Many of us don’t realize that we are inadvertently giving power to negative words even when we are trying to be positive because our brains have a negative bias! Amy is personally working on removing innocent negative words from her vocabulary, so she is sharing positive swaps to consider!
Are you doing the best type of self-care for your personality? Amy talks with us about a self-care workshop she went to last weekend that used the enneagram to help people come up with the best self-care routine! Amy also shares 4 tips for a happy life and the key to succeeding in life!!
Link to the top 5 free enneagram tests: www.enneagramgift.com
POP-UP SHOP FOR HAITI. Details & RSVP HERE!
Link to ‘4 Things’ LIVE in Nashville at Franklin Theater HERE.
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
Send emails for the '5th Thing' to 4ThingsWithAmyBrown@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Okay, cass up road a little food for yourself life, ain't. Oh,
it's pretty much. It's pretty beautiful than La for a
little mouth said, he you're kicking four brown Happy Thursday,
(00:34):
Amy here, and we are doing an OG style four
things episode, so for different things. And last weekend I
went to a self care workshop and it was amazing,
and I'm super motivated to talk about why it's imperative
for us to have a self care routine. And I
know we talk about self care a lot here. I'm
sure you think you're probably taking care of yourself at times.
(00:57):
I know I sure thought I was, but you may
not be doing the best thing for your personality. And
then maybe you're someone that feels selfish when you do it.
And if that's you, you're not alone because I saw
that one in three people feel guilty for taking time
for themselves and I want to get that down to zero.
And I realized this weekend that I don't really have
(01:19):
a routine that fits my specific needs. And we're going
to get more into that during the second thing in
a minute, and then for the third and fourth thing,
I've got four tips for a happy life and the
key to succeeding in life, a simple way of living
that's going to make you more successful. And for the
first thing, I'm about to share with you something that
(01:40):
popped up for me on Instagram. First. Now, this is
not an Instagram account that I follow. It's just a
suggested reel that showed up for me to watch. And
sometimes I don't really pay attention to those I just
you know, swipe, swipe or whatever. But this one caught
my attention. It's from an account called young and Alive,
(02:01):
and I watch the whole thing and I loved it.
So I'm going to play it for you. Now. The
human brain cannot comprehend the negative. It is incapable. I'll
give you an example. You're ready, don't think of an elephant.
You can't tell the human brain not to do something.
Skiers notice if you go through trees on skis, you go,
(02:23):
don't hit a tree. Don't hit a tree. Don't hit
a tree. Guess what you're watching. You're only looking at
trees as opposed to follow the snow. Follow the path,
Follow the path. The only thing you see is the path.
It's the same thing for you. If you focus on
the obstacle, it's all you will see as obstacles. If
you focus on the path through the trees, all you
will see is path through the trees. It's your choice
(02:46):
how you choose to perceive your own career. It's literally perspective.
Now when he mentions the part about the trees and
not wanting to hit a tree, but then that might
make you actually hit a tree. That's called target fixation,
and that's an attentional phenomenon that occurs when someone becomes
so fixated on a distraction that they're trying to avoid
(03:07):
that they inadvertently increase their risk of collision with it,
which is crazy to think about. And I feel as
though sometimes when I'm on the highway, if I'm next
to a big truck, I keep worrying about the big
truck and thinking that the big truck is going to
hit me. And now I know target fixation. I need
to not think that way, because then I'm increasing the
chances of something happening between me and that truck. Now,
(03:30):
someone in the comments of the post so that they
learn from Oprah twenty five years ago to remove negative
words from their dialogue, leaving room for only positive ones. So,
for example, instead of saying to someone please don't hesitate
to contact me. It's better to say please contact me,
taking out the negative word of don't. I personally don't
(03:53):
realize how often I make negative words a part of
something when they're not necessary at all. Whatever, and maybe
you're the same way. So I thought we could go
over different ways to give our vocabulary a positivity boost. Now,
these phrases I'm about to share are one hundred percent
meant to be positive when we're saying them, but our
(04:15):
brains have a negative bias and they subconsciously bring up
all of the reasons not to do something, problems or
complaints when processing these words. And I'm going to rattle
off examples again. We're innocently saying these things. We're trying
to say something positive, but we're actually you know, have
(04:36):
low vibes with it, And now we can replace it
with high vibe language. And the swaps are so easy.
We just have to pay attention. So it's going to
take work. Now. Instead of telling someone no problem when
they ask you to do something, you can replace it
with definitely. If someone asks you how you are, instead
of saying, well, can't complain, replace it with everything's going well,
(04:58):
thanks instead of saying, oh, I'm exhausted, which confession. I
said that the other day, probably fifteen times, and it
was probably making me more exhausted because I was saying it,
but instead of saying that, we can replace it with
I need to rest. Instead of saying constructive criticism, we
can replace that with feedback, which I'm guilty of asking
(05:21):
you for constructive criticism, I've said, hey, send an email
for things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com. Would
love to hear from you. What can we do better?
