Un-Hustling Your Life with Paden Hughes, Amazon Best-Selling Author, Speaker & HSP Coach

In this episode, we discuss how Paden Hughes went from a life of constant hustle and high ambition to finally listening to her body protesting it all.

We talk with the Author/CEO about how to get back up after burning yourself out, how to navigate being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), and managing it all while being a mom and a CEO. We also talk about her amazing book, Take Two, in which she chronicles her journey by resolving to take 2 hours per day to tune back in to herself.

About Paden Hughes:

Paden Hughes is a founder, speaker, podcaster, and author who is a leader in the areas of professional development, entrepreneurship, and health.

She was born and raised in California. She's a wife and a mom who is obsessed with defining success on her own terms and coaching others on how to buy back their time and experience with true freedom.

Paden Hughes believed that if she hustled more and more every day, her kids would be happier, her company bigger, her husband prouder, and her life simply perfect. Work hard, play hard, right? 

Well, she did it!   She was a respected business consultant: growing dozens of companies from six figures to seven and eight figures. She was a highly rated leadership trainer and speaker at Fortune 500 companies and grew her first business to 7-figures. A highly anxious, people-pleaser with no work boundaries, just blinded by her ambition to chase badge of honor after badge of honor so she could finally feel “good enough.”

Then she became a mom (twice over) and depletion heaped on top of her teetering health. Enter 2020 and the pandemic that shuttered her “non essential” business.

She headed to Sedona on a week long “soul adventure” and walked away with the marching orders to spend two hours a day alone, just learning to relax and reconnect with her intuition and needs. She carved that time out of her work hours so it wouldn’t impact her family. Just worked 10 less hours per week. Imagine setting that kind of boundary in your life? 

She gave it a three week trial and managed to do 21 days in a row. Shocked by how many things improved in her life, she kept going. That simple daily habit improved her health, wealth and happiness so dramatically that wrote a book about it. And now that journey is

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the Mindful Miri Podcast. Today on my show, I have the great pleasure of meeting, a dear author and hopefully future friend of mine, Paden Hughes. She is a founder, speaker, podcaster, and author who is a leader in the areas of professional development, entrepreneurship, and health.

And, She's born and raised in California. She's a wife, mom and is obsessed with defining success on her own terms, coaching others on how to buy back their time and experience. True freedom. Welcome to the show, Paden. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. It's been such a longstanding aspiration of mine to have you on the show since I picked up your book and was just.

went down the rabbit hole with you on your spiritual journey. I loved it. It was so inspiring. Thank you. Can you give us a little bit of background on what prompted you to write the book or go on your spiritual journey? so I never thought I would write a book just as a little sidebar here, because, I think there were other family members that were more interested in being good writers and just felt like too big of a project.

I was more excited about speaking at events than I was about writing my whole life story in. Sharing my guts between two pages, right? Or two book covers. but I realized that I had lived through something really transformational and powerful and about eight months into that journey, I had an awareness come into my mind saying, you need to put this into a book, cuz you're need to remember what it felt like to be this stressed out and to be this in denial.

of your truth really, and authenticity, and I had. Feeling like I, I'm gonna leave this so far behind in the rear view mirror. I'm never gonna remember what it feels like if I don't capture this right now. So that really became the motive. And so I just started journaling. I hired a book coach and I wrote the story, and why, what did what the story's really about?

Cuz I think that's what you're asking is like, how did what, why did you write a book? who's doing that these days? Much less in a pandemic with non-essential businesses that I own and two small children. . what it came down to is have you ever heard the phrase, your breakdown is your breakthrough or Make your mess your message?

Like all these little kitchy phrases that are honestly super inspiring, and nerve-wracking. Well, my breakdown came the day that I.  almost crashed my car on the way home and I have a five minute commute like it's  from one side of town to halfway through the side of town, like it's not very long. So it'll fall asleep and almost hit a tree and like swerve out into another Elaine and almost hit another car.

And then my first thought was, I hope no one saw. It was just like this sad moment. And then I get to my house and then my nanny leaves and I face plant in front of my kids on the kitchen floor. And I remember waking up and being, I didn't know where. And I saw plants on the ceiling and I was like, where am I?

And then I heard my little daughter's voice go, mom, are you okay? And I. Freaked out because it brought me back into like this moment of the fact that I'm a mom, that I'm actually in my own kitchen. How did I get here? I don't know. All of a sudden my body's not working. I tried to move my arms, I couldn't move my arms, I couldn't move my legs, and I'm just laying there.

The most helpless I've ever been. . as a gym owner, I've always relied on my body. I'm young-ish and I have never contemplated a reality in which my body couldn't show up for me. So in that dark moment, I just started crying and pretending, like faking in front of my kids that I was fine. And I remember that me being like, I'm playing a game.

