Engineering Absolute Happiness with Avital Miller

EP 010

Avital Miller, best-selling author of the books Healing Happens and Practice, inspires people to experience boundless energy, absolute happiness, and true success. For over fifteen years Avital has been serving thousands of people worldwide as an award-winning international keynote speaker, healing breakthrough facilitator, and global dancer. 
 
 Her leadership background includes being a program manager at Microsoft, lead coach for Success Resources America, sales and marketing director for Crystal Clarity Publishers, yoga and fitness teacher trainer,  fitness director, dancer and singer. 
 
 She won the Exceptional Woman of Excellence award from the Women Economic Forum and her book Healing Happens won four awards including one from TopShelf! 
 
 Avital has been trained as a Neuro-Linguistic Practitioner, and an energy healer in Pranic Healing and Ananda Level 2 Healing. She has performed and taught dance internationally since 1993. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and a major in dance, she is known for offering beyond-cutting-edge wisdom with authenticity, delightful energy, and infectious joy. 
 
Healing Happens

www.avitalmiller.com

 Please visit my Social Networking Sites:
 
 LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/avitalmiller/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avital.miller.5

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/AvitalMiller

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avital.love/

 EVERYDAY DETERMINATOR PODCAST

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Welcome to the everyday determinator podcast with your host, Okafor founder of the determining our collective we want to help you get off that hamster wheel of life and turn you into an everyday the Terminator by shooting stories for Americans who have overcome varying challenges in life and careers and by reviewing and signposting you to helpful resources to start you on the journey to achieving your goals. For more information on the determinator collective, please visit www dot Anne okafor.co.uk. Thanks for listening determinator

Anne Okafor: 0:50

Hello terminators on Welcome to the everyday the Terminator Podcast. Today we're speaking to Avatar Miller, who is based in Denver, Colorado, Avatar is multi talented professional with a very impressive resume. Best Selling and award winning author of killing happens. And she inspires people to experience boundless energy, absolute happiness and true success, and has been doing so for over 15 years across the globe. As a keynote speaker, healing breakthrough facilitator and a global dancer. She has held leadership roles at Microsoft and performed globally, either speaking, dancing or singing across stages across the globe. And you have many articles published as well, and leading publication. So loads and loads of a fabulous, fabulous things on your resume. And I'm really excited to have you here, Avatar. Thank you for giving some time to the project and to speak to our listeners today.

Avital Millar: 1:52

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here and excited to support this wonderful podcast.

Anne Okafor: 1:58

Thank you so much. And we're delighted to have you. So you do have a super impressive resume. But one thing that really piqued my interest being a women in construction myself, is you started out your career in early days pursuing a double major. And part of that was a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. And what motivated you to pursue that career choice?

Avital Millar: 2:21

Yeah, well, I secretly wanted to be a triple major. Okay. And I'll say this, because I grew up with a family of one side of the family. We're all phenomenal engineers. I mean, to the point where my father was the vice vice president of Toronto Transit Commission's, and I might be saying the name of his role wrong. But anyways, he, he worked his way up, he's very successful as a civil engineer, my great uncle was the Dean of Engineering at University of Toronto. So engineering was definitely a huge part. And I was really good. In school at math, I was very deficient at writing, which is really fun when we get to the story of me writing a best selling time award winning book. We've got that going on. But I was fascinated with psychology, absolutely fascinated. But my mother had a very real discussion with me saying, hey, you know, you're going to get better grades, because you're better at the engineering than you would be at the psychology, you're more likely to get a more dependable career and a higher paying career. And at that age, that sounded reasonable to me. That was my understanding. So I said, okay, and I didn't know that I'm the type of person that has to has to follow my passions. And I did love the engineering. It's not like I didn't. But I'm more passionate about connecting more directly with people, more than just the engineering. And the first bridge that I actually talk was getting into the project management side of engineering, one of my internships was at Procter and Gamble during college, as a project manager in one of their plants. And I thought, oh my gosh, like, I get to focus more on the people side, but still use the technical skills. I'm like, This is fabulous. So I go to Microsoft, as a programme manager, which is similar to project management. And I get to do more of the people side. And it's a wonderful company. And I still felt like no, no, this doesn't quite hit the mark. And I mentioned that I also got a major in dance. Yeah, I you said that. And I love dancing. But again, this is the perspective of my young person's mind. Maybe it's a bit materialistic. But the dancers would always come into the studio, the professional ones complaining that they didn't have any money and they had to eat rice and beans. And I'm thinking, Well, gosh, I don't want a life of complaining and poverty, like I can go be an engineer make good money, right? I don't have to be stuck with that. But I love dancing, so I'm still going to dance. And the trick was engineering because it's such an intense programme is that if I said that I had to take a dance class for my dance major they could never talk me out. Out of taking dance classes. So that was my trick to enable myself to dance in college. It was was just to do that. And then I had other tricks that I used of how I could take more classes. More credit. Just slightly excited to take to study and slightly and over to your Okay, not slightly an overachiever. But yes, that was the case. So I did graduate with like seven years of the credits for college. I went in with about a year and a half worth of credits No, into college. And yes, so I'm an engineer, and I'm like, Are you Microsoft? Oh, no, no, this isn't quite it. And I couldn't figure out what to do. I started applying for other jobs. And this was post 911. Whereas I got my first job before 911. And they're not having as many jobs available. But when I interviewed for Microsoft, I wasn't actually even trying to look for a job there. Because I had already, like, been offered another wonderful job. So I didn't need the job. But if I, hey, it's Microsoft, let's go check it out. Let's go to Seattle. So they have to spend a bit of time convincing me to work for them. So I'm assuming that it's going to be the same way at all these other interviews. So you have to imagine two people going to a potluck without bringing any food. Nobody's eating, sitting across the table, waiting for the other to convince the other. Nobody's convincing anyone. And finally, one of my good friends said, hey, it doesn't sound like you're that excited about this. And I'm going, Oh, you're Hey, I didn't know what to do. Like, well, I want to travel. I love learning about people and cultures. And I took off with a backpack and travelled for a year. And during that time, realised that I'm going into the yoga and fitness industry. Yeah. Yeah.

