finding joy in everyday life with author kathleen ives | april self-love book club

in this april book club episode of the self-love archives, we’re joined by author kathleen ives to talk about her book 7 ways to live in joy today.

we explore simple, realistic ways to bring more joy into your everyday life without overwhelm- from small mindset shifts to practical tools you can actually use. if you’ve been feeling stuck, disconnected, or unsure how to feel happier, this conversation offers a gentle, accessible path back to yourself.

grab kathleen's book here

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Transcript

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Something you said in our last podcast together was, your New life will cost you your old one. Mm. And I love this quote so much because it leads us into a brand new journey that you have taken yourself and are taking all of us on with you. And that is with your new book. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. I am your host, Julia Svia, and this is our special episode with author Kathleen Ives, where we talk about our April Book Club book of the month called Seven Ways to Live. Enjoy Today. I hope you enjoy. It's crazy. It's been what, a year, two years? No, a year and a half. I actually have no idea. It's one minute I see you. So I see you on social. So I'm like, ah. I know, I know where she is. I know what she's doing. I think she's doing stuff Well, I didn't have this little nugget last time, did I? And now you have it. And tell me, tell me, so this is your brand new book? It just launched like a month, couple weeks ago, August. Yeah. Yeah. And it's called, I like to call it the Enjoy book. I know people like to have their own name for it, which I totally love. Mm-hmm. I have no problem with that. I people, some people call it seven ways, seven Ways to Live, enjoy, enjoy. Like it has their own little thing. I know it's a little long, seven Ways to Live, enjoy today, but um, yeah, people have been. Loving it and I'm, I'm so honored and grateful and I keep getting people messaging me every day like, wow, I, like, it's so easy to digest. And I, that was my goal. I wanted a book that maybe, you know, not everyone on their journey. Read before, or if you are starting your journey and you don't wanna read a 400 page dissertation on waking and all that. Like this is such a, it's so, it's 114 pages, like it's so easily accessible. You can put it in your bag. It's cute. And there's, um, I put journal pages in between the chapters so you can actually write in it, you can highlight in it. Uh, you'll come back to it time and time again, but you could read it in an afternoon. I think that's what I really loved about it too, is that it was so easy to read because I think asking yourself like how if you're not in a good space or in a good place and you're not happy, but you wanna find more joy in your life, how do you. Do that without it feeling so overwhelming and sometimes opening up. Opening up a book. Yeah, opening up a book that's like 300, 400 pages with tiny font and not like a direct like path, I guess, to like actually figure it out. Like it, it can be even tools. Yeah. I really wanted to give people tools that I've used and developed and that work. Mm-hmm. And have them be able to implement them in very easy ways. This is not for the, you know, high level spiritual teacher that has a million followers and. Like that is not the essence I wanted to put into the book. It's not here I am teaching you down here about concepts. It's here we both are, and this is what worked for me. If this worked for you, great. If you don't resonate with it, leave it like, it's just, I hope it can open people's minds just a little bit because it's truly not even. Although its basis and core is from my spiritual awakening, it's not necessarily a spiritual book. It doesn't talk about those kind of beliefs. Mm-hmm. It's just like, how do I make joy my baseline? That doesn't mean I'm never sad. That doesn't mean I don't have grief. That doesn't mean I don't experience a plethora of emotions. It's just how you choose to look at them, how you choose to look at the lessons, and sometimes as we know it. Not right away where we're like, okay, there. There was a positive lesson in this trauma. It's okay to not see it right away. It's okay to move through those emotions, safely release them, and it could take time before you get to the point of being able to look back and see something like that. But almost every single. Lesson, trauma experience. Anything I've been through after that time of kind of grieving it and feeling it, I've always been able to see a lesson or a positive out of it or something I've grown from and something I've learned and. That is truly what this book is about. It's looking at your life from a different perspective and opening your mind to the possibility that, hey, maybe I do have more control over my thoughts and feelings and my reality than we're taught to believe. Yeah, and I think it's so amazing that your simplifying something that really is inherently simple but can feel so overwhelming for someone. Mm-hmm. Especially if they are like deep in