Like, I didn't even believe my own words. Like my vibration was probably so clunky. I was like, I'm playing a game like you always wanna join me. And they just obviously called my bluff and just, mom, what's wrong with you? And then my little non-verbal, like 12 month old, came and just buried his head in my neck.

And they were tr like obviously scared. I was scared and that became my moment to go. Something's clearly wrong. and I spent half an hour on the floor of my kitchen, not being able to move, not being able to fake it for my kids, and having no idea what time it was and when anyone was gonna be there to help me.

Couldn't find my phone, which is a super scary moment. . and so that's where I found myself in this total state of burnout. And I did blood work panels and all this stuff and I was like one marker away from Hashimoto's Disease, which was gnarly cuz that's an autoimmune. disease primarily connected to stress and so I knew it was stress before the blood results came back.

and then I did something crazy I've never done before. A mentor of mine said, Paden, you keep asking the universe to show up for you. Why don't you show the universe that you're somewhat serious about your life and do something to show like that you mean it when you say you wanna change. So I was like, great.

What the F does that mean? Like, tell me please. What does that mean? I'm super literal. And she said, you need to go on a soul adventure in Sedona. And she sent me a link and I booked a week long retreat with these wild gurus, healers. Oh, I thought they were therapists. That was funny. I did zero research. I was so desperate.

I'm like, anything. You think is gonna fix me? I will write a check and go and do. And there I was in Sedona meeting with these healers who coming from a very religious Christian background, dawned on me like day one that these could all be witches and. Sort of liberated by the rebel of that and also simultaneously freaking out that what did I sign myself up for and who were these people?

Like, I did an energy healing session. I'd never done that before. And this, it's like a massage with energy and like, you don't know, but like I'm very, I'm a big feeler. Something I learned about myself from the. So I could feel stuff shifting in me, but this person is not touching me and their hands are like hovering over me.

And then she pulls out this pendulum and she's like, let me check your chakras. I'm like, I don't even know what a chakra is. So, I mean, the trip was wild. I learned so much about myself and it became the biggest catalyst. The biggest moment was. I learned I was a highly sensitive person and I was running my body to the ground by not honoring my sensitive self and trying to push myself to be like the rest of the world.

And so I, embraced this wild habit of taking two hours a day for myself. , which is almost sacrilegious in mom culture when you have little babies and you're a C E O. It's like how to trigger a female in one sentence. I have learned firsthand how to do it, and it's, hi. I spend two hours every day doing things that make me happy, and it's like every person, woman looks like they're about to have an aneurysm.

When I say that, I bet  be. So I wrote a whole book about it. I was so inspired by your book. Thanks. When you think about carving out that kind of time, it seems preposterous . Yeah, it does. . and then, but then I, I look back at the times when I've been happiest and I was carving out that kind of time, Pre-kids. I was in the gym for an hour and a half. , and then I would like stretch for an hour, for a half hour, or I would be out in nature hiking, for a couple hours. And if you do, the, weeks that I'm happiest, it's not two hours consecutively, but if I carve out like a half hour here, half hour, here it is, it comes up to, out to two hours.

I think that there is power in the consecutive, like the longer duration. , I think is, it's greater than the sum of its parts kind of thing. so two hours in one chunk is much more powerful than half an hour here, half an hour there throughout the day. But I think it's still important and it's still something, That if you don't have the, if you don't feel like you have the ability to do that, maybe, you know, just chunking it out would be like the first step. . I think, you know, it's like anything, the more I've been in A coach, the more you can't contrive someone else's breakthrough. even though like, yes, my clients can get amazing transformations, but they have to be at a place where they're coming to you because they're aware of something is so messed up, they're now willing to do something about it.

I don't know how you can make that up for someone. . And so it's interesting because my coaching clients will come and be like, Peyton, how do I un hustle myself? Or how do I get more free time in my life? But they're always there because something happened. Something that they didn't wanna turn back like they had to learn from and they didn't wanna forget or they couldn't forget.

When you go into the online sphere, everyone goes, well that works for you. That would never work for me. And I'm like, actually, it will work for you. When you have your rock bottom moment, I promised you that because I would've been the naysayer going. That's like actually ridiculous to spend that much time alone.

Like nothing about that feels appealing to me. It's, I would've never been appealed by that. Now I know that it's powerful because of what I live through. . I think that you have to hit some kind of rock bottom or a face plant or, I'll, I'll throw my back out every once in a while and it'll be like a, oh, that's the universe telling me , I'm doing too much.

I'm, I need to slow down. when you physical body, if you don't have your physical health, you have nothing. It's really true. Health is, . And when we forget that until we lose it and we're like, oh my gosh, I can't put myself in that kind of jeopardy. Absolutely. There's no, you can't even put a price on physical health.

