Processing Grief. Self-Care. Text & Email Anxiety. Healing from the Heart.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
A little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty, but
it's pretty beautiful thing that for a little moth kicking
with four Alright, so I am honored to have my

(00:35):
friend Ali Fallon joined me for this thing, and we're
going to be talking grief. You've heard Ali on my
podcast before she came over, and we recorded a whole
episode on writing. Ali is big into writing, well, because
she is a writer. You've written three books of your own,
but you've written and published fourteen. I don't know something

(00:57):
books for other people, So obviously al is a big
fan of writing, but it really is for the everyday
person as well. You're not saying, like, set out to
write a book you think writing is therapy. It's totally therapy.
And you know there are a lot of people out there.
I work with people who have a dream to publish
a book, and I can help them outline the book

(01:18):
and get the book out into the world. But you
and I have talked a bunch about this, that there
is such a benefit to the writing practice even if
you don't ever plan to publish anything. And most of
us know this intuitively, like people who have journaled regularly before,
or just really like the feeling of recording their thoughts
and being able to see the experiences of their life
on paper. Or if you're not a journalier but you've

(01:39):
had with one of those experiences where something makes you
really angry and you sit down to your computer and
type out an email that might be a strongly worded
email to someone, and then maybe when you're done with
the email, you think I'm not going to send this,
and you delete it and just go to bed instead.
But that feeling of Catharsis that you get from just
putting the words on the page and saying thing exactly

(02:00):
the way that you wanted to say them is an
example of how healing writing can be. Yes and Ali
and I were just at a wedding together last weekend
and we were talking about grief because many of you
may know I recently lost my dad and a lot
of people are in a season of grief, especially in
this time, and I get emails from listeners being like,

(02:22):
I just lost my first loved one ever, or I'm
going through this, or I'm going through that. You can
be grieving lots of things. It doesn't have to be
the death of somebody. But it came up because of
my Dad and Ali and I were talking at the
table about maybe doing a thing on some writing prompts
that would be therapeutic for grief, and so I was like, yes, Okay,

(02:43):
we'll get together this coming week and we'll record it.
So here we are, and that's how it came about.
And and I'm excited to hear what Ali has for
us because she planned out some prompts and go ahead
and talk to people about why grief doesn't have to
look like even your typical type of grief. Yeah, I
think us is such an important time to be talking
about grief because, first of all, so many of us

(03:04):
lost so many things in you know, when the pandemic hit.
We lost jobs, we lost loved ones, we lost time
with friends, We lost like simple things like vacations or
trips that we were planning on and excited about. And
it might seem like that's a long time ago, and
sometimes we have this tendency to be like that was
in the past. I've already moved on. But the fact
of the matter is, because was as intense as it

(03:26):
was for so many of us, a lot of us
never really got to deal with those things that we lost.
We never had a chance to process the grief. And
what happens when we don't process grief is it gets
lodged in our bodies and shows up in kind of
sideways ways, like it will come out in a fit
of anger or a crying spell that makes no sense
to you, or maybe some low grade depression or anxiety

(03:48):
or something like that. When we try to cover up
feelings that we have, it comes out in weird ways. Okay,
can I just confess something to you real quick, just
so that other people don't feel alone, because I I
felt like a crazy person earlier today. Well, I actually
about thirty minutes ago before I was getting on with you,
I had a work call and luckily it was with
my friend Jackie that I work with. It I heart,

(04:08):
I mean, I still work with her, but thankfully she's
a friend, and I had the melt down with her.
But I'm on the phone with her and it was
about this work thing, and it was overwhelming me because
I feel like I only have so much of myself
right now, because I do have so much going on
that it's daunting to me to have a full day
because I am like a pendulum and I'm good and

(04:29):
then I'm not good, and then I'm good, so like
I feel like I can put on a game face
long enough for the Bobby Bones Show. I've got something tomorrow.
It'll be my first like really long day from early
in the morning till evening, and I'm so nervous about
it because it means I have to hold it together
for a very long time and be camera ready and
stay on. And she was trying to help me out

(04:51):
and work it out to her, maybe we made it
like a half day thing, but there's a whole production
team involved, and they're like, no, we need the same
host the whole time. And unfortunately it's something I already
committed to. But then I started to get cold feet
and I wanted to back out at least of half
of it, and Jackie was calling to deliver me the
news of like that we can't do that, and I
just broke down on the phone with her. Had that

(05:12):
been any other person for my company, I probably would
have maybe hopefully been able to hold it together. But
I felt safe with Jackie. But me crying over that
is extremely unprofessional. But it just also is me telling
y'all the fragile place that I'm in, and I know
a lot of you might be in a similar place where,
you know, the simplest thing that normally, if you were

(05:34):
in a different stage in your life, maybe you would
have been excited about hosting something all day or getting
the opportunity to work. I mean, I guess now I'm
speaking of myself, like this is something I would have
normally been excited about, like, oh cool, they asked me
to host this, that's awesome, And now I'm terrified and
and I just had a break down. But I'm going
to pull it together in a mo rally and Jackie's

(05:54):
going to be by my side the whole time. But
but that was just an example of yeah, like it's
it's it's because because I've I still in dealing with
stuff and maybe I need to write or get it
out because I'm stuffing it down and then it's just
coming out. Yeah. I mean, writing is an incredible Catharsis
for that kind of stuff. But I also just want
to acknowledge and say that we have this weird idea

(06:15):
around grief and our culture that grief is a weakness
that if we show grief that we're not strong, not professional,
you know, not whatever enough, not fill in the blank, enough,
And I just want to remind people that grief. I
think it's Glenn and Doyle who calls grief like your
receipt for having loved. So it is proof to you
that you lost something that was important to you, that

(06:37):
mattered to you, that you loved. So I think I
want to demystify this idea that grief is like you know,
if I if I was like really in a bad place,
then I would process my grief. Or you know, if
I melt down in front of friend or coworker or whatever,
that that means I'm weak because I'm grieving. When the
fact of the matter is that grief is human, it's universal.
Nobody gets through this life without grief. We will all

(07:00):
over the course of our lives, lose various types of things.
And even if you're not grieving something massive like a
financial loss or the loss of a loved one, or
loss of a job, or something I posted on Instagram
the other day that even when you lose something that
you wanted to be gone, like even when we're transitioning
away from the pandemic, for example, and all of us
are getting the world is opening up and we're getting