that. Whole, as I like to call it, and absolutely, it's, it's kind of like that quote, like, your, your new life will cost you your old one. And like, we are so uncomfortable with change. So slowly taking someone into these changes that their life is going through, whether it is a recent trauma that they've experienced, or it's just a change of, uh, a career. Like either way, if it's a small change or a big change, you're taking them slowly through it. Through the seven ways. Through the seven doors to actually, you know, make themselves feel more comfortable with that change so that they're more excited about it and they're understanding that they are gonna have to grieve the past version of themselves, the person they were before they changed this job, before they even read this book, um mm-hmm. Before they've made the changes that they need to, in order to be that person that lives more in joy with, with their lives. And that's okay. And that's what life is about. It's about constant change and I just really wanted to make it accessible. Like even in my journey, I bought a bunch of books and I was like, okay, I'm gonna read all these books, I'm gonna watch all these documentaries. And even though I love to learn, it felt very overwhelming. And so I always was the type of person that I would buy a book and I would read like something in the middle, and then I would go back to the beginning and then I would shoot forward, and then I would put it down and. I stopped guilting myself for that, and that's why I structured it in the sense of doors, like you can walk through any door you want in life and in this book, and if you don't like it, try another door. If you're not ready for this door, go back to the first door. Like you don't have to do it in succession. I just did it in succession the way that I felt, my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 doors. But yeah. Um, you can go through any door and if there's no pressure, there's no anxiety. If you read one door and it stays on your table for the next three months, great, fine. That's, that's perfectly fine. That's exactly what you needed at the time. You can come back to it whenever you're ready. Like, I don't want feeling better to feel laborous. Do you think it's like about. Maybe choosing one of these doors to go through. And if one of them is overwhelming, you are more than welcome to kind of leave and come back later for sure. But it's the idea of making sure that you keep trying to go through these doors rather than just sitting in the hallway. Yes. And there's, there's an infinite amount of doors. Like in life, if you don't like a certain path, you can change it at. Anytime. And if you're like, well, I changed it. I don't like this, you can change again. You can. You can change as many times as you want. I do think there is an element of sticking to something. For a certain amount of time before you really fully believe in your soul that it's not for you. There is sort of a edge there that you have to keep going and keep pushing a little bit, but once you feel in your soul like, Hey, I really don't think this is for me anymore, then swish it up. You know, you're not stuck in anything ever, and I think we get, we build these lives, whether it's with a partner or with your job, or we get stuck in these. Lives that we've created, these, these roles, we put boxes in and we're like, oh, I can't change now. I'm too far in. Yes, you can, you can change anything at any time. It's like you get, it's like, I'm, well, I made this choice. I have to stick with it. But in actuality, like no. If that, if your answer at one point was yes, you are more than welcome to say no now because it's not aligned with who you are now. Who you are today. Yes, because you are changing. And that goes with your beliefs too. You know, you could maybe believe one thing is one of your core values and wake up one day and be like, this doesn't align with me anymore. And people will be like, oh, that's crazy. Or like, let let them say whatever they want. You can change your beliefs at any time to whatever you want. Yeah. And I loved what you said in the book too, about how, if, I think it was very early on in the book where. We have to be open to experiencing different ways to be, different ways to change or different ways to provide ourselves with joy. It's, it's kind of like how a lot of people are. So, um, against like all the WOOWOO stuff. They're like, oh well, mm-hmm. That's not for me. I was like, well, have you ever tried it? Yeah. How do you know? And if it does work for you, even in a placebo type of way, who cares? It works for sure. Well, anything works that you fully believe in. Yeah. Your beliefs are your greatest tools, so whether it's astrology or crystals or none of those things, like whatever you believe, if you believe that they don't work, then they're not gonna work. If you believe that they do work, then they'll work. Like it's, it's truly just the magic in it is not the item or the practice. It is the power of your belief in it. A hundred percent. So if I believe that drinking water out of this green water bottle every day is going to make me happier, I guarantee you I'll