What can we do differently the lives that I have
coming up? The last one I did in Kansas, I
reached out to people that were there and asked them
for constructive criticism, And now I know I should have said, hey,
do you have any feedback for me? That would be great?
(05:43):
Instead of telling our kids don't throw the ball inside,
replace it with please take the ball outside, which, gosh,
I know when it comes to my kids, I'm so
tempted to say no all the time because it's just
so easy to just bust out no. However, I've been
working really really hard to rephrase it as a statement
(06:04):
for my kids that they can do something, rather than
they can't do it, and it's working on my son.
I see the difference. For example, since we just mentioned
throwing the ball inside, I'll stick with that, especially because well,
I literally had to say this to my son and
his friend. That was over last weekend. They were in
(06:25):
the living room and Steven's like, hey, can we throw
the football in here? And instead of saying no, I
practiced and I said, yes, you can throw the football.
Remember we only throw it outside. Worked like a charm.
His brain heard yes, I can throw the football. It
wasn't shutting him down. He wasn't hearing the negative. And
then I kindly reminded him in that same sentence that
(06:47):
we do that outside, and then he grabbed his friend,
they got the ball, and they went outside, no issues.
Another example is just the word don't. Instead of saying don't,
we can replace it with I like it when. So
this is good, especially you know when we're talking to
loved ones, maybe co workers, our kids, instead of like, oh,
(07:08):
don't do this, or hey, I really like it when,
and then you fill it in or if have you
ever thought about this one? Because I actually hadn't until recently.
Instead of saying I missed you so much, you can
say it's so great to see you. I never thought
of I missed you so much having you know, lower vibes,
(07:28):
but it's true. It's better for us to say, oh
my gosh, it's so great to see you. And these
are just small changes that we can make that will
help keep our brains in a more positive space. I
mentioned that one in three people feel guilty or selfish
(07:49):
doing self care, when in reality, the opposite is true.
It's not selfish at all, and I want people, especially women,
to stop feeling guilty now. Both you and the people
in your life benefit when you take time to care
for yourself. And a big takeaway from the self care
(08:10):
workshop that I went to last weekend was that self
care looks so different for every single one of us,
but how it serves us as the same. We can
all transform and heal when we learn how to cater
to our very own specific self care needs. But it's
up to you to figure out what's going to be
best for you, and there are ways to figure that out,
(08:32):
and one way is the inneogram. So if you're into that,
you may already know your number and you can use it.
If you don't know your number, there are tests online
there's lots of different ones. I saw a website inneogram
gift dot com, which I'll link it in the show notes.
They did a whole article and posted the top five
(08:52):
free inneogram tests. So maybe go take one of those,
or shoot, maybe even take all five and see if
you get the same number on all five of them.
Now I'm a three on the ineogram, so what works
for me may not be the best for you. But
I'll give you three as a quick example, and then
again once you know your number, there's tons of resources online,
(09:16):
so many blogs that talk about the best self care
for each ineogram number, so you can just google those keywords.
And for me being a three, self care looks like
shutting down from work and technology limiting it in general
is so so good for me. But a challenge might
(09:37):
be seeing if I can go a whole weekend without
any technology. That is a huge form of self care
for me as a three. Reading a book and actually
carrying a book around with me, so if I have
a few minutes here and there, I can sit and
relax instead of maybe grabbing my phone and getting on
social media. Doing something like laying in a hammock is
(10:00):
self care. For me, going for a drive listening to
music that I like and feeling my feelings through the
music and the drive, which speaking of feeling feelings, writing
and journaling my feelings is a big time self care
situation for me as a three. And then I love
that hiking is also good for threes because I do
(10:22):
feel rejuvenated after I hike. But some people that I
know a hike would be miserable, like they'd be like, no,
that is not a form of self care. I feel
worse after I go hiking. Another thing for a three.
But I also think that this is probably good for
everybody because I just hear all of the people that
I admire in life rave about meditation, which is something
(10:43):
that is very very new to me, but it's also
on my list for threes, and I get it. Meditation
can be intimidating, but there's really no reason for it
to be because you're just sitting there and you can
have certain thoughts but you just release them. My thing
was my brain is just so busy all the time,
I can't really meditate. But there I go saying the
word can't. I shouldn't do that. I should say I
(11:05):
can meditate, and I will work on it. So see
how easy it is for negative words to sneak in.
So you can meditate, You can do it. You can
sit there as the thoughts come in. You just release them,
acknowledge the thoughts, release them. Guided meditations are super helpful
and you can find tons of those online. Just search
(11:27):
them up and take a guided meditation. The music will
be soothing, the mantras, the words, the prayers being said,
they're there for you. And again, if you lose focus,
it's not a big deal. You just acknowledge it and
release it. Now. Sometimes we think of self care as
you know, massage and manicure or shopping, which I do
(11:50):
think that that can be a form of it. But
really the routine of self care that I'm talking about
again is tapping into what's really going to be best
for you, like day activities that you are deliberately taking
part in to approve your inner and outer well being.