Like you can't buy that, as, much as you can buy, you know, you can buy medications and you can buy all the cures and the treatments for everything, but, but to have physical health and to make it sustainable, you can't buy that. and I think that you have to get dissatisfied enough to implement change.

Otherwise, you're fine with the status quo. I've been going through this intense, uh, coach certification process because mm-hmm. , I'm like obsessed with HSPs or highly sensitive People and there's a huge certification I run get, but I have to log enough coaching hours to get there. And the awareness that I've been really having to re-wrap my brain around is one of the po most powerful moments a coach has.

is to hold space when it's the most uncomfortable. And it's so hard as an empath and as a highly sensitive person, you must wanna help someone in front of you. Sometimes the best help you can give someone is to let them sit and stew in how shitty that moment feels for them, because that's where the transformation, like, that's where the intensity of desire to shift reality shows up.

And if you move into, let me help you or sympathize with you, or, Help you feel better about it. You rob the person in front of you of the very best thing they can get out of it, which is a resolution that this can't continue. Beautifully said, and it's such a hard space for me as a coach  just be like, but then I've lived it where I'm like, no, if I hadn't face Planed, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now.

I wouldn't have had a book. I wouldn't have done a career change, like none of that. I would still be.  convincing myself that it was good to be selfless and a people pleaser and have no boundaries in my life, and that that somehow made me more valuable as a woman. tell us a little bit about that.

Where did you get your messaging and your beliefs and what were they? so I have. What's called good girl syndrome. a lot of us have been programmed to learn that basically the key to surviving modern culture is to be the nice one, the good one, the successful one. For me. I'm also an Enneagram three, which is the achiever personality style.

And I've always thought, and I don't know if it came so much for my parents, this one, I just know there's a lot of Enneagram three s in our extended family. And so when we would get together, everyone would go, I'm so busy, and we'd start layering on everything awesome and exemplary we were doing. So I would just notice that this was, how to get people excited about me was to talk about what I'm doing that's cool and not who I am.

anything about my heart's desires, nothing about who I was as a person. It started to become very apparent to me growing up the school system, being competitive as an athlete and as a, even in speech and debate, I was very competitive in that and I started to realize like, I just need to win when I'm a winner.

everyone's into me or like I'm more desirable as a human, so that's what I have to do. Then you layer that with the fact I was a pastor's daughter in a very, conservative, evangelical Christian background, and so then it was about being good enough.  and I don't know that I, I hold my parents like, I wouldn't blame them for a lot of that.

What I would say is just the, pastors that I grew up underneath, the Christian friends that I had, there was always this sense of, as a woman, you cannot be influential outside of being a mother, just straight up. You don't see it in that denomination. Women are not in leadership unless it's over the children's.

So what I learned from that was, oh, okay, I, I gotta be a mom. Mom's. That's gonna be probably the most rewarding moment of my life is when I get to be a mom. And it really was. I remember at some point going, I can die as soon as I get married and have kids, which is like the most ridiculous thing. Like that would be the epitome of my life is if I can be a wife to someone and a mother to someone and there I will have achieved.

Passion and purpose in my life. And hey, I don't say that to diminish people who really do feel like that is their true gift to society. and I wanna be careful of that cuz while that ideology has created pain in my life, it doesn't mean it has for everyone. And some people might find that to be incredibly restorative as a message, but for me, I found.

it wasn't fulfilling at all actually to become a wife and a mother and a large part of why I found that to be so hard was, there was a lot of judgment in my very conservative background and friendships around a working mom.  and it's like, it's okay to work once your kids are in kindergarten once the youngest one hits.

That's sort of the ideology. Once the youngest one's in kindergarten, now you can justify a work, but it should only be part-time and it should probably only be from nine to two 30 so you can be there to get the kids. that's like what I was raised is so when I fell in love with entrepreneurship and love being a business consultant, I was like, well, what do I do about this?

I gave myself eight weeks. My, I think I took 12 weeks off of my first.  and I was back at work in eight weeks cuz it was so hard for me to be alone. Now there's all sorts of reasons why it was hard for me to be alone. That has nothing to do with motherhood, has to do with me just not knowing how to be a person and just only be a human doing and constantly be doing to impress everyone and so that I could somehow relax that I had to earn it so I could take a break.

I had su suffered from a lot of what I refer to now as hustle culture. So that's kind of the background of some of the beliefs that were really hard for me. I hear you. I think that many of our listeners will resonate with that message and, and with that past. I certainly, at least societally.