(07:20):
to go back to kind of like life as normal.
Even a period of time like that can come with
some grief because what we're losing is the comfort of predictability.
We're losing the life that we became accustomed to, and
now we're having to adjust again. So I do think
it's a really important time to be talking about grief
and demystifying this idea that, you know, just just changing

(07:41):
our mindset so that we don't feel like grief is
a sign of weakness. Grief is actually a sign of
great strength. I was even just something came to my
mind too, because there might be listeners going through a
divorce or something where they know that that's what needs
to happen, and they have clarity in that and it's
so obvious and it's it's what needs to happen. But
there can still be grief for that life you want had,

(08:04):
even if the divorce is something that you want. Yes,
I felt that I actually thought about this as we
were as I was prepping for the show today that
I'm divorced, I'm newly married, well, I'm remarried now, we've
been married almost two years. But when I was going
through my divorce, it was a relationship that desperately needed,
and it was an incredibly toxic relationship. But even still,
there was so much grief because there was grief in

(08:26):
the loss of my idea of what marriage would be like.
There was grief in the loss of all the effort
that I had put in to try to get this
relationship to work. There was grief in just accepting the
word divorced. You know, I was like, Wow, I just
never thought that I would be a person who's divorced,
and now I'm divorced. So you're really right to touch
on that that sometimes even when we're letting go of
something that we know we need to let go of,

(08:48):
that there can be a lot of grief. So walk
us through some of the prompts that you have for us.
Now that we've probably expanded the view of grief, because
some people may initially think, oh, I nobody in my
life has died recently, But grief can be in so
many different categories. So I think that you're writing prompts
can apply to to everybody, no matter what's going on
in their life. Okay, So I'm gonna walk you all

(09:10):
through a four part writing prompt to process grief. So
the first part is just to name the grief. And
the little prompt that I gave to how people name
the grief is just I'm letting go of fill in
the blank. So it can be helpful just to give
words to whatever it is that you're letting go of.
You know, I'm letting go of the life that was

(09:30):
comfortable to me. I'm letting go of my marriage. I'm
letting go of that job that I loved. I'm letting
go of the idea that my life was going to
be this certain way. I'm letting go of the control
over getting pregnant right now, whatever it is. So just
naming the grief, putting words to it. Sometimes even just
that simple step can be really cathartic, because sometimes when

(09:51):
we have grief going on, kind of it's like background
noise in our brains or in our bodies that we
haven't fully named. It can feel almost like a fogginess
that you can't explain or you don't really understand, and
you feel like your brain is not working that well.
But you're like, why, why isn't my brain working very well?
Sometimes just naming the grief can help make so much
clarity of it. It It doesn't take up quite so much

(10:12):
mental space. So that's prompt number one. Step one. Step
two is going to be a little bit more challenging
for some people. Some people really like this part and
some people feel a little resistant to it. But step
two is just to tune into what your body is
telling you. And the reason for this is what best
salvan Or Cook talks about. I think you said you're
reading his book for the first time, did I did?
I keep the score? But he keeps the score. It's

(10:35):
the best book that I've read in years and years
and years and such important research. But essentially what he's
talking about in that book is that our body holds
on to truths that our brains sometimes can't admit. And
this is why a lot of us will see physical
manifestation sub symptoms in our bodies when we haven't processed
agree for a trauma that we've experienced. The good news
about that is our bodies can be incredible diagnostic tools.

(10:58):
We can get quiet and tune into the and hear
the messages that they're trying to share with us. So
we can get quiet and tune in with our body
and say, like, where am I feeling the grief? And
my body maybe you're feeling it in your gut. This
is usually the number one place where I feel any
kind of big emotion. I'll you know, manifest symptoms in
my digestive system, and so a lot of times I'll

(11:18):
feel stuff in my gut. But you might feel like
a heaviness in your chest. You might feel like kind
of that foggy feeling I was talking about in your head.
You might feel like a heaviness in your shoulders, you
might feel pain in your neck. But when we tune
in and listen to our bodies, we can get a
lot of information about what's going on with us, even
if our brains don't always align perfectly or sync up
with what our body is telling us. So you can

(11:39):
just write, you know, my fill in the blank, my heart,
my chest, my head, et cetera wants me to know.
In fact, as I was prepping for this, I was
thinking about years and years and years ago, I had
crazy food allergies. There were very few foods that I
could eat without experiencing pain. And I had a therapist
who recommended to me that I write a letter to
myself from my stomach because I have these, like you know,

(12:00):
intense symptoms in my stomach, and at the time, I
thought this was such a weird thing to do. I
was like, from my stomach and song sounds so strange.
But I sat down and wrote a letter to myself
from my stomach and got a lot of really good
information about what was going on in my body. You know,
what I saw were parallels between what I was feeling
emotionally and and the physical symptoms that I was experiencing.

(12:21):
And even just seeing that alignment was so freeing because
I was like, oh, I'm not crazy. You know. I
had been to the doctor and they had given me
all these tests and said, no, you don't have crowns,
No you're not gluten intolerant. But I'm like, every time
I eat gluten, I feel really sick. And so to
see as I wrote out, you know what, the message
that my stomach was sending me, to see the alignment

(12:41):
between what I'm experiencing physically and what I'm experiencing emotionally
and was really really healing for me. This makes me
think of one time I was taking Sarah Norris's yoga class,
and maybe I'm this is coming to mind because Ali
and I used to go to yoga together a lot
before we were parents. We had a lot more free
time on our hands. And this was years ago, very

(13:05):
pre pandemic. But because yeah, we haven't even neither one
of us have gone to a yoga studio since coronavirus,
although hopefully maybe we can hit up a class soon.
But Sarah had me do our the whole class do
the frog pose. And it was the year my mom
died and I couldn't get into it, like my hips

(13:27):
would not let me. And I remember trying in class
and then as we're all just laying there in frog
pose or whatever my move was because I wasn't my
hips weren't letting me do it appropriately, I just started bawling, crying.
It felt good, like it was very freeing. But it
was cool to see. Maybe a year or two go

(13:49):
by after that, maybe even three, and I was with
Sarah and I plopped right down into frog pose and
I did it. But because I was I was in
a ferent space. I wasn't holding all that tension in
my hips from my grief, and so that was something
my hips were telling me. And didn't she tell you?