And the workshop that I went to is all about mind, body, heart,
(12:12):
that connection of those three things and self care. It's
not just about the pampering and the grooming yourself again
can be a part of it, but it's a lifelong journey.
It's not something that we just you know, can do
once a month and we're good for the rest of
our lives. No, for me, I'm seeing it now as
a daily thing. And again, self care looks different from
(12:34):
one person to the next. You might feel energized after
a super intense workout with Way, it's like hit CrossFit
something like that. I would not. I want to go
on my hike and be with nature and do some
breathwork and maybe a yoga class. And I'm very very
thankful for the workshop that I was able to attend,
(12:57):
which speaking of yoga, we did it there and I
had not done yoga in a while, and I was
so sore the next day, but it felt so good.
So shout out to Katie Gustuffson, Ali Fallon, and Coola Callahan.
Katie is a licensed therapist that gave us a deep
dive on the inteagram and how it can help us
tap into our self care needs. And then Coola's the
(13:17):
yoga instructor and she led us through mindful movement and
how important mindful movement is. And then Ali is a
writer and an author that helped us understand how writing
is a powerful tool in creating positive change in our
lives and Ali's been on the podcast before, and she's
actually going to be at our Four Things Live in
(13:38):
Nashville at the end of the month on the twenty fifth,
and she's just one of four guests joining me on stage.
She's one of the wisest people that I know. All
of my guests are amazing, but watching Ali at this workshop,
I'm like, Oh, I could watch her and listen to
her and take notes from her all day long. So
even if she was the only guest, I'd be like,
y'all need to come to This seven pm show is
(14:01):
sold out, the three pm shows close to selling out,
and we'd love to have you if you can come.
I'll link the tickets in the show notes, or you
can click the link in my Instagram bio, the link
tree my handles Radio Amy and also in my link
tree you can get the details to our pop up
shop for Haiti. You do not want to miss that.
We're gonna have so many cute things for you to buy,
with all proceeds going to Haiti Free Cocktails. We're all
(14:23):
just hang in. This is the night before the live
on the twenty fourth at Restore in Brentwood. It's a
happy hour, it's like four to seven pm and I
cannot wait for that. And then I guess another thing
you should check out on my Instagram since this was
such a huge response when I posted about it, is
the snail stuff that I've been putting on my face.
I went ahead and made it a highlight button. People
(14:45):
went crazy for this stuff, So if you want details,
it's snail secretion growth factor and it's been making my
face glow like crazy, and I made a snail highlight
so you can find all the details there. Again that
at Radio Amy got a bunch of psychologists got together
(15:15):
and shared tips for a happy life. And it's almost
like they made this for the podcast because there's four
of them, four tips for a happy life, and some
of this is going to match up with you. The
self care we were talking about in the last thing.
I'll start with the first thing they mentioned, and it's
moving your body. And at that self care workshop, I
(15:37):
went to moving our bodies and being mindful at the
same time and being in tune with our bodies and
what's doing Like, there's so much healing that can come
from that, but you've got to pick the movement that's
going to be best for you. For some people, it
might be running and you get that runners high. I
used to be a runner. I do not enjoy running anymore.
(15:58):
And that's not me being negative by saying do not.
I am not going to run. I don't even know
how to say that in a positive way. It's just
not happening. I used to trick myself into liking it
because I guess it was burning a lot of calories.
But I'm not someone who enjoys running, so I don't
get that runners high. But maybe that is you. If
it is, make sure you're getting out and doing that running.
(16:20):
But which what's the workout? What's the movement that's best
for you? Is it the yoga, is it the hiking?
Whatever it is, moving our bodies reduces stress, reduces anxiety,
It can boost your mood, lowers the risk of depression.
Any small amount of movement is better than none at all.
But moderate to high intensity workouts that really raise the
(16:41):
heart rate bring even more mood boosting benefits. So I
feel like that's screaming at me right now. I really
need to sometimes raise my heart rate more than I do.
But maybe I will go on hikes that have more
of an incline or something like that. The second thing
is priority ties connection, which I love this because connection
(17:03):
is one of my words for the year. I have
a desire statement for the year more connection, more work.
And the work part isn't about working a ton like
working more, but it's working in a different way more work,
more diversity in my work, if that makes sense. But
more work was just a way to shorten it. But
(17:24):
I know what I mean by it. So more connection
is about your relationships with not just romantic partners, but
friends and family. All of that affects our moods. These
social connections are important to our overall well being and
life satisfaction, and research shows that feeling like you're connected
(17:45):
and part of a group gives people a stronger sense
of purpose and a source of support during tough times.