be happier if that is my core belief in that water bottle. Like it can be the smallest things or the biggest things, but that's what shapes your reality because your thoughts manifest into matter the more life you give them. That is, that is going to create your life. And the more negative negativity, the more, uh, self-doubt. The more you talk badly to yourself, that's gonna manifest as well. You're gonna be unhappy. You're gonna see yourself as less than, because that's what you're telling yourself, and that's what you're believing about yourself. Now, if someone's in this perspective about themselves, where they're speaking negatively, how do you. At how, what would, what advice would you give them to like immediately start switching that around and stop, you know, waking up every day and saying something unkind to themselves? Or how do you get, how do you get out of them, out of their self subconscious to stop the negative self-talk? I would say the very first thing, kind of like I talk about in the book, the 5, 6, 7, 8 method to change your habits, you can apply that to your mindset as well. I. Uh, number one, you're gonna feel a little crazy doing this. Like, be okay with that and be like, I'm gonna try something new. I might feel stupid to me right now. Like, this might feel weird, but being okay with that discomfort is step one, just letting yourself know, Hey, I'm gonna be a little uncomfortable right now, but I'm gonna see if this works. Step one. Um, and then number two, just consciously catch yourself when you're starting to think a negative thought about yourself. If I'm looking in the mirror and instead of thinking, wow, I look beautiful, if I'm thinking. Ugh, I look fat in this or whatever. I will catch that thought and before it turns into a downward spiral, I'll say, you know, we don't think like this anymore. This, this was the old pattern. This was the old timeline. New timeline. We don't think like this anymore. So it's acknowledging that, okay, that version of me was, is still there. She's still in the car. Still coming through in the consciousness. Instead of being like, boo, go home. I'm gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna hold your hand. What do you need right now? Why are you telling yourself this? Like, what is it that you need? And I will ask my body and I'll be like, what do you need right now? And sometimes it's just a little love. And I will say in the, even if I don't believe it right away, when I first started, I felt crazy. I would stand in front of the mirror and I would say, I love you. You're beautiful. Thank you, body. Um, I love my stomach, I love my stretch marks. I would touch my body. Do you know how many people go through their lives every single day and they put on their clothes and they go to work and they don't touch their body? Like. Not even in a sexual way, like you don't touch yourself, you don't hug yourself, you don't like caress your hands or like touch your legs. It's. I realized this and I was like, wow, our bodies are craving touch, not just from other people, from ourselves. And so I would stand there and like give myself a hug, maybe like rub my shoulder or my arm and be like, thank you for keeping my body working and in health and keeping, you know, my, my legs ability to walk. Like any part of me that I was thinking was less than. I would hold the hand of the girl that thought that. And be like, Hey, all of society that taught you, you weren't skinny enough, you weren't pretty enough. This isn't good. That I'd be like, Hey, you know what? I'm here for you. I think you're beautiful. And yeah, telling your fat rolls, they're beautiful and you love them in a mirror every day naked is scary and weird and it feels dumb at first. It does. Like, I'll admit that. But I started doing that and I started just being more okay with myself and. Is it to the point where I'm like, oh my God, I love my stretch marks and I look so skinny all the time. No. Like, that's not the goal. Like I, that was the version of me that was like, this, this will make me happy. And I actually, I thought about doing a whole video, um, around that because, you know, I, I've had a, I had an eating disorder when I was young. I had, um, a very fluctuated relationship with myself and my body. Yeah, like I always thought in my head, okay, if I'm this specific size and I'm this specific weight, and then I'll be happy. Mm-hmm. And you know what, you're not gonna be, because I got there two years ago and I really was like, wow, I have abs. I can fit in this size, I can do this. I realized. I looked so unhappy and I wasn't healthy, and my body was screaming at me and I was getting breakouts everywhere, and my hormones were crazy and my mood would dip and. I just realized everything that perhaps society or, or how we grew up. I mean, being a nineties kid myself, like it was brutal back then. There was no, there was no body positive people on, there was no social media, there was, it was skinny nineties models. Like this is the, this is the image. And you know, that gets burned in your subconscious. Yeah. So when you grow up and you think, well, I'll be happy when I'm this. And then I finally achieved