(14:09):
She told you that your hips are like the junk
drawer for emotional whatever whatever we're experiencing emotionally, that a
lot of it goes to our hips, which I find
to be so true too. Okay, so that's step too.
So Step one is just to name the grief. Step
two is to tune into your body and listen to
what your body is telling you. Yeah, right now, I
feel like my neck needs to write me a letter. Yeah,

(14:30):
because that's where my hips are fine this time around.
Although maybe I don't know because I haven't tried frog POWs,
but definitely my neck is where I'm holding onto a lot.
So I'll be writing myself a letter from my neck soon.
Let me know how that goes. I have to hear
about it. Step three is just to honor the feeling.
And this is a little bit of what I was
talking about before that we don't often give ourselves permission

(14:52):
to feel grief, but if we think about the fact
that grief is the receipt for having loved, then there's
actually great honor in allowing ourselves to feel the grief.
So the little prompt I have for this is I
give myself permission to whatever it is. And you know,
it might be something really really simple, like I give
myself permission to take a nap or actually, you know

(15:12):
what's interesting, and I've learned this from a lot of therapy,
but sleep is incredibly healing, not just for our bodies
but for our brains. It's the number one way that
your brain is going to be able to process through
trauma and loss. So when you're in a period of grief,
sleep is extra extra important. And sometimes again I don't
know if other people have this, but like I have
this weird voice in my head that's like, um, like

(15:33):
if I want to take a nap, it's like that
thinks it's weak to take a nap. I don't know
exactly what the voice in my head says, but I'm
like naps or for babies, you know, take a nap,
like you can sleep at night. I don't know, but
sleep can be really really healing for us. Yeah. No,
I the body keeps the score. Maybe I've been reading
so many different things lately, so maybe it wasn't in that.
It could have been in something else, but it too
talked about how when you're in your deep sleep and

(15:57):
you're kind of have your eyes going, your eyes are
going back and forth and back and forth and back
and forth, which is what is like if you ever
do any sort of E. M, d R or brain spotting,
that's what you're mimicking, that of what's happening in your
rim cycle when you're heat totally while you're sleeping. I'm
paraphrasing as by the way, like I'm paraphrasing right now

(16:18):
from a book. I think. I think it was that
I just have been reading too many different things lately,
but I'm pretty sure it was Body Keeps the Score.
It's also good to remember that when you're processing big,
heavy emotional stuff, you're just more exhausted than you are
at other times. And so I think we just need
to have tons of compassion for ourselves and give ourselves
lots of space. And gosh, now I'm thinking of all

(16:39):
my yoga classes and I can't remember which Burnee Brown
book it was, And now I'm wondering if you were
in the class when one of our teachers one time,
when we would lay at the end in savasana, she
would get out a book and read to us, and
she read Burnet Brown. Again, not sure which book, and
I'm totally paraphrasing, but it was basically in a nuts shell,

(17:00):
giving you that permission to not be hustling all the time,
because somehow we've equated success with go go, go, go go,
And really it's like, yeah, giving yourself that permission and
knowing it's okay and you're going to actually show up
better if you pull back. I think this is the
greatest lie that we've believed in our culture. And I

(17:22):
do think it's extra pervasive toward women. But I really
feel like the greatest lie that we've believed is that
hustle equal success. It's just not true. It doesn't play
out in actual reality. And I think we we would
all have more to offer the world if we were
more compassionate with ourselves. So hopefully that's what this prompt
will do for people. And maybe that I give myself
permission to is not sleep for you. Maybe it's like,

(17:43):
you know, to go eat my favorite meal, or to
eat my scream, or to make a phone call to
a friend or to my sister or someone who's comforting
for me. Or I give myself permission to cry, or
I give myself permission to be really mad, whatever it
is for you. You know, honoring the feeling is about
giving space for the feeling to exist, to have room
to move and breathe inside of you. Yeah. I like

(18:05):
that one giving yourself permission to to be mad or
maybe feel some negative emotions that have otherwise been told
your you've been told aren't appropriate, or maybe you should,
you know, choose joy. You know, we have the whole
Pimp and Joy movement, But there were definitely days, even
though that started with my mom and her overall motto
during her cancer battle was joy, and she tried to

(18:28):
spread joy to others and choose it for herself, but
she was very clear that there were hard days and
we tried to process all of those emotions. And so
I think sometimes we can get stuck on oh shoot,
I'm supposed to be choosing joy for myself and adversity
and look at what this person is going through. I
shouldn't be feeling this way. But really it's a disservice

(18:51):
to stuff down the other stuff and and cover it
up with with a fake joy, which my mom would all.
She always wanted me to clarify that the joy of
the Lord was her strength. So she's like, that is
where my joy is coming from. And I want to
be clear, um, but yes, sometimes she goes and sometimes
I really have to pray for it because it's hard,
especially when you're battling something like she was like it

(19:12):
was not an easy journey. So I always like to
clarify that whenever it comes up, because I feel as
though we kind of pop off a quick message about
pimp and joy, like choose joy, spread joy, be joy, whoop.
But really it's also asterix side note, give yourself permission
to lean into the hard times so that true joy

(19:32):
can show up on the other side. That's such an
important reminder and it's a great transition into this last
part of the prompt. But I want to say that,
you know, I I don't think true joy can exist
until you've experienced deep pain. You know, I've been through
some things in my life. I know you have to.
And I can smell it from a mile away when
someone has that sort of toxic positivity that's just sort

(19:54):
of like surface level, and you can tell that they
haven't really felt their own pain or lived through anything difficult,
are really processed and healed on their own and the
joy comes out of that. I can tell when it's
just kind of like you're talking about, it's just like
a fake surface level joy. And I have compassion for that,
but also at the same time, I think the deepest
joy that we can experience in life comes from born

(20:16):
out of those moments of pain. It's it's actually like
it sounds like a contradiction, but it is a deep
truth of life that joy and pain can live in
coexistence with one another, and it's almost like they can't
live without one another. One always amplifies the other. So
that's why this last prompt I think is important. The
last prompt is to write a love letter. To fill
in the blank whatever you want to write a love

(20:37):
letter too. And the reason that I included this prompt
in the four steps is because grief and love are
intimately connected. We grieve when we lose something that we loved.
And so maybe you're writing a love letter to a
past version of yourself and you're so thankful to her
for all that she did and all that she fought
through to get you here. Or maybe you're writing a
love letter to your dad and telling him everything that

(20:59):
he meant to you and how much you miss him,
and telling him things that you wish you could say
to him in person or in real life. Or maybe
you're writing a love letter to a loved one that
you lost, a child, or a or a spouse, or
I don't know, maybe you're writing a love letter to
you know, a job that you lost, or whatever it
is for you, just reminding yourself. This last part of

(21:19):
the prompt is about reminding yourself that the reason you're
feeling this grief is because of love. I love that.
Can you just quickly just because people were probably listening,
and in case they want to grab a pin real
quick and just listen to this one part, they can
at least jot down step one, two, three, four, just
like run through it without doing all the other things,
because they could, you know, go back and get that.