So what are things you can do to prioritize connection?
For me? I have been putting things on the coun
with my people. I schedule walks way in advance, I
schedule dinners way in advance. I schedule happy hours meetings
(18:08):
like different things or on the calendar with some of
my friends three months out and hopefully we can still
make it work when the time comes, but nobody's gonna
be mad at each other. If that doesn't work out,
we'll just figure out something else. But I schedule talks
at times because life has a lot of different moving parts,
especially if you're working and you're a mom. Making time
(18:30):
for connection is something that is so important, but you've
got to be intentional about it. So if it is
with your friends like I'm trying to do, or maybe
it's with family, like my sister was just calling me
as I'm recording this and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm
gonna have to call her back right and we hang
up because we have been trying to connect for a
(18:50):
few days now. Maybe it's you know, your significant other,
what can you do to prioritize that connection. Then the
third thing is something we are all about here, is
practicing gratitude. Taking time to appreciate what you have can
help you focus on the positive and just feel happier.
It's as simple as listing the things that you're thankful
(19:11):
for that day in a gratitude journal or on your phone,
which we have the four Things gratitude journal we made.
It's so simple, it's not intimidating. It's a cute, easy,
way to track your gratitude and it's a purchase that
you can feel good about because all proceeds go to
supporting education in Haiti. You can find those at four
(19:32):
things dot com, but like it says here, you can
also just enter it in on your phone. Research shows
that writing thank you notes also has a positive impact
on mental health, which is something to make note of.
When's the last time you wrote someone a thank you note?
I could definitely get better at that. And then the
(19:53):
fourth thing is spend time with pets. Now, this is
an easy one since pets are huge source of joy
for a lot of us. Just being around pets has
been shown to boost levels of serotonin and dopamine, the
happy hormones that are in our brain, and psychologists say
that family pets not only provide companionship, but studies have
also found that they lower rates of depression and anxiety
(20:15):
as well. So if you don't have your own pets,
maybe you've got a friend that has some pets and
you can go schedule some time with their dog or
their cat, or go volunteer at a shelter. They need
volunteers to walk the dogs, play with the dogs, play
with the cats, do whatever that could be. How you
get your fix without having to have the responsibility of
(20:35):
having your own pet. Now, I guess in a nutshell,
the main ingredients for happiness and what the research boils
down to are social connections and activity, both of the
mind and of the body. So there you go for
tips for a happy life, move your body, prioritize connection,
practice gratitude, spend time with Petsy. We're going to sort
(21:05):
of put a bow on this episode by circling back
to the first thing that we talked about, which was
positivity and positive thinking. According to a new study from
the University of Essex, the key to succeeding in life
is positive thinking. Wishing for things, hoping for things, believing
things can happen will make you more successful. The study
(21:29):
included over a thousand students in four different countries, and
researchers say that those with a more positive, hopeful attitude
perform better. The study suggests that if two students of
the same ability took a test, the more hopeful of
the two would score higher. Researchers also say that hopeful
(21:50):
thinking can increase the lifespan, lower depression, promote cardiovascular health,
and boost resistance to illness. So therefore you're just gonna
overall feel better the more positive you think. But I
also love that it's going to make you more successful.
So if you've got a test coming up, if you've
got a speech coming up, if you have a work
(22:12):
deadline coming up, know that you're going to kill it
and do awesome. Actually, now I'm feeling bad for saying
the word kill right there, because is that a negative word?
Back to the first thing. I'm really trying to watch
my language here. So maybe we should say you're going
to own that room, You're going to be amazing, you
(22:32):
are an excellent speaker, whatever it is that you have
to do. Believe in yourself. That's the bottom line. Know
that you're going to do awesome. Like I'll repeat that
one part about the tests, Researchers say that those with
a more positive, hopeful attitude performed better on the tests.
That's the key to succeeding in life. Positive thinking. Over
(22:54):
a thousand students were involved, and the students like the
two people that were taking the test, they say am ability,
so you're talking the same level and whailah, the person
that had the positive thinking ended up with the higher score.
So you Share this information with your kids if they're
in school. If you're in school right now, use it.
Use this information at your job. Believe in yourself. Know
(23:17):
that you are capable and you deserve all of the
amazing things that are going to come to you with
this positive thinking. And it doesn't mean that real stuff
doesn't pop up in life that is hard and heavy.
That's not what I'm saying here at all. I'm just
trying to give you an episode that is going to
(23:37):
fill up your cup and lead you towards a happy life.
And two things can be true at the same time.
You can have some really heavy, hard stuff going on,
but you can be a happy person. And we want
ahead in that direction, at least I do. And if
you want to join me, well, these are the things
that our help get us there. The positive thinking, eliminating
(24:00):
some of those negative words from our vocabulary, paying attention
to self care for our personality type. Maybe you're not
into the ineogram, Maybe you know other personality tests that
you've done, and you can research what your self care
is based on the information you've received from those tests.