Anne Okafor: 6:58

I mean, that sounds amazing. And I can really relate to where you were at at that stage, you know, I'm in the construction space, doing planning for construction projects, so probably kind of similar, and love the project management side of things, because it is very people focusing on the same like you were, it's the people side of the process that I really enjoy. So I can really, really, so this change into, you know, there's a big difference between engineering and programme management to, to yoga, and then, you know, I understand you went backpacking, and you know, did you have your mentors maybe that either were in your engineering space, or mentors that became available to you, when he went into the yoga space that can I convinced you one way or the other, or maybe mentors and engineering space that maybe tried to convince you to come back that way.

Avital Millar: 7:51

My mentors were the people who I met travelling, who helped me shift my way of thinking of how life needed to be. It took me a little bit of time to finally cross the border into Mexico, cuz my intention was to leave us but I kept getting caught up by things happening in us. And and I finally crossed the border. And right away, this group came together, and we said, hey, let's go on a train ride. Let's go through. But I've got a car, right, let's go see it. And just this one gentleman wanted to backpack through it. And I wanted to backpack the rest wanted to go on the train. So he and I decided we're going to go the more rustic route. And it was really, really rustic trip was really phenomenal. But we're sitting there chatting, this is the first night out of the country. And he's explaining about his life. And he says, Yeah, well, I work in computers. And so I'll go travel for a while, and then I'll live somewhere new, and I'll work in computers there. And then, you know, go somewhere else. And working computers at Next I want to live in New Zealand. And if I can't find a job in computers, I'll just do something else. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. And I'm thinking what you don't care, no career, no direction, identity. And we have to keep in mind that this is over 20 years ago, if that tells you a little bit about my age. Today, people will change careers more often. Back then the thinking was you choose your career for life at the end of high school? Yeah, no, absolutely. But how many of us know at age 20 Really, really what we want to do the rest of our lives. And it's wonderful that it's opened up for more flexibility for our younger people today. But he's, I don't need an identity. And as Oh, because I thought I would go back home and go right back into the corporate life. It didn't fully hit me yet that I was done with it, or at least done with it from that perspective. You know, I still end up having partnerships or working in corporations at various times but in different types of capacities. And, and that was one thing and then actually the next thing that really hit me was backpacking through but I'm going to cobra and this is Copper Canyon just wanted one another English. It's actually four times the size of the Grand Canyon. However, you don't see it all in one VISTA, like you see in the Grand Canyon, which is also why it's not as well known. And it's not, it hasn't been made as as accessible. And we hitchhiked, because there were all these, there was a big storm and all these huge rocks on the road, the buses weren't going to the edge of the canyons, we hitchhiked, which is crazy in itself. And there's all sorts of stories of hitchhiking. And we're in the back of a truck and it starts raining. So we quickly put on our rain gear. And we see this beautiful views while we're driving in the back of this truck, but it's writing on us. It with a driver who's drunk, all these things are happening. And everyone's just so chill about it. Know that all these things that are coming up, and then we go through the entire backpacking trip. And you just, we just had to show up in this town and find this gentleman that we read about on a blog on a travel website. And he'll he'll take us with his mules through, you don't want to go by yourself. Because if you end up in the wrong place, you could get shot. So you really need somebody who knows how to get around, and how to communicate with the people down there and who to avoid them what to avoid. Yeah, we just start asking people's we walk in the town, we find him very quickly. And we spend the night in the town. And there's so many pieces to the story was so fun. But this gentleman, he's walking in flip flops, he carried a water bottle on a string that he tied to the mule. And it was brown water. And you know, we had all our fancy water purifiers and everything right. And then his sleeping camping gear was a Mexican blanket. And then he brought a couple cans of beans. And we've got all this fancy, you know stuff. And we're still running into all these challenges along the way, despite all our fancy stuff. And if this guy has rheumatism, it hurts his feet to walk. But he does it without complaint. And we get to the end of the trail, there's a river that crossed carrier bags over head. And the guy just kind of goes well, my mom's places over here. So I want to go visit her, you know, it's not far. So you get to the next town and then just ask them for a ride to the next town where you could take a van out of the canyon. So we started walking with our packs midday uphill for 30 minutes, which is already a chore in itself. After backpacking for a few days, you know, we had fully loaded water that we just loaded. So it was heavy, it was hot when we make it and we're walking through this town and there's all these people sitting on their porches. They're all inviting us to come hang out on their porch. Like we're not going to do that with these strangers. But finally, like I think we have to in order to get the ride. So we went to this family's porch. And okay, when are we going to get the ride in Ruthie? Don't that I think though that means in a little bit and a little bit this this kept going on. We just sat on the porch. They're Spanish, I spoke good Spanish, but their language was a little bit different. Because we're in such a remote area. So they gave up on trying to communicate with us. And we just sat in a circle on these chairs for two and a half hours doing nothing. And I'm looking at them like duck, these people need to work study. So like like something? No, they were so content, just sitting there not doing anything. And it blew my mind like oh my god, all this pressure that we put on ourselves in our lives. That doesn't have to be the rule of our life. So here I am travelling with this gentleman who doesn't need the career and is just willing to follow, you know, the whim in any moment. And then I'm sitting with these people who are fine doing nothing in the moment and seem totally content and happy. And it just starts to shift your thinking and go, Oh, okay, like I could change things around. And to further this. I'm staying in a lot of remote areas throughout the trip. And I'm always in public places and hostels, jungles, beaches. This is also the time where people started to hear about yoga, but not everyone was doing it, which meant people were curious. And they are I am practising yoga everywhere. So everyone was approaching me and asking me to teach them. I even taught it was actually Pilates. So I was also practising Pilates and it was a Mexican ska band. I kid you not. They hired me to do private Pilates classes for their group on the rooftop of an Indian restaurant in this tiny town in Mexico. That really hit me too well. People are really interested in this. They're asking me to do this. So this must be my next calling. That's how I got into it. It was experiences and people who I met along the way who were my mentors.