Felt the pressure to be a mother and to be, you know, a really good mother. And there's all kinds of judgment around birth and nursing and what kind of discipline you're doing and all of that. And I had the added pressure of being a school psychologist and a behavior analyst. So I have to have perfect children who, you know, are mentally healthy and.

and well-behaved. And I got voted most in my grad  in my grad program. I got mo voted most likely to have well-behaved children. Oh my gosh. That is pressure. and then there's, there's always the added pressure of whatever, eth. Culture you're within. So for me it was, my parents are from the Soviet Union and they were Jewish refugees. And so I had that like, gotta marry Jewish, raise your children Jewish.

and take the path like to grad school where we couldn't do that in the Soviet Union. And then also teach your child to be, to speak Russian. Oh wow. And. . And then on top of, you know, it's like teach, teach, sign language, teach Russian, teach English, teach. Oh, but we're in California. Gotta teach Spanish and

It's like,

so I think that the pressure is just pervasive, especially probably, Southern California. I, I don't know if we're southern or not, but to Southern we're . . And I think that there's a lot of judgment around what, how you raise your children, how you're being a mother and working full-time and things like that.

And I think that there are a lot more working mothers around us because of the cost of living here. But at the same time, you're now expected to do everything and the full-time job, right? pretty hard even when you have a supportive partner, which not everybody does, right. Even my husband, I mean, I still had to learn the lesson of, and I'm still learning the lesson for sure, of I have to give room for him to step in to help me, but he won't step in unless there's a void.

So it's like I have to be the, in the uncomfortable position of sometimes going, I need to ask for help and then create space for him to move in to help me without judgment. Right? Yeah. Without judgment. And then, and with the possibility of having to let some balls get dropped mm-hmm.  so that he can feel the urgency to be needed in that.

Absolutely. Really an interesting concept. and I think between moms, we'll often, in close rooms with a glass of wine or whatever. Start to admit, oh my gosh, like I'm doing so much. This is so overwhelming. My mental health. This is insane. How do, why? How come he doesn't notice all this stuff?

How come I'm the one that has to fill out all the vaccine records for school and create the online portals for my kids, for every freaking medical practitioner in the free world? Like all that kind of stuff. That just layers in. And then, But we also just don't ask for help . And we also then, when we ask for help, if it's not immediate help, we'll just do it and be mad about it.

Yes. So it's a hard thing. Hard. Yeah. It's been interesting. so I'm remarried and I have a blended family. Okay. And, four kids total and it's been an interesting. Dynamic being a stepmom. Mm-hmm. . And in the beginning I tried very hard just to be, I mean, not to replace their mom, they have a fully functioning mom, but to be the mom at this house and do all the things that I would do for, for my biological son.

And so I did all the portals and the parties and the everything. And what's interesting is that, I just. Did not feel any kind of fulfillment about that. I mean, I have trouble gaining fulfillment out of motherhood in the first place. Like more power to you if you, if you do. I wish that, filled me up, but it part, you know, a little bit, it fills me up.

When you're chasing the gold star, there's no gold star in motherhood, unless maybe it's on social media. Well, anyway, but in any case, what I wanted to say was that, I've taken a little bit of a backseat for certain things and. The need when I released my need to control and my need to know be on top of everything, like all the sports schedules and all the birthday parties and all the, gifts for everybody and donations and the days off and half days and all of these things when I've sort of, I sort of relinquished that on my stepkids side, not because I love them any less or anything like that, but just because I was up to here.

My husband totally stepped into that role. Awesome. And I almost feel like probably what most dads feel like  in that situation where, you know, totally, I'm there. I'm there. I'm prepared to help. I love them. I wanna be part of their lives. But my husband kind of has taken over that role and it's a beautiful thing.

it becomes much more balanced. it, absolutely does. There's a great book called Fair Play, and I don't know if I'm gonna pronounce her last name right, but it's by Eve Rodsky and it talks about how many more hours per week moms, working moms or just moms in general do around the house.

compared to their working counterparts. Mm-hmm. , you know, whether that's a male or a female, doesn't matter. Like whoever has assumed the gender roles that traditional society has given us. and it's kind of this.  It's actually very validating for a lot of us, but it also is angry. It makes us angry  to look at it and go, you're right.

I am doing all of this stuff. This is wild. I'm doing like 20 hours extra of work, just running errands around the family with outside of my jobs, like just that. and so it's a good, she helps to facilitate some ways to have conversations with partners around. Oh, that's great. I love it.

Even spreadsheets around how to divvy it up and divide it up, like it's really cool how she's done it. I love it. It's called Fair play. Fair play, yeah. that's awesome. I'll check that out. So it sounds like your, relationship with yourself as a woman, as a human, as a mother, and maybe your measure of success has really changed across decades.

Yes. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about. . Oh, that's such a great, question cuz for me, one of my first breakthroughs came when I decided why was success important for me? And I did something that I take my clients through called the Seven Layers Deep, exercise, which is about why is this success, what does success mean to you, or why is it important?

