the next
I would say, the next four or five four Things episodes.
You're going to be one of the things because you
have a couple of different areas we want to touch on.
And if y'all, you know throughout if you'll have question
ens while she's on, I think I'll just go and
throw this out there since you know she's on now
(30:04):
and she's going to be coming back, or maybe I
could reach out to her and maybe in a Q
and a answer something. But if you hear this and
you've got a question, send it to me and that
way I can try to find it out from from Kim.
But today we're going to talk about the power of
saying no and boundaries, because I feel like sometimes we
end up being a bunch of yes people and we
(30:25):
don't know how to not be that person. Um, we
don't know how to give ourselves permission to just say no.
And I know that you say, there's a lot of
freedom and being able to say no. Which my friend
just saw burn a Brown speak last weekend at a
mother's conference, and she put on Instagram that she had
(30:45):
a busy Saturday, she was supposed to go out that night,
and she was hugging her son goodbye and got on
the floor with him and he like really did not
want to let go. And whatever she was going to
she was really excited about it. It It was like, you know,
it had been on the calendar, like she was leaving.
But then she ended up just being like, you know, what,
is this a moment where I just say no to
(31:06):
that and lay here with my son And so she
said she did. And you know, there's the fomo fear
of missing out. And then I don't know if you've
seen joemos, but as I have a lot of friends
that experienced joemo, I do not, but a lot of
my phone I experienced it like crazy. So it's the
joy of missing out. And I commented on her Instagram
and I was like, Joemo, because yeah, you missed out
(31:30):
on whatever you were doing, but because you said no,
you had that quality time with your son. And well,
every time we're saying yes to something, we're saying no
to something else, right, and so that really becomes what
we've got to do. Um, you know, in in our
lives daily is just says is this the most important thing? Yeah? Okay,
So talk to us a little bit about the power
(31:52):
of no, like if you were giving a little mini
pep talk to people on the power of saying no.
That's what this is. That that's what we're doing right now.
Absolutely well. I had to get here because I call
myself for recovering people. Please are okay? So for years
I said yes to everything. Um, you know, Dave would
be deployed, I would say yes to this, I would
say yes to that um. And at the end of
(32:14):
the day, I would feel exhausted, I'd feel resentful. Um,
I would feel like it was about to cry. Um.
And it took Actually, you know, I'm a therapist, but
before that, I did coaching. Um. I do both now,
but I did my coach training first, and there was
a series where we got coached ourselves and there was
a boundaries unit. And it took that boundaries unit for
(32:37):
me to look and really assess my life and where
I had weak boundaries. And it was just like this
huge light bulb moment for me. Um. Just the cost,
the cost of letting everybody else run the show for
me or put their expectations on me. So UM, that's
part of really what moved me into the work that
I do with women, is because I have so many
people coming to me just um, carrying that weight and
(33:01):
carrying that resentment and not really feeling free. Right. Um.
And so when we look at boundaries, I love to
use a castle metaphor, so we all as adults have
our own castle. Imagine that, um, And we've got this
moat around the castle with ferocious alligators to protect us
and keep us safe. And we've got a sign on
(33:22):
the other side of our castle that has the rules right.
So in my in my castle, it would be we
go to bed really early because leaps so important to me. Um,
And there's a lot of things that I would have
on that sign. Um. But we have to know how
to lower the drawbridge and raise the drawbridge so that
we can let the good in and keep the bad
(33:43):
out right. So I'm speaking really kind of stereotypically in
good and bad here, But um, but what works for us,
what doesn't work for us, what builds us up, what
doesn't build us up but tears us down? And some
people grow up in homes where they learn that you
just have to keep the drawbridge shut, no matter what
(34:03):
the world is bad, keep it shut. And then other
people grew up in homes where they learn to keep
the drawbridge down, and so anybody can come in and
invade their castle any time of the night. Metaphorically, they
don't have control over protecting themselves. And so as adults,
what we want to be able to do is make
sure that we are able to raise and lower the
(34:26):
drawbridge accordingly. But most importantly, we've got to be able
to put our rules and have it clear on the
sign on the other side of the moat, and that's
where we go so wrong? Is well, yeah, because it
seems like I don't know, I couldn't imagine. I mean,
I don't know. I guess I know this is a metaphor.