This is just stuff that I'm paying attention to for
(24:21):
myself and I am sharing it with you, so thanks
for joining me, and you know, cheers to a happy life,
to more success, to self care and positive thinking.
Okay, cass up road a little food for yourself life, ain't. Oh,
it's pretty much. It's pretty beautiful than La for a
little mouth said, he you're kicking four brown Happy Thursday,
(00:34):
Amy here, and we are doing an OG style four
things episode, so for different things. And last weekend I
went to a self care workshop and it was amazing,
and I'm super motivated to talk about why it's imperative
for us to have a self care routine. And I
know we talk about self care a lot here. I'm
sure you think you're probably taking care of yourself at times.
(00:57):
I know I sure thought I was, but you may
not be doing the best thing for your personality. And
then maybe you're someone that feels selfish when you do it.
And if that's you, you're not alone because I saw
that one in three people feel guilty for taking time
for themselves and I want to get that down to zero.
And I realized this weekend that I don't really have
(01:19):
a routine that fits my specific needs. And we're going
to get more into that during the second thing in
a minute, and then for the third and fourth thing,
I've got four tips for a happy life and the
key to succeeding in life, a simple way of living
that's going to make you more successful. And for the
first thing, I'm about to share with you something that
(01:40):
popped up for me on Instagram. First. Now, this is
not an Instagram account that I follow. It's just a
suggested reel that showed up for me to watch. And
sometimes I don't really pay attention to those I just
you know, swipe, swipe or whatever. But this one caught
my attention. It's from an account called young and Alive,
(02:01):
and I watch the whole thing and I loved it.
So I'm going to play it for you. Now. The
human brain cannot comprehend the negative. It is incapable. I'll
give you an example. You're ready, don't think of an elephant.
You can't tell the human brain not to do something.
Skiers notice if you go through trees on skis, you go,
(02:23):
don't hit a tree. Don't hit a tree. Don't hit
a tree. Guess what you're watching. You're only looking at
trees as opposed to follow the snow. Follow the path,
Follow the path. The only thing you see is the path.
It's the same thing for you. If you focus on
the obstacle, it's all you will see as obstacles. If
you focus on the path through the trees, all you
will see is path through the trees. It's your choice
(02:46):
how you choose to perceive your own career. It's literally perspective.
Now when he mentions the part about the trees and
not wanting to hit a tree, but then that might
make you actually hit a tree. That's called target fixation,
and that's an attentional phenomenon that occurs when someone becomes
so fixated on a distraction that they're trying to avoid
(03:07):
that they inadvertently increase their risk of collision with it,
which is crazy to think about. And I feel as
though sometimes when I'm on the highway, if I'm next
to a big truck, I keep worrying about the big
truck and thinking that the big truck is going to
hit me. And now I know target fixation. I need
to not think that way, because then I'm increasing the
chances of something happening between me and that truck. Now,
(03:30):
someone in the comments of the post so that they
learn from Oprah twenty five years ago to remove negative
words from their dialogue, leaving room for only positive ones. So,
for example, instead of saying to someone please don't hesitate
to contact me. It's better to say please contact me,
taking out the negative word of don't. I personally don't
(03:53):
realize how often I make negative words a part of
something when they're not necessary at all. Whatever, and maybe
you're the same way. So I thought we could go
over different ways to give our vocabulary a positivity boost. Now,
these phrases I'm about to share are one hundred percent
meant to be positive when we're saying them, but our
(04:15):
brains have a negative bias and they subconsciously bring up
all of the reasons not to do something, problems or
complaints when processing these words. And I'm going to rattle
off examples again. We're innocently saying these things. We're trying
to say something positive, but we're actually you know, have
(04:36):
low vibes with it, And now we can replace it
with high vibe language. And the swaps are so easy.
We just have to pay attention. So it's going to
take work. Now. Instead of telling someone no problem when
they ask you to do something, you can replace it
with definitely. If someone asks you how you are, instead
of saying, well, can't complain, replace it with everything's going well,
(04:58):
thanks instead of saying, oh, I'm exhausted, which confession. I
said that the other day, probably fifteen times, and it
was probably making me more exhausted because I was saying it,
but instead of saying that, we can replace it with
I need to rest. Instead of saying constructive criticism, we
can replace that with feedback, which I'm guilty of asking
(05:21):
you for constructive criticism, I've said, hey, send an email
for things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com. Would
love to hear from you. What can we do better?
What can we do differently the lives that I have
coming up? The last one I did in Kansas, I
reached out to people that were there and asked them
for constructive criticism, And now I know I should have said, hey,
do you have any feedback for me? That would be great?