what I thought was my perfect body, and I was like, well, I'm gonna be happy now. I wasn't. I wasn't. And I, I realized, I was like, okay, if this is what I had to learn, now I'm really gonna start to love myself however I am in whatever stage I'm in. Because being this perfect ideal I thought in my head, didn't make me happy. So maybe I should just fucking love who I am, regardless of what stage I'm in, and try that. Truly trying something new has been every stage of my life and growth, because if what's working for you isn't working, try something new until you find something that works and then standing in front of the mirror and saying, Hey, I love you body. Thank you for working today. That started working and as dumb as I fell in the beginning, it started to work and every day it would get better and better. I don't care what size I was, I don't care if I was bloated, I don't care if I was on my period, I would start to be like, wow, I do, I look nice today. And then I would put better clothes on and like feel better and it just minor little steps and it started to add up. And then my baseline of joy started growing, and that was, you know, kind of a long-winded answer to the question. But how you start is just, just one, one small new thing a day. If that's even just catching yourself and saying, Hey, that's the old timeline, not this timeline, then maybe you can work up to standing in front of the mirror and telling yourself you love, you, love yourself. Yeah. You know, it's the little tiny things. Don't make it this big, huge thing because then it will get overwhelming and then you won't do it. But little tiny bite-sized steps to get to that. That would be my advice. I think these little steps too are all building more trust within yourself and how. It's really defining like the relationship between self-trust and joy and like living in joy with yourself.'cause when we can trust ourselves, we can, when we trust ourselves, we can feel more joy for the life that we're we're living. Which in, you know, overarching all of that is, is self-love. Yeah. Self-love is the root of almost every issue. Yeah, if I ask enough questions, anyone can tell me any one of their problems, and if I ask enough questions, the bottom, the very root of that flower is self-love. Yeah. I could hear, I could even sit here with, with you right now and go through a million things of, of like either mistakes that I made or, or things that I've done or I'm sure that anyone else listening to could do the same and, and realize, oh shit. It's because I didn't love myself in that moment. It's 'cause I didn't trust myself in that moment. It's because, yeah, I wasn't providing myself with the nourishment and the fuel and the rest that I needed because I wasn't absolutely caring for myself in the ways that I should. Because it, it really does all come back to self love. It does, and self-love is so much more. People think, oh, self-love is, I like the way I look and I'm confident. Yeah, it's so much deeper than that. It's your boundaries. It's how you interact with family and friends. And if somebody is not. Good for your energy. How do you react with that person? How do you set that line? How do you protect your energy? How do you protect yourself? How do you eat? How do you move through life? Like all of those things. Is it something that is good for me and good for my highest path and good for my body and my soul? Or is it not? And I'm not saying you have to be perfect. You can still. You know, eat a bunch of cake and go party once in a while. But it's balance, you know? And that balancing that joy, like even like I don't personally watch horror movies, not my thing. Okay. If you not my thing either I'm in complete agreement with you. I'm like, for me, that wrecks my consciousness for like, yeah. Oh my God. I'll have nightmares. I get anxiety. I'm just like, why would I wanna put this in my brain? Now I understand people that like them and it's a thrill and that's great. I have, I have no judgment. I personally can't handle it. Mm-hmm. So for me, part of self-love is like, why would I watch. That, especially like, I'm not a murder porn kind of person. I don't like all the crime scene investigation. It's just not for me. Like I don't wanna hear about murder before I go to sleep. That's my personal choice. But I know for me, that is what's best for my body and my consciousness. So part of self love is choosing, hey, maybe not this before bed, or not the, you know. Um, it's just, it's so encompassing even how you care for your environment. Like watering my plants is self-love, you know, and giving love to those around me and cooking myself a nice meal. Like that's all self-love. It's not just looking in the mirror and telling yourself you love the way you look. It's what decisions am I making every day and does every single decision I make go with the path I wanna be on or not? Yep. As we say here at the south of Archives, it's what, how can you choose yourself more every single day? How can you love yourself more every single day, even if it's a little bit, a lot of it. How can you love yourself more by, you know, it's just continuously choosing you, and the