EPI 75 - How to Stay Present When Life Gets Hard

Hey friend, welcome back to The Habit Within! I'm Camille Kinzler, and if you’ve ever found yourself trying to hold it all together while everything feels untethered… this episode is for you.

We’re continuing the Summer Mini Series with two powerful, grounded women — Wendy McCallum and Jeneth Blackert — both of whom offer real, heartfelt tools for staying rooted in presence, even during life’s toughest seasons.

Let’s be real — life has been lifing lately. I’ve personally felt off track, with a move, a house full of kids, and rhythms that just won’t stick. But these conversations reminded me that presence isn’t about getting it all right — it’s about returning to what’s real, again and again.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Wendy’s deeply moving story about her father’s illness — and how a simple daily gratitude practice changed everything
• How noticing small, joyful moments (even on hard days) can rewire your brain for peace and presence
• Jeneth’s daily meditation and breathwork ritual that sets the tone for aligned, grounded living
• The mantra that pulled her through some of life’s hardest challenges: “I don’t quit anymore. That’s not who I am.”
• Why journaling, movement, and curiosity can gently bring us back when we spiral or feel stuck

If you’ve been navigating grief, overwhelm, burnout, or just a big messy life transition — this episode is your invitation to breathe, drop into your body, and return to the moment.

Learn More from Jeneth Blackert

Instagram: @jenethblackert
Website: www.jeneth.com

Learn More from Wendy McCallum

Instagram: @beatburnoutandbooze
Website: www.wendymccallum.com

If You Loved This Episode…

Then you’ll love The Vitality Reset — my 6-week experience designed to help you rebuild your energy, regulate your nervous system, and reconnect with what truly matters.

It’s gentle, powerful, and made for this exact season of life.

👉 Click here to learn more or join the waitlist 

If you’re tired of feeling exhausted, irritable, moody, and just not like yourself, schedule a free 30-minute consultation so I can help you feel like YOU again
Fill out this brief form (2 min) to schedule a free 30-minute call.

Love the show? Leave a 5-star review, and let me know what hit home for you.

Find me on Instagram @camille_kinzler and leave me a DM!

Transcript

(0:00 - 2:10)
Hey y'all, welcome back to The Habit Within. I'm Camille, your host, and today we are going to continue the summer mini-series. But before we get into all that, this has just been a weird summer. 

I feel completely off track, and so I cannot wait for school to start again on August 13th. School is going to start again, and hopefully I'll get back into some sort of rhythm. I think with not knowing where we were going to live, and this is the first summer I didn't have my kids in camps all year. 

I mean all summer long, because typically when I have a full schedule, yeah, they need to go to camp. But this summer was a little bit less hectic, and so I didn't have them in camp. So they were home with me a lot. 

So for you moms out there who are experiencing that as well, or have experienced it, or your aunties and you see your siblings doing the same thing, I mean it's crazy town. It's really hard. I think for everyone in the family, the kids too, there's something about really having some freedom when you have a routine, which I say that right now, and it makes so much sense. 

And I have to tell you, my kid who went on his canoe trip, a couple days after he got back, he mentioned to me that he was missing camp quite a bit. He also really loved being home, but he was really missing camp as well. And so I asked him what he was missing most of all, and he said that he missed the freedom that he had at camp. 

And I was shocked. I was like, buddy, but you canoed to a new campsite every single night. At that campsite, you had to find wood. 

You had to make your own fire. You had to make your own dinner. You had to put up your own tent. 

You had all of these chores. In the evenings you had, I mean, I'm sorry, in the morning when you wake up, you had to make breakfast. You had to pack up all your stuff into your canoe, and you had to get out of your campsite pretty early in the morning.

(2:10 - 4:40)
So how in the world was that freedom? And he was like, well, we didn't have to do any of that. I mean, we could have slept on the ground, or we could rock our boat and flip it over, but we'd get all of our food wet. So we didn't do that. 

We didn't have to portage to the next place, and we could stay where we were, but then we wouldn't see the new sites. So that's kind of interesting when I'm saying that we can create these schedules and these routines, because then we can have creativity and some freedom within that. And maybe that's I'm craving. 

I'm craving a little bit of the choice to be able to say that I don't want to do something, versus right now it's just really hard to stay on track and focused on the next thing that needs to be done, because everything just feels so untethered. But hey, we are moving. We get to move in to our new place tomorrow. 