And I would, I think 

I said, I think I, my first answer had to do with money, truthfully. Oh, okay. Like, because when I have money, I'll be able to have the ability to relax. And it was like, why? And then you asked the next layer, why is relaxing important to you? Right. Well, because then I'll be.  in a state of peace.

Why is being in a state of peace important? And you do that seven different layers, and it's fine for the first four, but the last three are excruciating, but it distills down. What are you ultimately chasing? Because we've all been served up the lie that with more money we can have what we want. Mm-hmm.

The reality is I know so many people who have sold businesses, made a shit ton of money who are freaking going. This was a. This is not changing anything about my belief, about my value, who I love, what I'm doing with my time. Like I don't, I still have all the same problems. Money didn't fix anything.

And so for me, when I first did that, my answer was so I can be at peace. And I had this awareness, you can have peace right now. there is no 6 million that writes you a check called. Yes, there's, that's not a thing that happens and it's like, whoa, I should be infusing peace into my lived experience every day instead of doing what I think most of us in our culture do is we think of peace as being two weeks out of the year where we're on vacation.

Hopefully not with extended family . It's like, , we basically have zero plan for peace in any section of our life. And then weirdly, as moms with little kids, we've somehow believed that that's actually true to have no peace in our life. And for a decade, however long until your youngest is however old, are you even allowed to entertain concepts that you deserve to have a break in any small capacity.

It's, it's absolutely insane. So I had this awareness of like, my whole definition of success is not about money. It's about being at peace. And now I need to figure out what that looks like. And that's where I said earlier, like being a mom was, I went back to work part-time at when my daughter was eight weeks old because I was literally new.

It was like a mental health disaster for me to be alone and be in a space where I was needed 24 7. , I was losing my mind. And so I went back partially for that, but I also didn't know how to be a human. Mm-hmm.  really, it's kind of a silly thing to say, but I was a human robot who wanted to achieve things, and everything in life was a checklist, including me if I even made the list.

And so, . I literally was like, I don't even know what I like anymore. Mm-hmm. . So when I came outta Sedona and the whole thing was, spend two hours alone a day, can you do it? And I gave myself a challenge to do it for 21 days to see if there was a difference. And after seven days, I knew I was never gonna stop cuz it was so profound.

I didn't know what I even liked to do. So when the, when I was so obsessed with finding two hours that by the time I showed up for my first two hours, I had no idea what to do.  because I didn't even know what I liked. I literally was going back to like, what do I do? What's me? I don't even know. I know what music I like.

Great news. Check the box. Paden knows what music she likes.  like it was to that level. I was like, Oh my gosh. And so I made a list of everything I think I liked as a kid, like from the memories that I can muster up from childhood, like what did I like doing? And I started just doing those, climbing a tree, going on a picnic, reading a book, like what do I even like?

I danced a lot in high school. Maybe that wasn't just for show and tell purposes, maybe I actually liked it. So I started dancing and I slowly started to find my way back to remembering who I was.  as a human without anybody giving a shit about what I thought I had achieved. So I think I put myself back together, is what it ended up being a journey of finding the pieces of me that I left behind.

Mm-hmm.  and undervalued and suddenly going, you know, that actually is good about me. And one of those things was kindness. I had undervalued kindness cuz I hadn't seen anyone succeed with kind. But I was like, look, no one is out there. Like, and that's kind of flawed now. I'm like, no, kind managers are more beloved managers.

Like they might, they're, that's a flawed thought. But at that time, that was my thought. My belief was flawed or not. You can't be successful and be this bleeding heart out here. So we better shove that bleeding heart into the crevices. Suction that sucker in so that no one can see. There even is a heart.

And then you'll be more successful. . So it was sad to, like, I had to come back to, I, love myself and I love and value kindness. Can I bring that out from, you know, the ashes over here? And there was just a lot of me that started coming back, little by little, little hike by hike, sunlight on my skin, by sunlight on my skin.

Climbing tree after climbing tree that I don't know how I would've otherwise put back together if I hadn't been so intentional with taking that much time for myself. because, I mean, I'd done it all. Literally, I could calculate over a hundred thousand dollars that I have spent on therapists, coaches retreats, breakthrough experiences, trying to fix my problem.

and the problem was I just was disconnected from myself. That was the problem. I am pure love. All of us are. When we don't feel like that's true, it's because we've moved so far from that and there's been so many hurdles and so much friction that we actually, the journey home is about just moving the resistance and undoing all the harmful programming we've bought into and been taught.

whether from a place of love or not, that distanced us from ourselves. And that was my journey and still is, honestly, it's probably never gonna end. . I've decided. . I have a really good tool in my tool belt called taking two hours a day for myself. , it shouldn't end. we're ongoing, we're lifelong learners.

We're grow, we're creatures of growth. everything that you said with me with just. In the last few minutes resonated intensely with me. I think that a lot of us, especially, women, are, you know, the, aspiration is to be selfless and to allow other people's preferences to eclipse your own.