more that you can, the more that you know about yourself, and the more that even, you know, in reading like Seven ways to live in Joy today. Reading more, reading this book and like going through each of these doors, even if it's not the time in retrospect, like to go for this person to go through this door today, they can go through and learn more about themselves and in learning more about themselves, they can then come to a place where they can trust themselves more and lead themselves to joy and then lead themselves to self-love. Absolutely. And it's not hard. That's, people think it's so hard. Like I can't, I think they think it's hard because they think it's a destination. Yeah. It's not a destination. No, it's a journey. And the more you realize, okay, the only thing constant is gonna be change, there's gonna be change. There's always gonna be change, there's always going to be a flow. There's gonna be high highs, low lows, middles, that's life and accepting that. And I have a whole chapter about detoxing from the shoe drop that is such a part of our minds and society that this anxiety that we've been taught of like, okay, if things are going really well, there's a, there's a time ticker on that. You know, there's gotta be something bad that's gonna happen. Well. First of all, yeah, bad things are always gonna happen. Good things always happen. Middle things always happen. The, there's a plethora of things that happen. If you choose to put bad or good on them, that's on you. You don't have to label something bad or good. Um, it's just things that happen. So there's always gonna be things that happen. So if you, if you accept that there is no shoe drop, there is no, oh God, it's gonna fall down. Like, okay. Maybe if your career collapses for some reason. There's a reason, and maybe there's another door awaiting that's even better and greater and more aligned. So I think if you are choosing yourself every day, trying to love yourself, trying to follow your intuition and your best path, any, you know, downside to anything that happens, it really isn't a downside, it's just a new door. Yeah. I, I love what you said about. The comparison of yin and yang too, and finding balance, and I think that's so incredibly important when we can have the balance between the yin and the yang, the, the good and the bad, the. You know, colorful the, and versus like the black and white and really find the balance within all of it. We can have a better understanding of ourselves as well. Um, something you said you compared your doubting Darla with courageous Cat and how doubting Darla spoke to herself versus how courageous Kath took all of everything that doubting Darla was saying and, and. Turned it around to either be a lesson or an opportunity or a way to live more in joy and see that these things that are happening aren't happening to you. They're happening for you. Absolutely. And I think a lot of people throw. The spiritual bypassing word around. Mm-hmm. And they're, they could look at that and be like, well, you're bypassing like the lessons and you're just trying to be toxic, positive. And I, I really wanna make note that this isn't about not feeling your feelings. I think when you bury something and say, oh no, it's fine. It's good. Every, everything's fine. It's all I figured it out. It's great. That can be seen as toxically positive because you're not feeling your feelings. This, nothing in this book is telling you to just be happy all the time or just be positive all the time. Yeah, those things, that mindset shift. That doesn't mean I didn't cry and have nights where I'm just streaming tears and sitting down in my shower and just couldn't move, like mm-hmm. That happened and I was able to feel those things and move through those things and release those things. But it's the aftermath of that release of like, okay, how am I gonna look at this situation? Mm-hmm. How am I gonna see that I'm not a victim? Things aren't happening to me where, oh, I have all these hard things that happen. Poor me, no, like they're all teaching me something. They're all a lesson. There is a positive in them. Even though there are challenging things. Everything is is dynamic. Everything has positive aspects, negative aspects, a ton of aspects in between those two. Um, there's no black and white of, Hey, this is a terrible thing that happened. There's. So many facets to every diamond of the experiences we have. And I think that's important because you should definitely feel your feelings. And if you are angry, feel it. If you're sad, feel it. But that doesn't mean there isn't a mindset towards it that puts you in an empowering seat instead of a victimhood seat. Yeah, I love that so much. I think balance is so important, and I don't believe for a second that we are. Not complex human beings, but I also don't believe for a second that we are only simple human beings like we are. We are both. We are simple and we are complex all at the same time. And there's a balance between the two. There's a balance between the yin and the yang and the understanding that two things can be true at once. We can feel grief and we can feel joy all at the same