So I'm actually head deep in a house that we've lived in for 15 years. I mean, we have so much stuff, and I already have like 30 boxes packed, but it still feels like I haven't packed at all. I'm looking around, and there's still items in drawers and in closets and in cabinets and in the shed and the garage, and I just, oh my Lord. 

So anyway, one step at a time. And it was great. It was so perfect listening to the two speakers that we have on today, because they reminded me of a couple of things, which I'll get into in just a second. 

But just to remind you guys that this is our summer mini series, so it's a little bit different than what the typical program looks like, but these conversations are just short, powerful, and they're deeply personal to the women who share them. But this is a moment for us to just get backgrounded into what our purpose is and really tap back into what makes us energetic and vital, especially when life lifes, which I don't know about you, but it's doing that. It just keeps doing that, just month after month these days. 

So you're going to get a double dose of wisdom. You're going to first hear from Wendy McCallum, and she shares how a simple gratitude practice completely rewired her brain. It really helped her stay present through the hardest year of her life.

(4:40 - 4:57)
This includes her father's illness. So whether you're navigating perimenopause, trying to stay alcohol-free, or just looking for more joy in your everyday, this tool can shift everything. So I know that you might have heard about the attitude of gratitude, but please stick with us.

(4:57 - 18:33)
I think she really, she shares a really personal story about something that her father said that really shift her perspective on a very hard day, and it will really stay with you. So stay tuned, listen to Wendy's story. Then after that, we'll listen to Jennith Blackart, and she's going to just give us a glimpse into how her daily meditation practice really helps bring her back when she is going off the rails. 

So Jennith walks us through how she stays connected to her body, her energy, and her mission above all else. And so what I love about Jennith is she doesn't bypass the hard stuff. She meets it with the tools that she has, with questions, and with being fiercely present. 

And her mantra is, I don't quit anymore. That's not who I am. And when I relistened to her say that, that just really hit, because so often we can fall back into the old patterns of who we used to be. 

And so having a mantra that puts us back into the present moment, and that is a good one. That is not who I am anymore. I am not a quitter anymore. 

I am somebody who takes on a challenge, or takes on something that I feel passionately about, and I put one foot in front of the other. I chop wood and I carry water, because I believe I can do it. I am not a quitter. 

And so that is the mantra that I'm going to take with me as I round out the rest of the summer, and really try to enter this new phase coming mid-August and September. And so I can't wait to share some of those skills and tips and tricks with you as you move forward in your own life. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed making it for you. 

Have a good day. Okay, Janeth, we're continuing the conversation over here on the podcast, where I'm really wanting people to follow up with their favorite speakers from the 21-day online summit we had about feeling your best vitality, energy, and confidence in perimenopause and beyond. So what I'm doing in this series is really talking to women who are embodied, living what they preach, really walking the walk. 

And so the question that I'm asking all of the speakers is, how do you stay vital, energized, and really on purpose, right? Really wired up to continuing your path. And can you teach us this in 10 minutes or less? Yeah. Well, so I'm a meditator. 

I am a diehard meditator. And so a lot of my practice revolves around meditation and what's currently going on in my world, meaning everything, right, that I want to create in my life, in my business, in my garden, in my family, in my children's lives. And so I will usually, I have a certain way of breath work. 

I shared it on the show. And I have a certain way of like thinking with some of these meditations. So usually I will just kind of go into the space on my own where I will get into what I like to call a heart coherence. 

And it's almost like I working to fall in love with myself. And I do this, like it's before I wake up at maybe seven o'clock and then I will just lay there. And sometimes I do fall asleep doing this and I will just like close my eyes and choose a mantra and choose the breath work. 

And it's, I'll open up the door for the universe to tell me what we want to work on today. This morning I just laid there, my husband, he's on a three week trip because his sister is ill. And on, you know, I was just like, all right, I've got space here. 

And so I'm just going to lay here and go, okay, universe, what are we going to create today? And today it was really just making it a great day. Just being alive, being engaged, being present for, I had four clients today. So it's about being present and being present for the people that I speak with. 

So sometimes it's really simple like that. And sometimes it's, you know, sell my beach house kind of feeling, right. And I'll really go into some like manifesting meditations. 