(05:43):
Instead of telling our kids don't throw the ball inside,
replace it with please take the ball outside, which, gosh,
I know when it comes to my kids, I'm so
tempted to say no all the time because it's just
so easy to just bust out no. However, I've been
working really really hard to rephrase it as a statement
(06:04):
for my kids that they can do something, rather than
they can't do it, and it's working on my son.
I see the difference. For example, since we just mentioned
throwing the ball inside, I'll stick with that, especially because well,
I literally had to say this to my son and
his friend. That was over last weekend. They were in
(06:25):
the living room and Steven's like, hey, can we throw
the football in here? And instead of saying no, I
practiced and I said, yes, you can throw the football.
Remember we only throw it outside. Worked like a charm.
His brain heard yes, I can throw the football. It
wasn't shutting him down. He wasn't hearing the negative. And
then I kindly reminded him in that same sentence that
(06:47):
we do that outside, and then he grabbed his friend,
they got the ball, and they went outside, no issues.
Another example is just the word don't. Instead of saying don't,
we can replace it with I like it when. So
this is good, especially you know when we're talking to
loved ones, maybe co workers, our kids, instead of like, oh,
(07:08):
don't do this, or hey, I really like it when,
and then you fill it in or if have you
ever thought about this one? Because I actually hadn't until recently.
Instead of saying I missed you so much, you can
say it's so great to see you. I never thought
of I missed you so much having you know, lower vibes,
(07:28):
but it's true. It's better for us to say, oh
my gosh, it's so great to see you. And these
are just small changes that we can make that will
help keep our brains in a more positive space. I
mentioned that one in three people feel guilty or selfish
(07:49):
doing self care, when in reality, the opposite is true.
It's not selfish at all, and I want people, especially women,
to stop feeling guilty now. Both you and the people
in your life benefit when you take time to care
for yourself. And a big takeaway from the self care
(08:10):
workshop that I went to last weekend was that self
care looks so different for every single one of us,
but how it serves us as the same. We can
all transform and heal when we learn how to cater
to our very own specific self care needs. But it's
up to you to figure out what's going to be
best for you, and there are ways to figure that out,
(08:32):
and one way is the inneogram. So if you're into that,
you may already know your number and you can use it.
If you don't know your number, there are tests online
there's lots of different ones. I saw a website inneogram
gift dot com, which I'll link it in the show notes.
They did a whole article and posted the top five
(08:52):
free inneogram tests. So maybe go take one of those,
or shoot, maybe even take all five and see if
you get the same number on all five of them.
Now I'm a three on the ineogram, so what works
for me may not be the best for you. But
I'll give you three as a quick example, and then
again once you know your number, there's tons of resources online,
(09:16):
so many blogs that talk about the best self care
for each ineogram number, so you can just google those keywords.
And for me being a three, self care looks like
shutting down from work and technology limiting it in general
is so so good for me. But a challenge might
(09:37):
be seeing if I can go a whole weekend without
any technology. That is a huge form of self care
for me as a three. Reading a book and actually
carrying a book around with me, so if I have
a few minutes here and there, I can sit and
relax instead of maybe grabbing my phone and getting on
social media. Doing something like laying in a hammock is
(10:00):
self care. For me, going for a drive listening to
music that I like and feeling my feelings through the
music and the drive, which speaking of feeling feelings, writing
and journaling my feelings is a big time self care
situation for me as a three. And then I love
that hiking is also good for threes because I do
(10:22):
feel rejuvenated after I hike. But some people that I
know a hike would be miserable, like they'd be like, no,
that is not a form of self care. I feel
worse after I go hiking. Another thing for a three.
But I also think that this is probably good for
everybody because I just hear all of the people that
I admire in life rave about meditation, which is something
(10:43):
that is very very new to me, but it's also
on my list for threes, and I get it. Meditation
can be intimidating, but there's really no reason for it
to be because you're just sitting there and you can
have certain thoughts but you just release them. My thing
was my brain is just so busy all the time,
I can't really meditate. But there I go saying the
word can't. I shouldn't do that. I should say I
(11:05):
can meditate, and I will work on it. So see
how easy it is for negative words to sneak in.
So you can meditate, You can do it. You can
sit there as the thoughts come in. You just release them,
acknowledge the thoughts, release them. Guided meditations are super helpful
and you can find tons of those online. Just search
(11:27):
them up and take a guided meditation. The music will
be soothing, the mantras, the words, the prayers being said,
they're there for you. And again, if you lose focus,
it's not a big deal. You just acknowledge it and
release it. Now. Sometimes we think of self care as
you know, massage and manicure or shopping, which I do
(11:50):
think that that can be a form of it. But
really the routine of self care that I'm talking about
again is tapping into what's really going to be best
for you, like day activities that you are deliberately taking
part in to approve your inner and outer well being.