But when you say have the rules are is it
(34:47):
rules that are clear to yourself? Not necessarily rules that
are clear. I couldn't imagine myself like proclaiming my rules
to other people, but these are the rules to yourself.
What what is going to work in this castle? Right?
Completely metaphor really right? And so, um, what we do
so often as we expect people to know our boundaries
without really setting them right, and so the rules become
(35:09):
the boundaries. Sometimes, Um, they need to be super clear
if we've got people that have been violating them for
a long time. Um. Sometimes we attract people who respect
them and they don't have to be as harsh or
as clear, but regardless, it's our responsibility to communicate them. Okay,
that makes sense. Yeah, Like we've got to be able
to put them out there. Um. And and so often
(35:32):
we're so afraid of disappointing other people that we don't
create clear boundaries in the first place. And The biggest
lesson for me was learning it's okay to disappoint people right,
and that was a big struggle. So because I mean,
now I'm thinking because I gave my friend as an example,
because it seems like something so trivial, like saying no
to whatever she had that Saturday night, for saying no
(35:53):
to that, but in a way, you know, you know,
all along, maybe she would have been saying yes to it,
which she said no to being home for the night.
Either way is it? And then ultimately her son showed
her like, please don't go, and that tugged at her.
But maybe if she hadn't, she still would have been
saying yes to the event and no to being home.
(36:15):
And I keep thinking of like our home life, and
how sometimes have you found is it easier for people
to say yes to like strangers and things that really
don't matter, and say no to the family just because
it's comfortable. You know they're going to love you no
matter what, so you can say no, no, no, no no,
And then there's anny moments where it catches up. And
I'm not saying that's what my friend does, but it
(36:36):
just made me think of her example, and then how
I often do that. Even with my husband, I would
have a much easier time telling him no, and my
family know, so that I can go please somebody that
I barely know, because it's like I want them to
think to not be disapointed disappointed it right, Yeah, And
so we hold everybody's expectations up, you know, so to
(36:59):
speak on these matters. But then we dropped the platters
of the ones that really matter to us, right, the
people that really matter to us. And it's easy to do.
And so we've got to think about the difference between
loving and pleasing. Right, So, if somebody puts demands on us, Um,
it's not our responsibility to please them, it's our responsibility
(37:19):
to love them. And sometimes loving people, um might be
disappointing them if it doesn't work for us. Right, And
it gets tricky at times. Yeah, Um, what was it
like whenever you decided to become not yes so hard?
I actually had to put us I mean this was
(37:39):
years ago when I had a big monitor on my
desk and I put a sticky note up on top
of my computer screen that said it's okay to disappoint people.
Do you know every time I read it, I would
still cringe a little bit because it took a long
time for me to give myself that freedom and that permission.
But the minute that I did, I mean, it was
just so freeing to not feel like I was in
(38:03):
bondage at what everybody else was expecting of me. Yeah. Right,
But if we grew up in a home where there's
shame or guilt for no, you know a lot of
times we grew up in places where if we say no,
we're met with shame or guilt. Um, It's it's pretty difficult, right, Yeah.
It's also a lot of times too, Yeah, where you
came from or what you've the environment you've created for
so long, that's just becomes habit and you don't even
(38:25):
realize it. So there's some truths that you have that
I want to go over. And the first one is
interesting to me. Um, no is a sentence? It is,
so can you explain that? I mean, I think I
can gather what it means. I've never heard no as
a sentence, But sometimes we feel like is it because
you feel like you have to say no? And here's why,
here's why no, here's why, and I'll do this instead. Um,
(38:46):
which sometimes is fine. Sometimes that is the no, I
can't do this, but I can do this right. But
typically no is oh, I'm a bad person for saying no, right, right,
and and um, but we we should. But just know
that no, no, ene, It's okay. You can only make
so many cupcakes for the school, right, you can only
(39:07):
volunteer so many times. Volunteering is wonderful, it's serving. Serving
is important that there are times when it doesn't work out,
and that's okay. Another truth you have is other's disappointments
are their own, um or oh sorry, others disappointments are
their's to own, And it's okay for people to be disappointed,
so that's their responsibility. My feelings are my responsibility, not
(39:30):
somebody else's. Right, and my disappointments my responsibility too. And
it's okay for me to be disappointed. Right we talked
about Um, it's okay for others to be disappointed. But
often times we don't want to feel disappointed, and we
can have adult temper tantrums, you know, if we don't
get our way, And it's my responsibility again to accept no,
just as as important as is to give knows. Another
(39:53):
truth here is you are the only one who can
protect your boundaries. No one else will do it for you.