I have a certain way of doing that where, you know, it's really about seeing and feeling mostly the result as if it's already come to fruition. So it really will depend on the morning, but I really don't have an agenda as far as things. Now I do have productivity habits and how I create my life. 

And there's a lot of journaling involved. So I would say meditation and journaling are really my two things. In the break just a minute ago, I did a little activation where I just kind of like do a little chugong and wake up my body and my life. 

And I feel like some of that's necessary during the day to just go, wait, where am I and how am I being today? And those are the practices that just keep me a little more present during the day and keep me on path. So I don't go, okay, now I got to do this because if I ever go into that energy, like, oh, I have to, then I know that there's usually some processing to do. So for me, processing is just being highly aware of when my energy drops. 

And I just go into some processing and ask questions like, what is this about really? Is this just that I'm tired? Is it not moving the dial of my business forward? Is it, I don't have any fresh blueberries. I just love it like a live garden instead of a dead one. And is it something that somebody said to me over email that made me sink or made me feel like I'm not actually creating like I'd like to create? But I just kind of get really curious and ask questions about, why am I sensing this lull? Yeah, you said two beautiful things. 

You said, well, you said a lot of beautiful things, but two processes. One is the morning meditation. So really setting yourself up for the day and allowing the field, tapping into the field, allowing for the direction of what is needed for you in that particular day. 

So what happens? Okay. So, and then you also mentioned the second thing, which was really beautiful about when you're feeling a lull, how you pick yourself back up. You ask these questions to say, you know, what's really going on right now? And that can elevate your energy. 

I'm curious if we're going to go down the track of the meditation and what drops into you as the way you should potentially show up or what you should do for the day. So this morning it was be present for my clients and have a really great day is what it was, right? Just have a really great day. So what happens during the day if you notice that maybe things are kind of going off track from that intention that you set in the morning? Yeah. 

Like if something would like go haywire and our website would go down. I've actually done this work for so long. I think that I actually don't get frantic about things like that, but I tell you there would be picking up the phone to see if I could possibly reschedule somebody. 

And I think I would mostly just be really present around that so that we could fix something that went, you know, weird during the day. I don't feel like that often anything I'm trying to think of the last time something. Oh, my daughter's car accident. 

Yeah, it that was one of the things that took me out of my body a lot. Because I was just worried for her. She hit an actual person. 

And it was just like, Oh, my gosh, you know, what's going to happen to her life because of this, what happens to that person, the whole thing. And so I think that those were one of the things that thank God, I have these tools. And really, you know, we just said, Okay, you know, make a police report, do the things right, do the actual action things. 

And then that night, I just, you know, I kept obsessing, kept obsessing. And I tried to even listen to somebody else's hypnosis, so that I could get my brain out of my own way. And then I finally got back to being me that night, so that I actually could really show up the next day for what was required for the repairs and things like that. 

So those are some of the I think that, you know, a lot of my life, I deal with this every day and with clients every single day. So it's almost become that, okay, well, I am present here, I am in this body, what do I need to choose next? And instead of it going to total chaos, and then, you know, I just feel like back in the day, I used to just scrap everything. It's like, I quit. 

You know, that didn't know, that didn't matter if it was my business or my life or my family or whatever, it was just like, I quit. And then I, through growth and doing this work, I've really learned, no, I actually now do the opposite of quitting. I really tune in and come more alive and show up more, because this world needs, you know, this work, not just me, but the people that are here to encourage and empower and to grow and to help people change and evolve in this world that sometimes is a little bit sad. 

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that personal story. And I, both you and I are NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioners. 

And what I'm doing here is something called modeling. And so often, we don't even recognize that we have something to share because we're innately good at it, or we've learned and we've practiced and we've grown throughout the years where we just do it second nature. And so what I'm hearing from you is now all of this is becoming second nature, but really when something happens, like something as minor, we can say is the computer breaking, or something as major as what happened with your daughter, is that what you have learned to do is come back to presence, like the importance of presence, the importance of presence so much that I felt like your body was opening up, that you were becoming like leaning in to the reality of what is right in front of you. 

And when those things aren't working, then you go and you do your tools. And you're like, okay, those things that normally work aren't working right now, but I'm going to try this and I'm going to try this. And at some point, I know that I'm going to come back to the presence that I need in order to take care of this issue. 