Anne Okafor: 14:51

Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible story. And you know, really, really interesting. I think there's a lot of a lot to be said in terms of like your That's background as well, you know, would have probably had some appeal, you know that I think there's probably some similarities in their sort of interests in the mindset that you need for that sort of practice. You know, that's me looking inside, I don't have any yoga background, I have done some Pilates, which I really enjoy them found really beneficial, actually. And it's through a lady who has taught me some Pilates that has helped me to change some of the ways that I was thinking about myself. And they helped me to understand some of the things I can do to self care for myself as well. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. No, yeah, you obviously did this. And obviously, this sort of became your way of things for a little while teaching your guy and I think you got into stage where that was your flow, then for a number of years. And then a series of events hit where you became in some ill health, is that correct? And then the sort of, I guess, catapulted the rest of what you're doing now in the book, and all the wonderful things you do, I mean, you do so many wonderful things, and help so many different people with different things. But obviously, this was a period of time where you know, you are facing change, and challenge and probably, you know, all this learning you done to get to this new way of thinking was almost then challenged again, with some health concerns, and then, but also supported you the new way of thinking, I think so you as much as it challenged the way you were thinking I would think it supported you to then think a different way and to reach challenge that sort of status quo in terms of what the health care providers were telling you. And then allowed you to then weather that storm, I guess, and build this, you know, successful and really purposeful career that you have to do. Would that be fair? It totally

Avital Millar: 16:55

is. And I think life for me continues to evolve, where challenge comes up. And then challenge teaches you. And the challenge is that biggest challenge that I have at that moment, is what spurs the creation of the next thing. Absolutely one of the top things that I teach from my book healing happens. And the full body success mastery strategies that I created, is to look at the gift of what is showing up in the process of the pain, and the challenge. And how much that expands your mind, or expand your ability, or opens up new ideas or new relationships into your life or clears like it gives you more peace because you greater health, right? All of those things can be the result of that. So there is that point of Here I am, I'm a fitness director, a teacher trainer teaching 25 to 30 classes a week, and I'm having issues with fatigue. And I was known as the Energizer Bunny before that. So there we go, breaking my identity, my hair falling out, I beautiful long hair, my muscles turning to fat, I'm getting weaker than my students wondering if I'm going to be out of the job. Right? Some of the listeners, like you all might be able to relate to this, like if you couldn't do your hobby or favourite job, sort of the concern that comes over you or the embarrassment, when something happens that you feel like you can't even control it. But it completely shifts your identity, I had to work through all of those things, and maintain faith in the vision of what I saw my life to become. Yeah,