(21:40):
But if they just want step one through four quickly, okay.
So step one is to name the grief I'm letting
go of dot dot dot. Step two is still listen
to your body, so my head, my chest, my heart,
my belly wants me to know. Step three is to
honor the feeling. I give myself permission to fill in
the blank. And step four is a love letter to

(22:02):
whoever you want to write a love letter to. Thank
you Ali that these are great prompts for sure, and
having you on now makes me think of when I
had you on back then, and I think that. I mean,
you're just one of my favorite guests. So I'm going
to be thinking of more ways to bring you on
And where can people find you on Instagram and your
podcast and your website and all the things. So you

(22:24):
can find me on Instagram at Ali Fallon, a l
L y and then Valon just like Jimmy Valen, and
my website is find your Voice dot com. The podcast
is called Find your Voice with Alison Fallon. Also I
have a new book out it's called the Power of
Writing It Down. So if you try these prompts and
you really love them, you can go find that anywhere
that you buy books. Yes, okay, well thank you Ali.
It was so fun seeing at the wedding and I'm

(22:46):
glad it led to you coming on here today, and
we'll be in touch. We'll have to get together. We
gotta do a yoga class, yes, and then yes, just
maybe get together and brainstorm more ideas and work on
your next book. Know a least thinking I'm going to
write a book, But I told her send Amy messages
if you think she should write a book, and I'm

(23:07):
gonna refly no, I no, I can't. At least right now,
I do not see that happening. Um, I will do
your writing prompts as a therapeutic thing only at this time.
We'll see. I hope you enjoy it, all right, thanks aally, Okay,

(23:27):
this thing is a little homework assignment. I want to
encourage each of you, and then I'll be doing this
myself as well, to make a list of things that
you can do to take care of yourself. We'll call
it a self care list, and I want you to
reflect on the list, and ultimately I want you to
act on the list. There's an account on Instagram called
Let's Talk mental Health. That's the handle at Let's Talk

(23:50):
mental Health, and I saw they put up a graphic
that showed things that we typically consider self care, which
they called the inner circle, and then they had other
things that also can be a part of one's self
care routine, but it's not stuff you typically maybe would
line up with self care. And they called that the
external circle. And then the caption that they put up
with the graphic ask people how many forms of the

(24:12):
external circle they honestly, we're taking care of. So I'll
ask you to ask yourself the same thing. When I
read these off. Now, I'm gonna start with the inner circle,
which again is more obvious sleep therapy, exercise, yoga, sunlight, cleaning, meditation, nutrition,
and then the external circle, which again I want you

(24:34):
to focus on this one. Making time for hobbies, reading, learning, journaling, developing, friendships,
taking a walk, financial management, spirituality, goals, boundaries, and social
media habits. Now I am working on some of these
external ones. If I ask myself that question that they asked,

(24:57):
which how many forms of the external circle you honestly
taken care of? And I can honestly say I'm making
time for hobbies. I got my birds and my puzzles.
I am reading a lot. I probably need to find
some reading that's a little bit lighter. I am trying
to learn. I'm journaling and my four things, gratitude journal,
working on friendships. I haven't been taking as many walks

(25:18):
as I want at all, but I do think that
walks are really good for me, so I need to
be more intentional about scheduling those. Now. Financial management, y'all
will be so proud of me. I mean, maybe you
won't because you don't know how uninvolved in finances I
actually am. But my husband pretty much took those over
when we got married, like years and years ago, and
I just checked out and financial stuff just overwhelms me.

(25:39):
I don't know anything about anything, but I now am
getting involved and I'm starting to know things and it's
empowering and I'm feeling stronger. And yes, I feel like
financial management has been a form of self care for me.
So I can check that one off to another thing
I've really been working on as boundaries, like setting boundaries
for myself, big or small. It's not easy, but it

(26:02):
is a form of self care and it's pretty cool
when you see yourself following through with a boundary and
then friends that respect you for that, because if they
know about boundaries and they're working on them, then they
recognize when you're setting a boundary for yourself, even if
it means like you're canceling plans with them or something
like I did that the other day and the friend
wrote me back, was like, Hey, I see that boundary
you just set for yourself. Way to go. I'm proud

(26:24):
of you. She wasn't like, oh bummer, thanks for canceling
our plans. No, she saw the boundary and she respected
it because you know what, she's probably gonna have to
do that back at me one day, and I'm going
to see it and respect it. So there are ways
to set those healthy boundaries. Again, that was a small
one with that friend that example, but you know there
could be bigger boundaries, which is not lost on me

(26:44):
how hard it might be for some of you to
set some of those. But maybe start with small ones
and then social media habits. I'm really trying to work
on that. There are days where I'm all over Instagram
and Twitter and even TikTok a little bit here and there,
and I'm trying to keep up and do all that.
But there are other days where I'm intentionally just putting
my phone down for hours or maybe even the whole day,
and I'm just not on there. And that's me being

(27:07):
intentional about that for sure. So maybe you make your list.
Check out that external circle that I went over. I'll
read them again one more time, making time for hobbies, reading, learning, journaling, developing, friendships,
taking a walk, financial management, spirituality, goals, boundaries, and social
media habits. And maybe your self care looks different than
this list, But get out that pen and paper and

(27:28):
take some time in the next few days to write
out your self care list, maybe draw a cute little
graphic or maybe just type up the list, but actually, no,
for the sake of this assignment, if you can take
time to write it all out, I want to encourage
you to do that, and then remember to follow through
on some of the self care. Don't just make the list,
actually try to check things off of it every day.