Sacrifice, sacrifice and be a martyr and sort of burn the candle at both ends. Personal life, work life, and it's struggle. We're, taught at, I mean, at least my, entire belief system was like, life is struggle and you move forward. You, it's gonna suck. , you do, it's, it's all about how much shit you can.

For how long and still be okay. Like be functional. Yeah, functional. Not like mentally. Okay, but like functional. Look. Okay. look. Okay. Look. Okay. That distinction, we all know you're losing your shit behind closed doors and no one's gonna talk about it. Do you look okay? What's your Instagram be like?

Right, right, Well, on pre-Instagram it was like, I, may have gotten two hours of sleep last night, but I'm still gonna present in, you know, in my grad program. I'm still gonna present the three hour presentation. I'm still gonna write my paper and do all these things, you know, and work myself, rack.

And there is, I think that there's a beauty in that. , if it's coming from the right place, like if you're inspired and excited and living with passion and purpose and you're, staying up all night because you're just inspired to write or yeah, do something, do art, write music, things like that.

But if it's for the grind, you're sacrificing yourself and your, health and your preferences. very. . I remember, reading a Jack Canfield book probably 20 years ago when I was in mortgage sales. And, he said... it was such a simple thing, but it really resonated with me. It was, he was talking about this workshop that he led and he said, you know, everybody got a notebook on their, on their chair, and it was all different color notebooks.

what he did is made an announcement that said, Hey, you got a random color notebook and if you don't like it, you're welcome to trade for a color that you do like. And that little tiny just possibility of like showing a preference Was at that time very mind blowing for me.

I thought, wow, I can show preference, like I matter mm-hmm. , right? If, I wanna do something, maybe I get to do, I decide where we go to dinner, maybe I get to decide what color. Yeah, maybe I get to decide what color my hair is and how my length of hair and, you know, all of these things.  and many relationships don't.

either don't allow that or suppress that or, and I'm talking family relationships, spousal relationships. Mm-hmm. , all of them. Maybe even relationship with yourself and what you think you're supposed to be. It's huge. So looking back, if you could tell yourself, your younger self, some encouraging.

Or even, it doesn't have to be way back young. It could be prior to the face plant. What would you say to yourself?

A few things come to mind. I would tell myself, Peyton, your sleeping Phoenix. And you were gonna rise out of the ashes in a huge freaking fire flame and get ready cuz it's coming. That's the first thing I would say. Like, the imagery is big, right? Like, Here I, and it's gonna be,  very extreme to everyone watching, but it's gonna feel like you've ripped the bandaid off and you've rebirthed yourself and get prepared for that.

the other thing I think I would say is your sensitivity is powerful. and to honor it. Stop hiding it. I think I would say that. . Let's talk a little bit about sensitivity. So you found out that you're a highly sensitive person. We share that in common . And tell me a little bit about your discovery of that and Yeah.

And insights that it's lent to you. . So I remember having this conversation that changed my life in Sedona with this amazing guru called Kamala, which is an Indian name, but she's German. So that was a whole story and I was like, what? Who are you? Wise woman? She's like almost got this sh white hair.

So she has like a, it looks like she's a perpetual aura of like crown. Wow. She just looks so dazzling and she tells me Pey. , you are driving yourself like you're a Lamborghini when you are a Toyota Tacoma, and you need to stop. , and I'm not much of a car person, but I knew enough to be insulted slightly because , wait a second.

I didn't have a problem with Toyota Tacomas before this moment. But now all of a sudden you've done this comparison thing and now I'm like, me versus the Lamborghini. What? Like I'm the Lamborghini. And that's what I felt. I almost felt triggered like, you don't understand, like I wanna compete and I wanna win.

I'm the winner. Like I built my whole identity around that and. . She said, no, you're a highly sensitive person. And I said, no, I'm not. I'm the one They hire and bring in to fire people because I can do it without crying. That doesn't sound like a sensitive person. She's like, no, you are. You've been running from your sensitivity.

And as soon as she said that, and then I think she said something like, when did you stop feeling safe? Feeling all your feelings and carrying the weight of other people's emotions around. And I could have pointed at an eight year old version of me that realized at that moment in time, that was a rough existence.

And I think that's right around the timeline where I decided to be strong. And unfortunately, my definition of strength was rooted in modern day culture, versions of strength, which is shove your feelings down, have no feelings, and just do the hard thing. Take all feelings out of anything. Don't trust your body.

Don't trust your intuition. That's a joke. Just be smart. Do the smart thing and take action. And I did that and my body had been crying. I mean, there were signs I got, gave myself an OLS ulcers at 22 years. Like barely a year out of college and I was drinking like 10 cups of coffee a day and barely eating.

and it's like, because I was just so H S P, which is highly sensitive person, so focused, cuz that's my one. Like one really cool thing about me is I deep dive and I focus and I don't get out of the deep dive until I'm done figuring it out. Well, it caused me to ignore my body. There were so many signs of stress, so many, uh, mood swings, like just a lot of things that I was embarrassed about.