So you're the one the controls to the drawbridge and
putting the rules up. And guess what do you think
happens when we have a castle and we leave the
drawbridge down. We attract all kinds of people that are
boundary violators. Right. They love to come into that castle
(40:14):
because they can just go right in. And so the
minute that somebody learns to close the drawbridge when it's appropriate,
not always, but when it's appropriate. Um, what do you
think is going to happen to those people who've had
the had free access to your castle this whole time? Yeah,
they're not gonna like it, right, So boundaries always get worse,
or that the issue gets worse before it gets better
(40:36):
once we've established the boundary because they're not gonna like it. Yeah.
And this last truth we sort of touched on. Um,
there is a difference between loving and pleasing, absolutely, yeah,
and so we're called to love, right, and so that
is important. But again, if it's not what the other
person wants, it's okay. Yeah, as long as you're being kind. Yeah, okay,
(40:58):
Well I love it. I mean I think that's Oh,
I love that you said, as long as you're being
kind because you don't have to. Maybe I'm maybe I'm
just picturing if people feel like they have to say no,
then suddenly they put up some like guard or defense
of like okay, just no, I can't do it, I
don't want to deal with it whatever, and it comes
off as rude. But really, just make sure you know
(41:20):
you're making a healthy decision for yourself and you don't
need to have that guard or that defense up or
that like frustrated nous with the no. Just own the
know except the no, find freedom in the know, and
then it'll genuinely come off as yes as a no
that is also kind. Yeah, I mean it can sound
like this, thank you so much for that opportunity. I'm
(41:42):
not able to do it right now, but I will
definitely keep it in mind for the future. Yeah that's new.
Yeah awesome. Okay, Well, so this is this was a
quick talk on you know, learning to say no. I
hopefully I hope that it resonated with some of you listening.
I know I'm not. I've never been a people pleaser really,
so I mean there's some things my sister is, so
(42:05):
she may be listening to this and like find out.
But yeah, I mean, obviously I don't want to let
people down, but I don't think I've had a problem
with saying no, it don't. But I wonder sometimes if
I've been like an invader of other people that and
that's what I'm now I'm evaluating that in my head.
I'm like, have I ever been like taken an advantage
of somebody's drawbridge that was down, you know, and making
(42:28):
sure I think if you're if you're listening and you're
like me, like looking at all sides of it, like
maybe you need to be. There are definitely times where
I've been a yes person of people who's there. I
think we all have that, but it's I wasn't like
a chronic yes, yes, yes, like like if if I
couldn't bake the cupcakes or whatever, I have no issue
being like I cannot bake a cupcakes, I'm so sorry,
like good luck, and there is such freedom and that, yeah,
(42:50):
there is. Like you're saying that responsibility lies on those sides. Rights,
it lies on both sides. But evaluate yourself too and
make sure that you're not if you sent someone in
your life it is a yes person in um, you know,
and I'm kind of thinking of people in my life
that I know are like, WHOA, I need to step back?
Have I ever taken advantage of that? Or have I
ever come in when maybe they probably needed some space?