(27:49):
If you can maybe one or two of the things
every day, or if that seems overwhelming, then try to
do some a few times a week and see where
you get when it comes to you taking care of yourself.
And I'm gonna be checking back in with you. If
you all want to send me your list, you can
email them to me four Things with Amy Brown at
gmail dot com. I would love to see those and

(28:11):
maybe even share some of your lists so that others
can get ideas on how they can better be prioritizing
and taking care of themselves. We're a community here, we
like to help each other out, so I'd love to
hear from you on this homework assignment that I am
now giving you and myself I'm gonna be doing it too,
so again, yeah, email me four Things with Amy Brown
at gmail dot com and go okay. So do you

(28:44):
ever deal with text or email anxiety? Just it all
starts to become too much, because that happens to me.
So I got my girl Lisa on with me for
this thing, because Lisa, I want you to share your
process when it comes to managing text and emails, and
hopefully our little chat about this can maybe help make
correspondence a little less overwhelming for some of you listening,

(29:07):
because I'm someone that just gets overwhelmed because I don't
have a system in place, and then I just end
up ignoring a lot of things and not purposefully, sometimes
even on accident. But Lisa walk us through what you do.
So after my last Instagram break, which was the beginning
of this year, I think it was like six weeks off,
I started to really assess how available I am and

(29:32):
how I have a pressure to reply to my quote
unquote availability meaning when somebody text messages or emails me,
I felt an urgency to reply. Now, let's keep in mind,
you know, my my job is important, as is most people's,
but it's not brain surgery or life changing stuff. I

(29:56):
know it's not brain surgery, but it is life changing stuff.
You are helping people. You've helped shape my life and
changed parts of me. So I just wanted to correct
you on that. Thank you and in order for me
to shift lives and perspectives or help to guide people home.
As I like to say, that's never going to be
done if I reply in an urgent matter, because I

(30:20):
kind of feel like I treated text messages and emails
like a hot potato came in, I got to get
it off my plate. Come in, got to get it
off my plate. And I think that that is the
culture of corporate America. We expect responses immediately. A lot
of our bosses put a lot of demands on us.
So I also want to say, I recognize most people

(30:41):
won't have the luxury to do what I do, so
I'm going to share what I do, but also maybe
give some tips on what you can possibly do that
could work, that could fit into your lifestyle. Well, let
me interject real quick to say too, that you could
apply this. Yes, depending on your type of work and
what you do, you may not to be be able
to do at least as saying, on a professional level,

(31:02):
but you might be able to implement it on a
personal level when it comes to your emails or your
text messages, and let's just start with texts, because I
feel like that's kind of a big one. We expect
people to text us back immediately. I've had people text
me if I don't get back within a day, They're
like hello, hello, you know, and I'm just not going
to give that response to everybody, because I'm also setting

(31:22):
a new norm of how available I am and expectations
and all of that, even if it's you know, a
friend kind of a thing. And it has really helped
me get organized with when am I available for a conversation,
When am I in the best place to help somebody
to do whatever. But a lot of us are kind

(31:45):
of just like this open bleeding scab that are constantly
being reopened by people accessing us at all times and
our knee jerk reaction to reply with urgency. So over
those six weeks, I started to really think about how
I approached my day, which you know, I work from home,

(32:07):
I work for myself, and essentially I was on email
at every second throughout the day as I was working
on a bunch of different things, and how inefficient that
was for me and how ineffective it was making me
at a communicator. So I sat down and realized that
I could be a lot more effective. I believe if
I chose three days to focus on emails, that means

(32:29):
if you email me on a Tuesday or Thursday or
over the weekend, you're likely not going to get a
reply until Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And my email lets you
know that, as well as direct to into the direction
that you might need to go if you are reaching
out to me, such as my courses, you know, podcast
related stuff, etcetera. And I will also admit that I'm

(32:51):
actually not that great at keeping up with this. I
do check my email still every single day. But what
I've been most astounded by is the reaction like here
hearing from you Amy that like wow. Like I did
not expect anybody to be like wow, I want to
do this or I love that you do this. I
actually expected more of a kickback of that's pretty unprofessional,

(33:13):
or that's lazy, that you don't work is hard, which
isn't the truth. By the way I'm working more efficiently
has nothing to do with how hard I'm working. But
I expected people to kind of be pissy about it.
And while I'm sure it does piss people off when
they don't hear from me, or just when they get
an annoying auto reply. I've had an overwhelming amount of people,

(33:33):
male and female, be like love this, which really shows
that we need a change in communication styles. Now. You've
got to also think about how we used to communicate
versus how we communicate now. From text messages to letters,
to fax machines to everything, we are communicating so rapidly

(33:54):
with each other, and that's not always a good thing.
There's beauty in time. Time. We get so used to
getting what we want instantly. I mean, even you want
to hear a song, Now you stream it. We used
to have to wait for it to come on the
radio and record it with our cassette tape so then
we could listen to it whenever we wanted or I mean,
that's just like a small example of how so much

(34:17):
has changed. But when you get that instant gratification from
music and TV and every so you expect it in
every facet you know to where then now it's like
if you're not getting something instantly back, you're suddenly disappointed.
But no, when it comes to what you're doing with
your email and text, I think it's just you setting
boundaries for yourself, and like you said, it helps set

(34:39):
you up for more success, and that's all that matters.
Like you know what's going to allow you to be
more efficient and allow you to work. You're still working hard,
but you've got nothing to prove to anybody. You're just
working smarter. Yeah, and I will also say that even
more effective than the email boundary. Let's be honest, most
of us are in front of our computer for more
than eight hours a day, most of us, a lot

(35:00):
of us. I should say one thing that maybe even
more effective than that was taking email off of my
cell phone so I no longer have the Gmail app
on my phone. Yeah, I mean, okay, keep in mind,
I work from home. I'm in front of my computer
a lot of the day. But when I go to
the bathroom for a break and I grabbed my phone,

(35:20):
do I need to be checking my email to what
not miss? One second? You know that that was kind
of where I was at before I went to bed.
I put my phone on the charger, let me check
my email. Nothing for me personally is coming through at
ten thirty at night. You know, when I'd wake up
at three thirty in the morning, check my email why
and all of that is really interruptive to my creativity,

(35:43):
to my peacefulness, to all of that. And we are
addicted to filling our brains with information with interactions and
were terrified of stillness, of blank space, of not being needed.
I think it comes down to our relevancy. And we
define elevancy by our text messages, by our emails, by