And so when she said, you're a highly sensitive person, and we talked about what that meant, she said that meant means that you have a big heart. You're an empath. That means that you have a deep way of processing things. Your brain works like a detective's.  wall where this string connects this dot, and you're always connecting dots and solving problems everywhere you go.

And that's atypical. And I was like, no, that's just a smart person thing. She like, no, it's not. It's not about you being smart, it's about you just having a brain that solves problems in a creative way. She goes, you're an intuitive person. You're incredibly intuitive. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm like, I'm straight logic brain over here.

Give me a strategy that is black and white. And she's like, no, you haven't even explored the way your intuition could show up for.  and I think probably the way she said that goaded me to go. Well, geez, there's untapped potential in me. Like that's literally how I viewed it. , I was like, oh, what you think I have some supernatural gifts over here?

Like I gotta explore those before I write this whole thing off. And so that got me to explore sensitivity, which is, am I more intuitive than others? Am I a better problem solver? Do I? Is that why I can read people so damn well? This whole time I thought I was just the queen of personal development. Turns out I'm just a big empath running around, reading people.

And so that all started to connect the dots. And then I watched the documentary, I'm sure you've seen it called Sensitive the movie. Don't. No, haven't. Oh my gosh. It's like someone wrote a documentary for us to explain ourselves to the world. . Ooh. I love it. It's wild. And it helped me to realize the things that I felt so deeply rejected by and misunderstood by were the very things that made me sensitive.

Say that again for me. Everything that I had felt rejected by or misunderstood by was connected to being highly sensitive. So it gave me this language to describe why my reality was actually different than most people's, and I wasn't just making that up. That wasn't me being dramatic. That was me going, oh my gosh, I can watch a movie that's too emotional for me and I can cry for three straight hours.

and no one understands why I can do that because I'm heartbroken. Because I fell in love with these characters and they got abused by authority figures. Mm-hmm . And I'm incensed and the world is wrong and it's a dark place to be these vulnerable people. And I'm like crying about it for hours. So like those kind of moments finally gave me the ability to go.

It's cuz I have greater range for emotional. Intensity. Like I feel it all. And that's an H S P thing. I mean, we are technol with feelings instead of pastel and the world doesn't know how to handle that. We're just too much of everything and sort of allowed me to realize, Wow. I need to be more empathetic cuz this is a shared experience.

This isn't just me being crazy and 80% of the population doesn't know what the fuck my reality is, like also giving them some space because they don't understand that this is a thing. . So it really filled in a lot of gaps for me personally. I'm gonna have to watch that. That sounds, it's so good.

Plus, you know, most sensitive souls have sensitive children. So then you've got the sensitive, highly sensitive mom dynamic with a highly sensitive kid, which I have with my daughter, and that's been a learning curve.  and learning to parent her in a way where her sensitivity is a powerful thing and not something she has to feel bad for at age six.

Yes. That is even more reason to research and know yourself and reflect on how it relates to how your child is and sort of guiding them towards their strength. . Yeah. And not viewing everything as a challenge, just because it doesn't fit into our little box, our cookie cutter box of how children should be.

So going forward, how do you, function differently as an H S P? I mean, I have just decided to write myself a lot of permission slip.  and to get playful with it. if you can't already tell me, just deciding to take two hours a day lends me to being more extreme than other people, and that's like absolutely part of my personality type E My, besides being highly sensitive, I like to dance in the world of extremes.

And so when it comes to honoring me as an H S P, the two hours a day thing is the biggest thing I've ever done for myself without a question. . But there's other things that I'll do where I'll tell my husband, like, I can't do more than one social event on the weekends. Or it pushes me out in a really, in a way that everyone pays the price.

I'm gonna be irritable, I'm gonna be, everyone's walking on eggshells. I don't want you to, but I don't know how to be a normal human. Mm-hmm.  with this kind of social output. I also recognize that I'm a very rare type of H S P, where I'm an extroverted h s. . So it's very confusing for me because I love people and then I tap out and sometimes I can't always predict when that's gonna happen.

So limiting the amount of social experiences I have helps. But also if they're really good friends, I'll say, you know, can I make a game time decision about attending? Mm-hmm. , because I don't know how I'm gonna feel that day, and I wanna give myself the ability to show up in the best way I can. And I'm not sure what that day's gonna be like.

That's huge. . So that's a big one. And then I have just a better vocabulary to describe and myself, . And I think I also, and maybe, I don't know if you do this too, but I looked around and realized pretty much every one of my clients are highly sensitive and almost all of my friends are too. Cuz those ended up being the people I felt safest with because they could hold my bigness.