time. Absolutely. And. Um, completely at the same time layered on top of each other. Even in the same moment, like a lot of grief I've found most of the time when I cry about someone, I've, someone I've lost and loved. It's because a beautiful moment happens. It's not because I'm sad, it's like something will happen that will just be so emotionally moving that I, they're with me and I remember them and I see that. Mm-hmm. I told you even before we got on. I was sitting down to put my makeup on and a beautiful monarch butterfly came into my patio, which is basically closed off. Mm-hmm. And like threw the curtain right in front of my window and was like, hi, I'm here. And I was just like, Ugh. Thank you. Like, yeah, just those moments. That's what makes me cry. It's not the, the loss so much as knowing that they're still with me. And that's what hits me with the emotion. Yeah. Yeah. I love that so much. Now what, how can the seven ways or these seven doors help someone on their self-love journey? In one sentence? Ooh. Or I'll give you two because I like you. No, I'll do one. I'll take the challenge. I'm long-winded. I can make a run on sentence. Um. This book will help you open your heart and your mind to deeper levels and layers to the onion that is our spirit and our souls that you may have never met, and that will help you flourish in ways you have never dreamed of. Perfection. You didn't even need the second sentence. That was so perfect. It's true. It's until you meet yourself so deeply, I mean, you will lose friends and connections on this journey. You will. And that's okay. Not everyone's gonna be on your journey, on your time. Not everyone's going to. Resonate with your frequency. When you start to raise your consciousness, raise your frequency, and in non woowoo terms, that is just leveling up the way your attitude is to yourself and to the world. Mm-hmm. And when you do that, think of it as a radio station. If you are on 1 0 3 0.3 and the people you are surrounding yourself with are on AM 98.5, there's gonna be static. There's just gonna be static. And it doesn't mean that you don't love each other or you don't, can continue a friendship or a relationship, but you're not going to hear each other as clearly as perhaps you did when you were hanging out on 98.5. So that static is is something that is also you're gonna have to deal with when you level up your radio station and. That's okay because there's so many people on 1 0 3 0.3 that are waiting to meet you, that you're gonna click with, that you're gonna resonate with, that's gonna be like, oh my God, we're vibrating together. It's so high. This is great. And time and time again, the universe has shown me that that is the truth. And every time I think that I've lost someone or something outta my life. Two more people that completely resonate me, resonate with me where I'm at, come into my life in such a serendipitous way, and I'm so grateful for that because truly everyone is on their own journey and on their own timeline, and that's okay. That's what we have to accept. I love this so much and I think Kathleen, that everybody needs to get a copy of Seven Ways to Live and Enjoy Today. Because this journey for all of you starts today. So please, please, please, before we close up this episode, please tell everybody where they can get a copy for themselves. Yes. Well, right now it is available on Amazon, uh, hardcover and paperback. It will be launching on Audible, Spotify, and Apple, uh, this month. Uh, soon. And so I will have the audio book out. I don't have the exact launch date yet, but it's coming. It is ready, it is in processing, so that'll be fun. And I actually narrated it. And so, um, you will get to hear my voice speaking to you like you will in the book. If you know me, you know my videos, you talk to me. When you read the book, you'll be like. I feel like I'm talking to you. It's in very much my, the way I speak. So, um, that's really fun to available on Amazon right now. I do also have it on TikTok shop and it will be hopefully in Barnes and Noble soon. So how exciting. But, um, yes, it, I am starting to push to bookstores as well, so as of yesterday, that is amazing. So exciting. I am so excited for you and I'm so excited for you guys to get your hands on this book. It's such an easy but wonderful read. So definitely check out the description and all of the links in the show notes to, um. Directly access where you can grab a copy for yourself. Kathleen, thank you so, so much for being back on the Self-Love Archives podcast and telling us all about your book. Oh, it was incredible. I love you a ton. I love you. This is, it's always just. My favorite part of my day when I get to talk to you. Mine too. Ditto. Yay. Thank you, Julia. This was, this was so wonderful. Thank you. And if anyone feels like you want to send me a message or connect, um, my website is also on here and shoot me a message, send me an email. I, you know, we didn't. Go into it this time as much as last time, but I do sessions, I'm a spiritual medium coach, all kinds of things. So, um, if you feel called, shoot me a message. I love to talk perfection. Thank you, Kathleen. I appreciate you. Thank you, Julia. Yay.