Anne Okafor: 18:31

I think that, you know, that's a really good lesson about taking the gift from a challenge, you know, when taken, you know, the opportunities that come out of it, you know, and it's, it can be really hard when you're in that space, and you know, your identity is challenged. I mean, that's a huge thing. You know, and probably in some ways and more sort of, in today's world where, you know, we set ourselves up to have these, you know, identities that we put out to the world, and they're on Instagram, and everything's there, you know, because we see each other so much more now, I think, with social media, and, you know, all these sorts of things. And then to have that we you have to question it because of things out with your control. And I think, again, a lot of people can relate to that with a pandemic that we've seen, you know, we're all living in a situation where we can control everything that's going on. And there's lots of challenges that people are facing, because of the moment, which probably came to similar to the, you know, the sort of challenges that you experienced back when you had your health concerns. So, and I think, you know, there's lessons in overcoming that and that's what we're trying to do with everyday determined errs to explain to people that actually, you know, the, the challenge and the struggle at the time, you know, is hard and but there's always good stuff to come after that. And you can there's always lessons to be learned or, you know, a new way of thinking to be understood, that you can get from that. We've mentioned a few of the things that you're doing just now. And you know, you have amazing sort of spread of services I think would be you have a yoga and you do dance, I think spiritual Dance yoga and meditation. And obviously your book and you have podcasts and your teachings related to the book as well and courses and things like that. It would you like to just give us a little bit of an overview from your side of things about what you do and why these things are so important.

Avital Millar: 20:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I felt as I was healing, and sort of the surprise, because the doctors, they gave me a diagnosis, a high dosage of medication, and they're like, that's it for life. But here I am meeting less medicine, seeing all my blood result tests get better, and feeling better, feeling solid, and then meeting other people who are told they're going to die in a few months or a few hours. So there I am going, okay, like, but I'm meeting them years later, and they're fully alive and healthy, and sharing their gifts with other people around the world. So let's put these stories in a book. Right? So the first piece here is creating my book healing happens stories of healing against all odds. What I noticed from my book, is that I pulled out the top success strategies, which I mentioned are the full bodied success, mastery strategies. And then to say, Well, do you ever notice that how you approach success in one area, are the same tools you can apply to other areas of your life, which is really broadened out the scope. I love speaking with entrepreneurs, because they're very excited and motivated, open, willing to take risks, which means that I've been able to share those success strategies as they relate to business, and also develop programmes from that. I settled into Denver three years ago, and started what's now called the Sciton, succeed programme. So that is a meditation group, I kind of what they don't know, I'm actually going to combine my group coaching into that programme. They've been separate programmes, I also have certification in neuro linguistic programming, which is a wonderful, wonderful tool for really seeing what's going on with yourself, and creating these beautiful processes to get to quick results. And this is any challenges that are coming up in people's lives, whether it's relationship, whether it's financial, whether it's getting their business to grow a little bit more. But this sentence, excede is a meditation group, it's online, so people can come in person as well. And then that's where I'm also looking at what are our daily life challenges that we're facing, and what is a process or a meditation that I can put together to one create new wisdom and insight around it. And then to have something very specific for what's coming up. So I've actually recorded over 150 of these. So whatever challenges coming up, like you name it, we've got it covered in there. And then we continue to create more new experiences through the live experiences. In the new year, I'm going to do a series on how to become a money magnet. That'll be another fun one. And then you can imagine that I have a breadth of programmes, right? So I'm working one on one, I'm working with groups, I'm doing speaking engagements, I have online courses, a blog, or podcast, which just gives everyone an opportunity to get this wisdom, the insight that techniques, depending on what your preferences as to how to receive them, depending on what your budget is. So that's why I love having the variety of tools that are out there. And this is really exciting. And this also comes from the birth of going through challenging times of living in a new city of wanting to create your friend network. And then also having a pandemic mixed in the middle of that to create a little bit more rocky boat in the process of developing that. And there's three things to keep in mind. One is that when I'm servicing clients, I'm going to be able to serve them better if I develop community around it and you know, friendships, relationships, connection, more support through that. The second thing is that the first full body CS mastery strategy is focusing on your reason to live. And what especially if you know of Dr. Bernie Siegel, who wrote love medicine and miracles. But His thing was, he said, listen, the terminal cancer patients who are surviving are the ones who are focusing on their reason to live. So this is important to do what's fun. So that's the second reason why we do fun community activities. The third thing is that I also want to choose who I'm spending my time with. And it just so happens that the people who want to go do these things to uplift themselves are the people I want to spend time with. So I've started a brand new community project this past summer, just at the end of the summer called dewdrop community, and we get together and do fun social activities once a week. We also have a communications programme called How to love and be loved. So we really make sure that we're sort of nurturing deeper relationships and connections and have sort of a communication strategy and a vocabulary to be able to cross that path with each other. And then what I've been doing is pulling from the techniques, the gifts, the talents, and ways that I can support the people in the group. So long story short, this evolves into this huge event that I'm hosting Valentine weekend, called Valentine Soiree. It's a charity event, there's going to be a fashion show, there's going to be a date auction, there's going to be performers, I will be performing. So we've got this whole mind body spirit element connected into a party, we've got all these amazing people coming together, there's about probably 50 to 75 people who are going to be involved just in making the event happen.