And they also had their own version of, Yes, I do have my share for sure. it's hard sometimes it's hard because people block it, like you were saying. Yeah. They stuff down their emotions and they were told, I mean, I definitely was told You're too sensitive. Don't, yeah. Why are you making this a big deal?

Why can't you just be easy and. . tell me, a little bit more about how you, when you feel, are feeling sort of in that H S P overwhelm. How do you describe it? I'm just curious. I mean, I've experienced a range of things. I mostly just feel like, and if anyone's, you can't see it, so I'm gonna describe it.

is, I feel like if I was shaking my hands right by my head and it's like, got this wild vibration, I just feel like it's. , destabilizing. Like you're just, like you're, all of a sudden the floor becomes the ocean and you're just moving and you're trying to get stability back. And this is happening emotionally.

This is happening physically, this is happening mentally, and it just feels very chaotic and very splintered, and you just need to pause and regulate your nervous system and you'll come back to your home base and you'll be fine. But it's this awareness. So that's what, it feels like.

Sometimes it feels like a spiral and you can't stop and you can't get out of it, and you're just losing your mind. But normally that's like really bad. That's like a stage five situation. , right? . the same perception with the, like the shaking and the, I call it like discombobulated or, I like that.

you said destabilizing. Yeah, that's a great word for it. I feel like almost dizzy in every arena. Physically, mentally. Yeah. I just feel like that. so what do you do to, on a daily basis, you're doing the two hours to sort of like a proactive approach, but when you do feel destabilized, what are you doing to bring yourself back to a regulated nervous?

my favorite things to do is to just be out. Just go on a walk if possible, even if it's short, and just get, get physically changed my environment. if it, if I don't have time for that and I'm anxious, I'll do 10 minutes of breath work. I or do a meditation of some kind. Typically a walking one speaks to me.

Mm-hmm. , again, it depends on how much time and how desperate it is. Sometimes I'll be in a moment with other people and go, I actually am not in a good place. can I cycle back in a few minutes? I just need a minute for myself. , and I might just have to say that, and I've learned that if I do that, people are far more forgiving than I ever thought they would be.

And they can see and perceive the difference because people respond to energy. And when you come in with chaotic energy, you. , you basically magnetize their chaos to join you. Mm-hmm. . And they can feel that even a regulated person can go, whoa, why do I feel, you know, not at ease when Peyton walks in the room?

Well, cuz I'm not at ease. And you're absorbing that too, and especially other empass. So. Mm-hmm. , it's, it's doing everyone a favor to step away and get a break. Awesome. How are you on. I have a, my nanny's dropping my kids off in like a minute. Okay. last question. Every, podcast we end with Just one question, in my community for body freedom, for busy women, we talk about feeling light, healthy, confident, and free in our bodies at any size without dieting and deprivation. you know, wa being able to walk down the street in a burlap sac and feel confident and at ease, and just coming to food with ease and grace and savoring, what does body freedom mean to.

to me, body freedom actually is trusting that my body carries the wisdom that I need for any minute in my time. And so I've always been taught that my, mind and my logic brain is where all the wisdom is. But I have found that that's not true, cuz my brain can talk myself in and out of it, literally anything.

but my body's truth, resound. . And so I've found that to me, body freedom is checking in with my body. what do I need today? What, you know, when I have a twist in my stomach, what is that teaching me about the person I'm talking to right now? or if I have an ache or a pain, it's my body's loving way of saying take care of me.

And so to me it's like trusting that your body is a portal of wisdom. and, so many ancient cultures know.  and we've just decided it'd be better to act like computers than beating hearts. But now when we come back to, hold on, my body has been carrying wisdom the whole time.

when my body face planted me to get my attention, I mean, I can actually look back and go, instead of hating my body for those things, I couldn't realize that was my body trying to save me. And I now look at it as my biggest ally. That's beautiful. I love that. And I think also, you know what, I'll say this as becoming a mom.

I've never loved my body more than witnessing the ability to grow a human totally like inside of me. So like, I think I was like already in a, in a state, like, I don't care if my body never looks the same again. Like, that was magnificent. . And so I had that kind of like, I'm so proud of what I just did in my body, and then now I'm realizing that it's the seed of my wisdom for sure.

And my, your gut instinct is so, so powerful. So for me that that's been my freedom in my body. Beautiful. Thank you. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the show and connect with you. Where can we find out more about. Uh, you can go follow me on Instagram or TikTok at Paden Hughes, or you can go to my website, www.padenhughes.com.

Awesome. We'll have those in the show notes. Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Everybody pick up the book, take two by Payton Hughes rave reviews on Amazon and my personal review. I loved it, loved it, loved it. Very inspirational and well written, so thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the show.