And the workshop that I went to is all about mind, body, heart,
(12:12):
that connection of those three things and self care. It's
not just about the pampering and the grooming yourself again
can be a part of it, but it's a lifelong journey.
It's not something that we just you know, can do
once a month and we're good for the rest of
our lives. No, for me, I'm seeing it now as
a daily thing. And again, self care looks different from
(12:34):
one person to the next. You might feel energized after
a super intense workout with Way, it's like hit CrossFit
something like that. I would not. I want to go
on my hike and be with nature and do some
breathwork and maybe a yoga class. And I'm very very
thankful for the workshop that I was able to attend,
(12:57):
which speaking of yoga, we did it there and I
had not done yoga in a while, and I was
so sore the next day, but it felt so good.
So shout out to Katie Gustuffson, Ali Fallon, and Coola Callahan.
Katie is a licensed therapist that gave us a deep
dive on the inteagram and how it can help us
tap into our self care needs. And then Coola's the
(13:17):
yoga instructor and she led us through mindful movement and
how important mindful movement is. And then Ali is a
writer and an author that helped us understand how writing
is a powerful tool in creating positive change in our
lives and Ali's been on the podcast before, and she's
actually going to be at our Four Things Live in
(13:38):
Nashville at the end of the month on the twenty fifth,
and she's just one of four guests joining me on stage.
She's one of the wisest people that I know. All
of my guests are amazing, but watching Ali at this workshop,
I'm like, Oh, I could watch her and listen to
her and take notes from her all day long. So
even if she was the only guest, I'd be like,
y'all need to come to This seven pm show is
(14:01):
sold out, the three pm shows close to selling out,
and we'd love to have you if you can come.
I'll link the tickets in the show notes, or you
can click the link in my Instagram bio, the link
tree my handles Radio Amy and also in my link
tree you can get the details to our pop up
shop for Haiti. You do not want to miss that.
We're gonna have so many cute things for you to buy,
with all proceeds going to Haiti Free Cocktails. We're all
(14:23):
just hang in. This is the night before the live
on the twenty fourth at Restore in Brentwood. It's a
happy hour, it's like four to seven pm and I
cannot wait for that. And then I guess another thing
you should check out on my Instagram since this was
such a huge response when I posted about it, is
the snail stuff that I've been putting on my face.
I went ahead and made it a highlight button. People
(14:45):
went crazy for this stuff, So if you want details,
it's snail secretion growth factor and it's been making my
face glow like crazy, and I made a snail highlight
so you can find all the details there. Again that
at Radio Amy got a bunch of psychologists got together
(15:15):
and shared tips for a happy life. And it's almost
like they made this for the podcast because there's four
of them, four tips for a happy life, and some
of this is going to match up with you. The
self care we were talking about in the last thing.
I'll start with the first thing they mentioned, and it's
moving your body. And at that self care workshop, I
(15:37):
went to moving our bodies and being mindful at the
same time and being in tune with our bodies and
what's doing Like, there's so much healing that can come
from that, but you've got to pick the movement that's
going to be best for you. For some people, it
might be running and you get that runners high. I
used to be a runner. I do not enjoy running anymore.
(15:58):
And that's not me being negative by saying do not.
I am not going to run. I don't even know
how to say that in a positive way. It's just
not happening. I used to trick myself into liking it
because I guess it was burning a lot of calories.
But I'm not someone who enjoys running, so I don't
get that runners high. But maybe that is you. If
it is, make sure you're getting out and doing that running.
(16:20):
But which what's the workout? What's the movement that's best
for you? Is it the yoga, is it the hiking?
Whatever it is, moving our bodies reduces stress, reduces anxiety,
It can boost your mood, lowers the risk of depression.
Any small amount of movement is better than none at all.
But moderate to high intensity workouts that really raise the
(16:41):
heart rate bring even more mood boosting benefits. So I
feel like that's screaming at me right now. I really
need to sometimes raise my heart rate more than I do.
But maybe I will go on hikes that have more
of an incline or something like that. The second thing
is priority ties connection, which I love this because connection
(17:03):
is one of my words for the year. I have
a desire statement for the year more connection, more work.
And the work part isn't about working a ton like
working more, but it's working in a different way more work,
more diversity in my work, if that makes sense. But
more work was just a way to shorten it. But
(17:24):
I know what I mean by it. So more connection
is about your relationships with not just romantic partners, but
friends and family. All of that affects our moods. These
social connections are important to our overall well being and
life satisfaction, and research shows that feeling like you're connected
(17:45):
and part of a group gives people a stronger sense
of purpose and a source of support during tough times.
So what are things you can do to prioritize connection?