(36:03):
people communicating with us. But when we pull all that
back and we get a little bit of silence, it's like, wait,
I'm okay here, and there starts to bloom new thoughts
that are not fueled by just being a reaction to
someone else talking to you. And in a world of
social media where we could open TikTok, Instagram, I mean
a million other platforms at this point, it's very easy

(36:25):
to just keep filling your brain with information. But the
most important thing you can do is create your own thoughts.
And that only happens when you put a pause on
the incoming amount of information coming in. I believe, well,
I love that, and I appreciate you sharing your email
and text method with us because I think a lot
of people are going to appreciate and appreciate that permission

(36:47):
of like Oh, this is a thing. She's doing it,
maybe I can do it. And again, I do recognize
that everybody has different careers and it's more feasible than others. However,
I think there is a boundary that can be placed
for each person and listening, whether that's an eight to
five I'm on email and then not checking after five,

(37:07):
or maybe it looks drastically different for you, or you
take three hours where you don't look at your email
throughout the day, whatever it is, or maybe it's just
practicing it with personal relationships, which is I don't need
to urgently reply to this text message, um, whether that's
with a family member or a friend, and recognizing that
even though it gives you anxiety to see the number

(37:28):
pop up on your phone, I know a lot of
people have anxiety over the number you have, like millions,
right Amy, Oh yeah, I don't get anxiety about the
little red dots. And I'm just gonna share mine with
you just to show you my know. So my email
three thousand, one ninety four, but my text messages are
currently at three hundred. But I don't even know how

(37:50):
that happens. And the problem is I honestly miss replying
to some people, and it is not intentional at all,
but it just gets down below to where I guess
I haven't I don't scroll down to see it, or
maybe if I open it, and then I no longer
have the blue dot to remind me because I couldn't
reply in the moment, and then I don't go back,
and then I just hope people aren't creating any liar

(38:11):
story in their head, as I often do. If someone
doesn't get back to me, I'm like, Oh, they're mad
at me? What did I do wrong? Why are they
not replying? I need to not do that because likely
it's what's what happens to me often, and I so
I don't want anybody to have that lie of like
oh Isa mad at me she hasn't replied, or oh
Amy's rude, she didn't think of me, And I'm like, no,

(38:31):
I've just got to get a better handle on it. Clearly, Well,
I'm constantly refining my practice and thinking about am I
being effective with my energy? And that's what it's about,
really recognizing that people's accessibility to you is impacting the
energy you have to give, and wherever you can throw

(38:53):
up some sort of a boundary to recognize that that
email coming in is not a hotcake. Like I said,
whether that's five minutes to cool off without racing back
into writing the emails is space that you've created and
a little bit more power back into a world where
we can just easily go full speed, never check in
with ourselves, and just kind of lose ourselves along the way. Well,

(39:17):
thank you for coming on to share this with us, Lisa.
I hope that yeah, people will check out your podcasts,
The Truth, Fust Life, and our podcast every Saturday, Outweigh,
which is something we started doing over a year ago. Well,
Outweigh officially started last April here on the Four Things podcast.
It's all started. We want to do a four part

(39:38):
series on disordered eating the gray area of eating disorders,
and now it's evolved into its own podcast. And I
feel lucky to have Lisa as my co host on
that she is is the expertna Are I mean, I
feel so lucky to have you as a co host
as well. But our guests that we've brought on, It's
not just me and you. We've brought on the most

(39:58):
incredible guests that I learned from. Even though you know
I'm I'm a quote unquote expert. I'm still learning every day,
and I love that I learned from our guests and
you know who else I learned from Amy our listeners
every time I hear from them at least, So why
don't you go ahead and share a episode of the
truth Fious Life that you think people should check out.
So last week I had on an old friend. Her
name is Serena Dyer, and she's the daughter of the

(40:20):
late Wayne Dyer, who was a very successful spiritual leader
and self help guru essentially, and Serina recently came out
with a book called The Knowing and it's basically her
father's principles distilled into how she's had to return to
her own inner knowing after getting lost along the way

(40:41):
and finding her own what she calls her lighthouse. So
all of us have this lighthouse, this inner knowing of
what we need and how to get there, but without
a doubt, we all fall away from it at some point,
and it's tools to reconnect to that deep knowing. And
what I really love most about this episode, even though
her book is fantastic, is that in the middle of

(41:01):
launching a book, Serena has come out on my podcast
where she hadn't talked about this before, to talk about
being three weeks sober, so she has just started a
huge journey for herself and to come out publicly and
say I have recently been struggling and I'm just getting

(41:22):
back on my feet and I'm launching a book and
that doesn't even make me less of an author or
an expert. I think was just so powerful and strong
to give us permission to show those soft spots of
who we truly are in the moments when we have
the spotlight, Like there just aren't a lot of people
that would be as authentic. And you'll hear in her

(41:44):
interview Amy if you haven't listened yet, there's a way
that she speaks that's just so authentic and not trying
to gain anything that I just walked away so inspired
myself to be more myself, to show those broken parts,
to not think that because I'm a registered dietitian or
because I have a platform, that I need to be perfect.

(42:05):
And there's nothing more beautiful than a person saying I'm struggling,
I've recently struggled and that's okay too, especially during a pandemic. Yeah,
I love that. So that was last Friday's episode from
May fourteen. Y awesome. Okay, that's over at the Truth
fus Life, and you can search that up wherever you
listen to podcasts and follow along with it so that

(42:26):
the episodes will just show up every Friday for you,
and then you can do the same thing for Outweigh
if you follow along with that. It's no longer subscribe.
You have to click follow, and then you can also
rate and review both of those. We would appreciate it.
So all right, thanks Lisa, I will I guess if
people want to hear us again, we'll be together this
Saturday on out Way. But I see you there all

(42:57):
right for this thing. It is super cool because I
have my sister in law on Dana Grendel, and Dana
is joining us today because Data just wrote a book
and it's called A Healing from the Heart. And I
am just so excited because I know this is something
that's been on your heart, Danta for a long time,
and you're not an author. You've never written a book before.