Anne Okafor: 25:45

Awesome. I really love that you're building the sort of community around that. And I think for me, I've always believed that community and social connection is paramount for resilience and for overcoming, you know, challenges. I think having that sort of social network of people around you and social connection, people that are going through the same things as you are similar to you, and can understand where you've been, where you are, where you're trying to get to on your journey is really, really important and actually moving forward. And I think there's, it's maybe not quite understood how important that is, you know, to build our network to even just in general, as we are thinking about careers and things like that, in order to, you know, protect yourself in some way and have that sort of resilience that you may need along the way to build networks and to build community around what you're doing. And I think, you know, it's really a special thing, when you find a place where there's just people like you who do the same things, and think the same way. And you know, you can sort of help each other, grow and bounce ideas off each other. And I think that's, it's such a special part of self care as well. And having that place you can go where you feel like at home, I guess, you know, in these sort of communities, I think we all need those sort of spaces in our life in terms of health care, and self care. And in terms of the sort of physical things you offer in terms of like yoga, meditation, pilates, that sort of thing. What are the benefits of doing these sort of practices for someone who is maybe looking to implement some sort of self care into their busy lives? What can they get from a yoga meditation, that sort of practice? Yeah,

Avital Millar: 27:23

well, what I actually love also is finding out what are people looking for and needing in their lives. Because there's, I have a list of over 100 Benefits of Meditation. If you join the Denver meditations Facebook group, I'm posting them there, you'll be able to see that full list because I think there's a lot of things we don't commonly think about. But you know, an obvious forefront thing is reducing stress. But here's the result of reducing stress, most diseases come from stress. So you're automatically going to boost your immune system. By reducing stress, your mood is going to get better, which means you're going to be happier, and the people in your life are going to be happier spending time with you, which makes you more magnetic, to attracting more people and more abundance, and more fun and more success into your life, your mind is able to think straighter, which means that you're more efficient and productive at your work. But you're also coming up with what I call superconscious solutions to the challenges that are presented. And I just love seeing this also like with the Valentine sorry event that I'm putting on because there's so many things that are a part of it, and so many hurdles. And it's like everyone working together has solutions for everything, you know that that is coming up. So it's a really beautiful thing, when all you do is create something new and better from the challenges that arise. You know, there's studies of like being able to maintain your weight better of the kids getting better test results on different things, your body being physiologically younger, when you are a meditator, so we can go go on and on, you know on that, but generally that breath covers most of the things that people are secretly

Anne Okafor: 29:14

I think, some people maybe still feel I know, it's come a long way. And it's certainly come a long way I think in the last couple of years, but there's still I sometimes feel I don't know what it's like maybe where you are but sometimes in the UK, when you talk about meditation people still feel like it's a little bit out there and maybe not for them. And maybe they you know, they think oh, why am I gonna step out and do nothing because we're so you know, trained and ingrained, being productive all the time and doo doo doo doo doo get stuff done. People sometimes feel that, you know, that's sitting down for half an hour or something is maybe beyond them in terms of because they just don't feel like it's going to be useful and I can do that because I think I was there at one point. But I found The even just even a five minute meditation has huge benefits, you know, and it's, I think it's important that people can understand, you know, even five minutes to start with, and you can build up, you know, once you feel comfortable with that, and, you know, it's not all the cases sit in there and you know, close your eyes, it's just about really about taking time for you and allowing yourself space, I think, to process what's going on and to, for me, it was a lot about observing, and, you know, silly things, you know, I mentioned the lady that I, that taught me Pilates and sort of introduced me to the meditations, it was very much I felt like she knew me better than myself, because she was observing me better than I was observing myself, you know, and when I started to do the meditation and start to get involved in not that I really started to notice things as well, it was my body, I started noticing when I wasn't feeling well, you know, much, much sooner than what I would have, you know, I was, I felt much more in tune with what was going on with me and my body. And you know, even just how I was responding to things like stress, and you know, things like in the workplace, if you're having a bad day, I was noticing it was almost like an early warning system, because I was so much more aligned and in tune with what was going on. You know, what, do you agree that, you know, even five minutes, 10 minutes, you know, is sufficient to make a difference to someone starting?