(43:11):
Because and and it's nobody. I think it's just being
aware of your relationships and your surroundings. I don't know
that it's it's nobody's fault and all of this. It's
just being more aware of yourself and others. And so
since I'm self aware that I know I'm not chronic
people pleaser, I need to also be aware have I
(43:31):
taken advantage of chronic people pleasers in my life? Because
I'm sure that I have. Well, I mean, it happens
all the time. And you know on both sides again
that it's you know, it's also their responsibility to say
to step up and say it doesn't work right, okay,
just knowing it right, like I said, being aware Okay.
And then I think my favorite takeaway from this, so
I'll recap it is no as a sentence. Yeah, even
(43:52):
though I don't have a problem saying no, I give
a note with like five reasons why, because I don't.
I want it to be clear, like I'm yeah, and
then that almost seems like not authentic right right? What
you sound like we're make up here, but but but
but just leave it up, you know, I'm like simple
and no can be the sentence. So, Kim, since this
(44:14):
is your first time on UM, something I'm doing with
guests that come on is giving them It's the Four
Things podcast and we have these four Things totes that
support Haiti and we went over this before we started.
So I got Kim's four things. Well, she actually was
going to give me a different set of four things,
but then she saw my tote, so I was like,
(44:34):
I like that. Yes, I'm carrying out with mom goals tote.
So um, Kim, you can read them so and why
you think that they are good for you? Yeah? Love hard,
have grace, laughed often, and get sleep and those are
all I love hard. I just I live hard, love hard,
grace is everything. We've got to give it to ourselves
(44:55):
into others. Life's born without laughter. We can't take ourselves
too serious. Slan, we do, and anybody that does life
with me knows I'm neurotic about sleep. Yeah, no, that's amazing.
I love that you were I mean originally you're like, okay,
I think I'll say something like you know, faith, family fund,
something to that, and then I showed you this mom
GOLs when you're like okay, yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah,
(45:17):
I love it. Awesome. So well, thank you for coming
on and we will um definitely have you back to
talk about other areas in our life that we could
be working on. But I appreciate the boundaries talk because
I feel like a lot of people, I hope a
lot of yes people are listening right now and they're like, Okay,
it's okay, I need to put the bridge up just
for a little bit. So for this last thing, I
(45:46):
want to talk about iniagram numbers and songs. So I've
had Hunter, my Intagram expert, on a couple of episodes,
and he's going to come back and talk more and
more about the intiagram. And I know a lot of
you are into it. Some of you are like, what
the heck is it? But I mean it's just a
way to learn more about your personality and a number
defines some of your characteristics and your traits and why
(46:08):
you are the way that you are, and it helps
you with relationships and working with people. So anyway, Hannah. Hannah,
if you're listening, thank you so much for this email.
I think it's super cool. She was listening and decided
to send me this email because she wanted me to
share it with all of y'all that there's this group
that now has songs out about about each number. The
only problem is depending on when you're listening to this.
(46:30):
When I'm recording it right now, there's there's one through
nine numbers on the angiogram, but they've only recorded eight songs,
so the nine number nine song isn't out yet. So
if you're nine, it's like, well, well, you don't get
to hear your song yet, but hopefully soon. So here
is what Hannah wrote. Hey, Amy, I'm somewhat new to
the anagram world, but so many people around me are
really loving it. I'm still trying to discover what number
(46:51):
I am. In the process of figuring it out, my
mom showed me this playlist from the group Sleeping at Last.
It's a playlist of eight single song releases. They haven't
released nine yet. They wrote a song for each insiogram number,
and it is so cool. Usually when people hear their song,
they get very emotional about it. I thought this might
be something that you would be interested in and might
(47:12):
want to share with others. All you gotta do is
go to Sleeping at Last dot com. All the songs
are called Atlas one, Atlas two, at Last three, et cetera.
So it's super cool. So I went and this is
like one of the songs that I pulled, So this
is kind of what they sound like. But I could
imagine if you want to listen to it, you just
(47:34):
turn on a song, maybe go to the number you
think is yours, and if you don't know your number,
maybe listen to them all. But take time to be quiet,
turn on the song, close your eyes, lay there and
then really taken what is being said and see if
you resonate with it and if you connect to it
(47:56):
is like or you get emotional like Hannah was saying.