(43:19):
I mean, I guess now you're an author, but you
weren't a writer for for many years of your life,
and this is something that you decided to do so
what inspired you to write Dealing from the Heart. Sure, yeah,
thank you, Amy Um. I agree with you. First of all,
I never dreamed of writing a book. I never thought,
you know, I've met people and they're like, oh, I
always wish I would write this book, and always saw

(43:40):
myself as an author. I'm a science major. That was
not there ever in my brain, and so I have
a whole respect for people who write books. It is
a lot of work and processing and lots of feedback
and so um, it's a great journey to be on
and I've had some amazing people come alongside me in
that journey. I have been the last few years working

(44:02):
as a minister, working one on one with clients, just
helping people process pain, helping people process emotions. You know,
we all have hurts, we all have places where things
have happened where maybe we feel stuck or you know
that wound that just doesn't seem to go away. And
so in helping people process there's some truths. There's some
basic things that I would always share with people, things

(44:23):
that I had learned from a season in my own
life when I went through a lot of pain, and
I really had a season where I just was stuck
in a chair for a time. I had some really
bad back pain. It came from nowhere, and it was
just a journey of healing. And so in that season,
I learned some principles. I learned, UM, just some really

(44:45):
key things along the way that as I realized as
I worked with people, as I talked with them, as
I listened to their journey and their pain and how
they were responding, those truths were true for them, and
as I would share it, they would find it healing.
They were finding it how but it was helping them
walk out their own healing journeys. And so I just
started one day really feeling impressed that I was supposed

(45:07):
to write my story. And it's that story, as I said,
of the season of pain, the season in the chair,
and you know, how you do you talk to yourself
and you're like, who would read that? Why would I
even say I'm not a writer. I went through all
of that inner conversation, but I just kept feeling impressed
that I was supposed to write it. And I even
had kind of a picture in my mind of that

(45:29):
time of how crooked my spine was UM when I
first had that pain, and I very first went to
the chiropractor and they did that skin and they're like
it was crooked in every direction. My shoulders were off,
my hips were off. I was twisted like like I
was a mess. I was a real mess. So that
was the picture that really came back in my mind
at that time when I needed help getting all that

(45:52):
straightened out. I needed help getting everything back in place.
And all those places where I was out of a
line and all those places where it was twisted where
offing pain. So that was what came into my mind.
And as I started finally getting to the point of
giving in and to that voice that's saying you need
to write, I'm like, okay, I'm going to write the story.
And so that's where I thought, Okay, this would be

(46:12):
a tool to to help some guided questions, you know,
just kind of help them process from there, Here's what's
coming up, Here's what my pain looks like, Here's here's
what my wound was, or here's what what happened in
the past. How have I responded to it, what have
I been doing? You know, how do I think and feel?
How do I see others? Because of that, and so
I wrote it really from that perspective really with the

(46:34):
client in mind, and I think that for you actually
was literally back pain, but then it turned into an
analogy for what other people's pain may look like. So
you and I have both gone to a NUCA doctor,
so I'll use that as an example where they work.
NUCA is like National Upper cervical something or another, but

(46:57):
they work with the first three vertebrae in the top
of the neck. They do bounce around to other parts,
but they predominantly like to work at the top of
the neck, and then even if I had lower back pain,
they would adjust me up there. And the theory was
that or actually, I mean I saw it actually happened.
It was more than a theory, but that you would
have a domino effect all the way down and everything

(47:19):
would kind of fall into place. And so you know,
if you get to the root of whatever the pain is,
which again one of the things you speak of, for
you was the back pain, but for somebody else it
could be a number of things that have caused them
trauma and hurt, and once they get to the roots,
similar to adjusting those first three vertebrae, then it can

(47:41):
have a domino effect and lead to real healing, absolutely yes,
And that journey with that chiropractor. You know, I came
in because I was in this intense pain. I was
really in this painful place. And then as he began
unpacking it, he was able to identify that the injury
didn't start there. It did have a starting place. I
had a horse injury way back in college, and that

(48:03):
was really the beginning place where I had hurt those muscles,
but I had really knocked it out of alignment at
the time, and so then life from there was just
adding on to an injury that was already there. That
analogy of helping people connect with those deeper things and
what they were still responding to from pain from from
that painful place. Healing happens in layers. It's not an instant,

(48:25):
you know. We know our skin heels that way, um
and it's the same with us on the inside, you know,
in our hearts, our souls, we heal in layers. There's
the top things that are happening that hurts, but there's
deeper things. So to get to the deeper things, you know,
we have to really create a space and and an
opportunity to press in and go deeper. Otherwise we don't
ever get to those deeper things, those roots that you're

(48:46):
talking about. So what is something that you prompt people
in the book in order to get a little bit
deeper or get to the next layer, Because I feel
like a lot of us tend to live at the
surface and we're on autopilot, just trying to survive. Yes. Absolutely,
Where I really learned that, interestingly enough, was on the
massage table. I kind of share my story and you know,

(49:09):
kind of walking through what happened and how I felt
and how I responded. And then there's a part of
at the end of each chapter where it transitions to
like a journaling opportunity if you want to do that
and use it that way. It says, you know, hey,
get out your journal now, you know, get in a
quiet spot and and think about these questions. Answer these
questions for you, how do you respond to pain? Do

(49:31):
you hold on you know? What triggers you? You know,
and just some guided questions to just kind of help
you process your own story and your own pain and
write those out. And then if you if you want,
if you feel lead, then there's also a prayer to
help you kind of transition those thoughts into a way
to just release it and give it over to God.
So it's a it's a body soul spirit approach, looking

(49:55):
at all three parts of us to process what's happening
in the physical, then connect what's going on inside of me,
you know, emotionally, mentally, and then spiritually how is that
affecting me? And just being aware of all three parts
and being able to find release, you know, let it out,
a voice for it, and that's where the release comes
from it and that release is a freedom from the pain.

(50:15):
So I know when you were dreaming up this idea,
you kind of thought this might be for my clients,
but now it's grown to more than that, and it
can be for anybody. But what if someone listening like
they have not ever been to any type of therapy
or anything like, is this something that might be a
good step for them to start that therapeutic process and work.