Avital Millar: 31:21

Yeah. When and what I would say, say to people is, do you notice? What happens when you're in the shower, let's say? And how would you start singing? Do you start having space for joy? Do you come up with ideas? Like really cool ideas? While you're in the shower? Does that happen when you're out on a peaceful long drive? Does that happen just while you have to walk down the street. So you think about just what's happened in those little moments where not as much is happening? When you're washing dishes, you know, do you have time to process what's going on in your life. So imagine, then, if you didn't have to wash the dishes in that moment, if you weren't focused on the shower, so if you had even less to focus on, but you also had techniques that help guide and focus your mind, to have that joy to that creativity, and that wisdom, and that insight and the processing. So the key to me, yes, meditation might not be for everyone. And that is totally fine. The key there is to find the right path of meditation for yourself. So typically, I don't leave people silent for that long in the main practice, that we have another practice that we do once a week where you get a longer time to be in silence, you know, do your own practice for people who want that. But the key is that I'm giving a bunch of techniques, where it clears everything away naturally. So by the time we get to the silent moment, you're so ready for it. And it feels so delicious. And a little trick, also, you can think about this, when you have a problem, and you're really stressed out about something, and then you go do something that's really fun. You go for a jog, you go dance, you hang out with a friend, and then the problem doesn't seem like as big of a deal anymore. Same effect from meditating. But then imagine that all you need to do is stop, sort of like, Stop, drop and roll when you when you catch fire, you know, it's like, it's like, Stop, sit and meditate for five minutes, because you can do that anytime, anywhere, it's not dependent on anything else. And then you'll be able to clear out and feel better about the conflicts that are happening. Also, it's almost

Anne Okafor: 33:33

equivalent, you know, to turn your computer off, when it's often a bit of a moment, isn't it? It's almost like, just press an off button for a few minutes and letting it have a chance to catch up with itself, I guess, you know, but it feels very similar to that. And it feels very similar to that in my life, certainly, when I apply it. And I think, you know, it has big benefits for me. And even just sometimes between tasks, you know, if you're doing, you know, one big thing in the morning and one big thing in the afternoon, it can really provide a bit of space between things just allow you to clear one and prepare for the other, you know, when there's, like you said, there's different techniques, and different practitioners will have different different techniques or different maybe practices, I'm not sure of the correct terminology. And I think, you know, I would encourage people to experiment a little bit and find out what works for them in terms of meditation. So I love your work, though, is very much in fact, probably all of your work is very much in service to others, you know, providing the service to others. What motivates you, you know, because being in service to others can be quite a big demand on you in some ways, but what motivates you to continue with that work?

Avital Millar: 34:43

I have nothing else to do. I mean, I have you know, especially when business doesn't seem like it's succeeding. I will sit there and question should I really be doing this? And I'm like, Why can't come up with anything else to do so During this,

Anne Okafor: 35:03

I mean, it's I think it's a hard thing sometimes to be in service to people all the time, you know that it's not an easy thing to always doing. You know, as much as your unit is wonderful self care, you're putting people first a lot of the time in what you're doing. And that's not an easy place to be in if you need to look after yourself. So aside from what you do for work, is there any other sort of self care practices that you do? Just for you for fun for for what makes you feel good?

Avital Millar: 35:30

Yeah, well, the first thing is, is that I have trained myself to have a high capacity and a high ability, and that is one of the forms of self care, which means I don't need as much in response, you know, and then there's the reminders of what I do need in response. So I'll give you a specific example of what's come up for me, and what have I done to care for that, because I, I had quite a few days in a row of all these events and parties and I get excited, I my party a little bit late. And then the next day, I'm hosting an event all day, and I was modelling and so was it. If I put on more clothes, it was gonna, you wouldn't be able to see the effect and the outfit, but they had the door open the whole day, so that people could get in and out to the outside the door to the outside, and it was freezing, and it was windy, I was freezing all day, my total frozen. And I didn't want to like stop. And this is what I should have done, like stop and make sure that I had a proper meal sent to me, everyone else I was working with had food delivered, you know, they sat and they ate, I just had all these snacks, it wasn't enough for me, the whole day, I had a few days of just sort of, you know, not quite getting enough, you know, for myself in between there. And so remember, one of the afternoons, I just stopped, you know, I put all the work aside and like, I'm going to take a bath in between the events, um, put some Epsom salt in there. And that was one of the things you know, the next thing was just being careful not to schedule anything else on top of that. But taking more of those baths, watching a movie relaxing, making sure I get my meditation time I did some energy healing on myself, I have been running a device called a Healy. So this is a newer healing device. It's being sold around the world. Now people can always connect with me directly if they want more information on it. But it basically can scan your body and then it can pump in vibrational frequencies is sort of my non scientific way of explaining this. But it's, it's what I call Avi telesign. But it's physically pumping in the frequencies of what your body is missing, what is lacking, what's going to bring it back to balance. So it's helping shift the vibrational frequency of your body back to a state of health. But really, because what's also excites me is doing my work and getting some of it done and getting some things out of the way. And so I can run the device, you know, and kind of keep going at times. And then last night, you know what I had a friend saying, because I told him, I was like, you know, my body's been been feeling it. Like it hasn't quite caught up. And he's like, What do you need to do tonight, and I give him the list. And he points to one of them. He's like, you only need to do this one tonight. You know, the rest can wait. So it's also getting a point of view from outside. And then I looked into it, it turned out I don't have to do that till the summer. You can't even do it now. But I didn't it was it was to renew health insurance, because in us, everyone needs to renew their health insurance right now. But I guess mine's already set for the summer. Yeah. So we're good there. And so I told him, okay, I don't even need to do that. And he's like, okay, then you should be in bed. I'm like, Well, I'm bad. But it's really exciting me to talk to one of the fashion designers about the planning, and that in itself brings joy and joy is such a healing thing. Sometimes that path of healing and self care, it's not as as straight and narrow, you could say, but it's really tuning into well, okay, going to a group, you know, a party right now, is not what's going to delight me. But just spending time with this one person who I feel like I can fully be myself with and connect with is, right. So that's another piece that I'll bring in. And that's very nourishing and healing.