She said, you really when people hear their song, they
get very emotional about it. So I have to admit
I thought I would have time to listen to my
song before I came on to record this with you guys.
But I'm still not convinced of my number. Instagram hunter.
He says, I'm a three, but I don't really know
(48:19):
for sure for sure if I'm at three, we're still
working through that, but this this song is actually three.
That's the one that I pulled because I am going
to listen to it and I'll update you' all if
I really feel that connection. And I'm gonna even ask
Hunter about these songs too, to see if he's listened
to them, to see, you know, if he's heard if
people have really connected in that way. But it could
(48:39):
be cool, It could be cool for you, so definitely
check it out against Sleeping at Last dot com is
where you can find the songs. And then you know,
Hunter is going to be back on to discuss some
more Instagram things because I think you are really liking
that stuff. We're going to talk about like how to
use the Instagram in relationships, how each number moves toward
another number in times of stress us and in times
(49:01):
of security. And then also we'll get into like what
you do once you know your indiogram number. Maybe you're
just now finding it out and you're like, now what.
So I'll have him on a couple of different episodes
to break down some of that stuff. So Hannah shout out,
thank you for um this little note to me and
everybody else that might be into the indiogram, so now
we can like check out our song. Alright, cool, Thanks, Okay,
(49:27):
that's a wrap on today's episode. Hope you guys really
enjoyed it. If you'll ever have thoughts or questions after
you hear an episode, make sure you send everything to
four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com, and
then we'll be back on Tuesday with another Q and
a episode with some of your thoughts and questions and
maybe you just have something you want to share. I
(49:48):
also do email shout outs at the end of every
four Things episode on Thursday, So that's what I'm gonna
get into right now. And the email is from Tracy. Hey, Amy,
I've been a listener of the Bobby Bones Show for
several years out and recently started listening to your podcast,
which I thoroughly enjoy as a native of Fayetteville, North
Carolina and a teacher at the high School and Southern Pines.
(50:09):
Shout out, Hey, Honey, my husband's in here as I'm
reading this, Honey, Southern Pines. That's where we lived. Shout
out when my husband was stationed at Fort Bragg. We
lived in Southern Pines for five years and it's like
the cutest, quaintest little town and she teaches at high school.
That's great. Yeah, back to the email. I feel like
I have grown to learn more about you and love
(50:30):
being able to connect with you on a personal level.
Our school has started a kindness movement at lunch and
students have used sidewalk chalk to write sweet notes around
the school. Since your motto is Choose Joy, I thought
you would love to see what our students are doing.
I can't wait to listen every week, and I hope
I can be an ambassador of joy in my classroom
(50:50):
every day. Thank you for your mission and sharing your
joy with us, Tracy. And then she attached a picture
of like the sidewalk art and like the choose Joy
boy written all over the place, and it was just
so cool, And I thought that that was a neat thing,
because if I've got any teachers listening, maybe this is
something you can implement in your classroom or if your
school allows sidewalk chalk, I mean in our neighborhood, honey,
(51:11):
we sometimes people write on like the graffiti on the sidewalk,
like nice notes. I like that because then when you're
walking like your kids or your dog or whatever and
you look down. You're like, I'm beautiful, I'm smart. Choose joy,
be kind, laugh a lot. Do you know the fourth
thing of my song? Be kind Choose joy, laugh a lot?
(51:34):
Oh you do listen? Okay, you've asked the test um.
Well that's also I have that on a toe and
a pull over and your computer and my computer. Oh
you just cheated. It's literally I have a Joy Secret
decal on my computer. I think we're sold out of
those though. I know that's what I was trying to
(51:55):
get you to pull it from. But then I realized
we have it like all over in our lives because
of all the SPA stuff. So okay, thank you Tracy
for the email. Thank you everyone for listening, and we
hope you have a great day. Don't we began? Be kind?
Never laugh cass up broad than little food for yourself life, ain't.
(52:26):
Oh it's pretty bad. Hey, it's pretty beautiful. Thanks beautiful
laugh a little mouth tightening up. Cose said he can't cut.
You're kicking with four with Amy Brown
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