(50:39):
I mean, I know, with your ministry and what you
do and when you're counseling and working through things with people,
they're already there with you. So their foot is already
in the door. But some people are wanting to get
their foot in the door without actually going to talk
to anybody yet, do you think that this might be
a good stepping stone for people. I do UM and
that really was my heart too, is just helping people

(51:01):
wherever they are. You know, we've all been through hurt
since certainly in the last year year and a half,
there's been lots of loss, lots of hurt, lots of shame,
lots of things happening, you know, things outside of our control,
and and just way life has been purple, we've responded differently.
People have had different circumstances in that, and so we

(51:22):
we all have some residual from the last year, you know,
just with COVID and all that's happened. It's something you
could do with a friend or a couple of friends,
you know that that you trust each other to share
your stuff with. And I share really at the beginning
of the book and the introduction, you know how you
can use it. If you're going to use it in
a group setting, you could also use it kind of
as a detox. Right. We do body cleanses, you know,

(51:44):
we do that with food or juicing. You could you
could do this for yourself as a soul detox, just
kind of a processing through and just kind of check
up on yourself, how you know on my thoughts, on
my emotions, you know on how I'm responding, And it's
it's a great checkup tool in a way to just
kind of process through there for yourself, and so to

(52:06):
anybody that also might be thinking that they too might
want to do a book one day. I'm just I
want you to give people some of your background and
just a little bit more, I mean even your your
personal life. That again just to acknowledge too. If if
you feel maybe that the Lord is telling you something,
or you feel like something is being impressed upon you

(52:26):
over and over, but you ignore it, but then you
kind of keep coming back to it. You're like, maybe
I should listen to this, just that it can come true.
It takes time and hard work and certain resources, of course,
but just any encouragement that you have for people. Maybe
it's not a book, maybe it's something else and they're
feeling that tug, But do you have any wisdom for
people maybe that need that extra push to just go

(52:49):
for it? Absolutely go for it. Voice. Don't listen to
the voice that says you can't. You're not a fill
in the blank, like we all have that right. I'm
not a certified this, or I don't have that degree,
or I don't feel like, don't listen to that voice
that tells you you can't, that you're not worthy, that
you're not good enough, that you're not educated enough. We
all have that voice that shows up and tries to

(53:11):
shut our voice down, right, And so do you feel
impressed and you you feel that your story needs to
be told, then you need to tell it and you
need and there's so many venues and ways to do that.
There's communities online now really some faith you know, writer
and communities you know. For me, I I went around
um that a client recommended a book specialist. Her name

(53:34):
is Kathy Piak, and she's a she's a book specialist,
a book strategist, and so that's what she does for
a living. And she'll sit and just talk through with
you and like hear your heart and what you're about
and what you're wanting to accomplish, and then she gives
this professional voice and she has a community where you
get to be a part of it. So so I
guess in the advice, what I would say is get

(53:56):
get with someone that that knows that has written you
to start thinking about it or asking around. You'll find
that there's people around you that have written a book
or know someone that has. Get with them, get the information,
you know, find the route that's going to be best
for you, and then surround yourself with community, Surround yourself
with positive people. Definitely put people around you that are safe,

(54:18):
that love you, that are going to speak positive into you,
but that are also going to help push you and
be like, you know what, this can be more than
what you think you can. And that's really what happened
for me, so that that was a really neat part
of the whole process. Well, in Ali Fallon, she was
my guest for the first thing on today's episode, and
that's what she does as well. She helps people write

(54:39):
books and she's done that herself. So okay, Data, I
want you to tell the tree story though, because I
know you had a few different cover versions available and
we all voted on them and I voted for the tree,
and the tree one is the one you selected, so
obviously I was super excited because I thought the Tree
was the best one. But I know there's a cool

(54:59):
story regarding the tree and the cover, so I want
you to share that with us real quick. Yeah, thank you,
so the publisher that I went with did a book
cover contest which was really amazing and fun and really stretchy.
But it did come down to these two covers, and
so I shared it with family and Amy and I
had this conversation about the tree, but I I really
loved the other one too, and I kept going back

(55:20):
and forth. Um, the other one was kind of very
deep and reflective and just like you know, I I
loved it, but I really came down to the two
and so I printed out the two covers and they
told me just wrap it around a book, you know,
and just hold on to it for the weekend, and
then they're like, you have to make a decision on Monday.
So I have these printed out, and we had recently

(55:41):
is when we had recently just moved to London, and
so I didn't have any friends where we were, but
there's some guys in the building and so I just
came back, you know, with these print outs that I had,
and I just said, hey, I need your opinion, and
so I asked one of the guys. I just laid
it out on the table and I pointed to the
one that I thought was real even reflective, and he

(56:01):
didn't like that one. He's like, no, I don't, I
don't like that one. And so then I pointed to
the other one. When I pointed to the tree one,
his whole demeanor changed. He like kind of touched his heart,
and I said, what does this cover say to you?
And he said peace? He he p had his heart.
He goes peace. When I look at this one, it's peace.
And so then I was like, okay, done. It was
already the one aim you liked. And and then when

(56:23):
you said that it was like making peace for his art,
I'm like, I'm in you. Then you took all these
votes from people that you trust in your life, and
then it was a random guy that you barely knew
at the building in London where you just moved. So
but I mean, that was that was what you needed.
That was the affirmation that you needed, was watching his
demeanor change the side of that cover, which that's what

(56:46):
I felt more peaceful looking at the tree, and I
was picturing it on my nightstand and that it was
a more peaceful look by my bed. So I'm all
about it. I'm thankful that that he gave you the
affirmation to go with a tree. And so that's what
you've got to look for on Amazon, because that's where
the book is. The beautiful tree is the cover, and

(57:06):
it's called Healing from the Heart, and I'm gonna link
it to my Amazon page, which you all can find
at Radio Amy dot com. You'll scroll down and you
see Amy's Amazon Favorites or something like that. Click on
that and then you can go to books and Inspiration
I think is the category, and it'll be the first book,
so it'll be right there in the front. Or if

(57:27):
you just have Amazon, you just want to type in
Healing from the Heart Dana Grendel, then you'll see the
tree and hopefully you'll feel peace when you see it,
and then it'll help you work through some stuff, you know,
if you're going through some pain, which you know, you know,
Dana said earlier, we've all been through different things in life,
especially this last year, but there may even be some

(57:49):
some hurts and pains you're holding onto from years and
years ago, that maybe this is the time to start
digging a little deeper and starting that massage and starting
to get in to those tender spots that you know
need to be worked on so that you can get
to the root of the problem. So thanks Dana for
coming on against Super Super proud of you and we'll

(58:11):
be cheering you on from Nashville. Thank you, Pretata, Take
care everybody.

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