Anne Okafor: 39:15

I can really relate to that. You know, because I do a lot of mention of volunteer with young and new professionals and stem and construction and I love it, it brings me great joy. And people say oh, we make sure you get time for yourself. And I'm like, but this is part of that, you know, because it could be seen as work I guess, but it's not really for me because I enjoy it so much. And I get something different from it. And I think you know, the thing about self care is it's a multitude of different things for everybody. We all have different languages of what ourselves kit is, you know, for. It can be things like boundaries, you know, setting boundaries and saying I don't need to do this today or I don't need to do that tomorrow. It can be sitting in watching the movie. And you know what your self care today is might be different tomorrow because that's what you need. In that moment, and I think people understanding that and understanding that is about boundaries. And it is about just what you need in that moment. And it's okay to say no to some things, or no, for the moment, it's, you know, like, in your example, yesterday, it's not like you are going to pull everything off the list forever, it's just okay. So I don't need to do these right now. And actually, I need to go from our throne to be in bed and just chill for a bit, you know, and I think we need to do more of that, I think we all need to do a bit more of that sometimes, when we get all caught up in this hamster wheel of busy life, and, you know, production and, you know, getting things off the list, and then trying to achieve goals and things like that, actually, it's good to look after ourselves to make sure we can get there, you know, what I think one thing I learned that was really valuable is that taking a rest is not just for what's already been, it's about preparing for what's to come as well. And just giving yourself that space, to actually get up for what's about to come, you know, and the goals that you want to go for next, not necessarily working yourself to such a state where you have to take a rest because you're absolutely burnt out, it's making sure that you take them let your power you know, you don't want to wait for the lights go on. And it's you know, all the red lights have come on, and your car's broken down. We want to have regular services, and, you know, make sure that the machine's working on a day to day basis. So you wouldn't do that to your car, you know, but we do it ourselves, you know, and something I'm really passionate about is just getting that word out there for young and new professionals, especially, is that, you know, take regular self care books, take what you need, fit that into your schedule, you know, like you said, take the bath and make sure you don't schedule something else, so that you have to then give up the bath. You know, make sure you take that time. And that's really, really important. So what would be your top tips for someone, your top three tips. So for someone looking to you to experience this sort of like boneless energy that you talk about the absolute happiness to someone looking to, to get there.

Avital Millar: 41:59

Yeah, and, you know, I want to say some things relevant to our conversation right now. But I'm also going to invite people to come to complimentary webinar, where I'll share like the usual tips that I share, you just go to unlock unlimited energy to join the Energise your life webinar. But because I wanted to say something, too, because I also started with I've already set myself up to, to be more empowered, right to have a high capacity. And what are some of those things specifically, and one of them is I've done my personal growth, okay, because any time that we have emotional traumas from the past, is all these little things that happen in our daily life, that are going to get to us, that's going to wear us down, that's going to slow us that's going to hamper our relationships. And the more that I clear out, so I'm willing to be aware, and willing, and then part of the awareness, I'm going to feel the pain temporarily, while I'm gaining the awareness that it exists, so I'm not going to be in denial and avoid it. And then I'm willing to put out energy to do something about it. And this is a process that I've been refining. And it's beautiful because the more I do it, the easier life is challenges come up. And I could have more joy in the process of them. And so that, so a power monster Yogananda he's a yoga guru, right known around the world for his ability to help people feel happy and more energetic. And he said circumstances are neutral. So we need to keep that in mind is that nothing specifically causes stress, what causes stress is our reaction to things. And it doesn't mean that we accept any certain behaviour or any certain lifestyle, it just means that we change how we respond to it. So that's really the first thing is do your personal development work. The next thing I'm going to say is do something that raises your energy. And if you need to do that before the first one, in order to get yourself to take action, you do it. And that can start with doing something that you love doing. So really think about what excites you, what's your favourite favourite thing to do? And then find a way to do that, even if it's turning on music and dancing in your living room for five minutes. But I know earlier this year, I was going through a phase where nothing was really exciting me. You know, it was kind of like, okay, you know, but I'm still alive. So there's got to be something because I just truly believe that if we're living you know, then we should live. And and there's something that excites us. So I just sort of waited until I found something that excited me. And it was going to the opening Rockies baseball game locally here in Denver, and then it was going to the All Star game, and then it was staying at the Broadmoor and going yet to this beautiful charity gala. And the Broadmoor is the nicest resort in Colorado, right? And then it was skydiving. And what I realised was I needed to uplevel my life a bit from the experience that I'd been having in the past and say, How can I expand and grow, but I found something that excited me. But as soon as the excitement starts, you get more excited about everything else. And it's much easier to find the things that excite you. But what we can do right now all together, just something very easy to raise our energy is just take a double inhale and tense all of the muscles in your body make a really, really funny face while you do it. So you scrunch your face, double inhale, tense, tense, more oval, exhale, release. Do that again, double inhale, tense, tense your max so that everything is I write in your body, put everything you've got into this glory foot in the war, you're going to get out, don't exhale, release. Good, amazing. Third thing I'll say is because the word is popping into my head, so I go with that. It's the word choice. And the choice comes up in a lot of ways. What I'm going to recommend you actually do is read the last chapter of my book healing happens, stories of healing against all odds. And Maureen Bell was on her deathbed, from a type of cancer called non Hodgkins lymphoma. Her son came to visit, and he asked her, Why didn't you fight? You were the single mom, strong woman who raised me who knows about natural healing, like, why did you just give in? Why didn't you fight to anything? She's sitting there, oh, my gosh, do I have a choice to have a choice. She started healing from there. Nothing changed. The doctor said she was going to die any minute. She just decided she had a choice. We have a lot more choice in life, than we realise. You might need to continue to go through the experience that you don't like till you're really done with it. So just know that when you're done, the choice is there, and you can start moving in the new direction.