For me? I have been putting things on the coun
with my people. I schedule walks way in advance, I
schedule dinners way in advance. I schedule happy hours meetings
(18:08):
like different things or on the calendar with some of
my friends three months out and hopefully we can still
make it work when the time comes, but nobody's gonna
be mad at each other. If that doesn't work out,
we'll just figure out something else. But I schedule talks
at times because life has a lot of different moving parts,
especially if you're working and you're a mom. Making time
(18:30):
for connection is something that is so important, but you've
got to be intentional about it. So if it is
with your friends like I'm trying to do, or maybe
it's with family, like my sister was just calling me
as I'm recording this and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm
gonna have to call her back right and we hang
up because we have been trying to connect for a
(18:50):
few days now. Maybe it's you know, your significant other,
what can you do to prioritize that connection. Then the
third thing is something we are all about here, is
practicing gratitude. Taking time to appreciate what you have can
help you focus on the positive and just feel happier.
It's as simple as listing the things that you're thankful
(19:11):
for that day in a gratitude journal or on your phone,
which we have the four Things gratitude journal we made.
It's so simple, it's not intimidating. It's a cute, easy,
way to track your gratitude and it's a purchase that
you can feel good about because all proceeds go to
supporting education in Haiti. You can find those at four
(19:32):
things dot com, but like it says here, you can
also just enter it in on your phone. Research shows
that writing thank you notes also has a positive impact
on mental health, which is something to make note of.
When's the last time you wrote someone a thank you note?
I could definitely get better at that. And then the
(19:53):
fourth thing is spend time with pets. Now, this is
an easy one since pets are huge source of joy
for a lot of us. Just being around pets has
been shown to boost levels of serotonin and dopamine, the
happy hormones that are in our brain, and psychologists say
that family pets not only provide companionship, but studies have
also found that they lower rates of depression and anxiety
(20:15):
as well. So if you don't have your own pets,
maybe you've got a friend that has some pets and
you can go schedule some time with their dog or
their cat, or go volunteer at a shelter. They need
volunteers to walk the dogs, play with the dogs, play
with the cats, do whatever that could be. How you
get your fix without having to have the responsibility of
(20:35):
having your own pet. Now, I guess in a nutshell,
the main ingredients for happiness and what the research boils
down to are social connections and activity, both of the
mind and of the body. So there you go for
tips for a happy life, move your body, prioritize connection,
practice gratitude, spend time with Petsy. We're going to sort
(21:05):
of put a bow on this episode by circling back
to the first thing that we talked about, which was
positivity and positive thinking. According to a new study from
the University of Essex, the key to succeeding in life
is positive thinking. Wishing for things, hoping for things, believing
things can happen will make you more successful. The study
(21:29):
included over a thousand students in four different countries, and
researchers say that those with a more positive, hopeful attitude
perform better. The study suggests that if two students of
the same ability took a test, the more hopeful of
the two would score higher. Researchers also say that hopeful
(21:50):
thinking can increase the lifespan, lower depression, promote cardiovascular health,
and boost resistance to illness. So therefore you're just gonna
overall feel better the more positive you think. But I
also love that it's going to make you more successful.
So if you've got a test coming up, if you've
got a speech coming up, if you have a work
(22:12):
deadline coming up, know that you're going to kill it
and do awesome. Actually, now I'm feeling bad for saying
the word kill right there, because is that a negative word?
Back to the first thing. I'm really trying to watch
my language here. So maybe we should say you're going
to own that room, You're going to be amazing, you
(22:32):
are an excellent speaker, whatever it is that you have
to do. Believe in yourself. That's the bottom line. Know
that you're going to do awesome. Like I'll repeat that
one part about the tests, Researchers say that those with
a more positive, hopeful attitude performed better on the tests.
That's the key to succeeding in life. Positive thinking. Over
(22:54):
a thousand students were involved, and the students like the
two people that were taking the test, they say am ability,
so you're talking the same level and whailah, the person
that had the positive thinking ended up with the higher score.
So you Share this information with your kids if they're
in school. If you're in school right now, use it.
Use this information at your job. Believe in yourself. Know
(23:17):
that you are capable and you deserve all of the
amazing things that are going to come to you with
this positive thinking. And it doesn't mean that real stuff
doesn't pop up in life that is hard and heavy.
That's not what I'm saying here at all. I'm just
trying to give you an episode that is going to
(23:37):
fill up your cup and lead you towards a happy life.
And two things can be true at the same time.
You can have some really heavy, hard stuff going on,
but you can be a happy person. And we want
ahead in that direction, at least I do. And if
you want to join me, well, these are the things
that our help get us there. The positive thinking, eliminating
(24:00):
some of those negative words from our vocabulary, paying attention
to self care for our personality type. Maybe you're not
into the ineogram, Maybe you know other personality tests that
you've done, and you can research what your self care
is based on the information you've received from those tests.
This is just stuff that I'm paying attention to for
(24:21):
myself and I am sharing it with you, so thanks
for joining me, and you know, cheers to a happy life,
to more success, to self care and positive thinking.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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