Anne Okafor: 47:18

Awesome. Actually incredible. I think one point on that is, for me, my big turnaround was realising that I had a choice, you know, from living a life that I had before, that really wasn't fulfilling me. And having that hard conversation I talked about quite a bit, it's that hard conversation with myself about, okay, things haven't been great. And, you know, we tell ourselves these stories, you know, your life's a bit rubbish. That's what you've been given. And, you know, I told myself that story over and over again, until I realised I had a choice. No, yes, had been given a rough start. Actually, if I stayed there, that was my choice to be staying there. And having that realisation that actually, this is on me, you know, and if you want to change something, and do something better, you have a choice to do that. And that was, it seems simple now to look at it. But at the time, I was so carried away with the story that I told myself for so long, and just that, you know, the daily grind of doing what I was doing, I wasn't generally unhappy, I just wasn't really fulfilled. But that realisation was like, oh, hell, this is on me. No, that was a big thing to actually swallow. And it was quite hard thing to swallow at the time. But since doing that, and having that realisation that I do have these choices in life, and I have the choice to thrive, you know, whereas before, I was probably in survival mode about, you know, just going through the motions, do what I needed to do to get by, to make an a choice to do something purposeful. And, you know, we can apply that in all sorts of ways. But realising that there's choices in everything, you know, we have so much more like saying so much more than we probably realised that we do. And in terms of, I guess, as well, you know, in the start of your journey, realising that the choice to stay corporate article, though, there's other route, you know, I think probably a realisation there that you have choices where we probably take for granted that we must go with the flow in the route of, you know, you go to school, you go to work, and then that's it forever until you retire sort of thing. But we actually have choices to do things differently. And to think outside the box, if that's what we choose to do. So that's a really great lesson, then then thank you so much for sharing that with us. How can our listeners get in touch with you? You've mentioned the website. Are you active on social media, then people can connect with you? We'll obviously drop the links in the show notes so people can connect and to obviously, access the resources that you've mentioned. But if you could just tell us where they can find you. That'd be

Avital Millar: 49:47

fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to access that webinar that I mentioned, Energise your life, complimentary seminar, you go to unlock unlimited energy calm, for my book, Healing happens and all of the other healing programmes associated With it, you go to healing happens book.com My contact information is on there but you can always email me directly info at Avi tall Miller calm of the tall. It's spelled a V for Victory i t for talented A L. And then now knowing my full name of Utah Miller, if you go to Facebook, I'm on all the social media platforms, you can find me on any of them. I personally spend the most time in Facebook. And you could follow me there. Unfortunately, Facebook put caps on how many people I can be friends with. But we can still connect and everything's visible. Instagram is I'll be told that love.

Anne Okafor: 50:37

Okay, perfect. Well, we will drop those links in the show notes so that people can be directed there. I'll make sure that they're included so that people can get to the right place. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible story and your insights with us. You know, you've been very generous with your time. I really appreciate that. And I'm sure our listeners do. There's lots and lots of resources that you've touched upon as well that I'm sure will be super useful to people. So thank you so much for that. And I'm sure people will, you know, get the benefit of that. So you're remarkable, you know, we're incredibly happy to find you.

Avital Millar: 51:14

Thank you so much for having me on here. You're most

Anne Okafor: 51:17

welcome. So whether you're bouncing back or storming forward to the determinant our collective is here for you stay remarkable to terminators.

Unknown: 51:25

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