I don't give up anymore. And so would you even say maybe like something that you didn't even realize was playing in the background is that mantra of like, I don't do that anymore. I don't give up anymore. 

That's not who I am anymore. That is something that I've actively worked on, by the way, because I knew that I was like so much like just throw in the towel, give up, quit, you know, and those were the things that's like, okay, those were the key things that were causing me to not say really yes to myself. I did this work to right after COVID that I called committing to my life, committing to my life in every single way, like Marie conduing my entire house, committing to having a beautiful yard, committing to my family to come home and really adore them and give them hugs and show them love. 

And before that, I was just a little absent. You know, I was just in my own world and cranking out things and having clients and just doing the stuff instead of really being there. So I think that commitment to my life has helped me in this growth of personal development in every single way.

(18:35 - 18:40)
Yeah, that is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah.

(18:40 - 18:50)
And I have to watch the show to hear yours. I didn't even think about doing mine. So yes, I will add mine.

(18:50 - 18:53)
All right. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.

(18:55 - 20:09)
Hey, Wendy, thanks for joining us in this podcast series where we follow up with our favorite speaker from the summit. Your talk was so impactful. We talked about alcohol and how alcohol disrupts our perimenopausal journey, our estrogen, and how it's actually very similar when the symptoms of perimenopause can be very similar to even a light hangover. 

So that was very impactful. And so today in this series, I'm asking speakers to really share kind of what keeps them energized on purpose in their own life. And can you teach us how to do it? Well, I don't know if I can teach everybody how to do it, but I'm happy to share the one tool that I think is the most impactful for me when it comes to feeling like I am staying connected to what matters to me. 

And that is a practice of gratitude, which I have been doing myself now for over seven years in a very deliberate and focused way and which I teach people when I'm coaching them because I think it's so accessible. It takes just a few minutes a day. And the science around this is really, really compelling in terms of the benefits of incorporating daily gratitude.

(20:10 - 26:34)
For me, the gratitude, first of all, just if I'm going to teach you how to do this, here are the key things you need to know about a gratitude practice that will actually help to rewire your brain. The purpose of gratitude is there are many different objectives with it, but really what we're trying to do is rewire our brain to spend more time in the present moment. So it's like a meditation practice in that way. 

And the way that we do that with gratitude is we start looking for very specific things that are happening right now that we have gratitude for. Now, if you push back, if you feel a pushback or resistance to the word gratitude, just think of it as like something that lights you up, makes you feel good, is cool, is beautiful, is energizing to you. You're looking for things that are actually happening in the day today that's right in front of you. 

And then what you're going to do is you're going to record that. You're going to write it down somewhere. A note in your phone is fine. 

So just a little note where you just keep a little short list of the things that you notice. We know that when we write things down, it just cements that learning in our brain a lot faster. So that's a really important part of a gratitude practice, especially in the early days. 

So I'd say try to do that for 30 days and look for three very specific things that happen every day that you can write down. If you have more, great. But again, you're looking for moments of connection, things that make you feel good, like just moments where you think, oh, that's so cool, or I like that. 

Write those things down. Because those things are happening in the present moment, and your brain is noticing them in the present moment, and they feel good, and then you're recording that, you're reminding your brain that the good stuff happens in the present moment. And the more you practice this, the more you are more deliberate and intentional you are with your gratitude practice. 

And the more you repeat this, the stronger that neural pathway becomes, and your default pathway starts to become, I look for things to be grateful for. Another way to think about these moments of gratitude for me is they're just like tiny little sparks of joy in my day. And the better you get at practicing gratitude, the stronger that neural pathway becomes, the more you notice. 

And before you know it, your day starts to be kind of full of these little things. Here's what I love the most about gratitude. You will see these little things even when your day is objectively garbage. 

So the worst stuff can be happening to you, and all these little things are still there. Like, you don't have to create anything to find these moments of gratitude. They're already happening, you're just not present for them. 

If you're a busy woman, your brain is off somewhere else, probably trying to solve the problem that hasn't happened yet, and you're missing what's happening right now in the present moment. So the value of a gratitude practice is absolutely enormous for people in that it is the, I think, the single most effective and efficient way to increase your daily joy. And what would shift for you if your daily joy just went up by 25%? How would that change everything in your life? And it only takes a few minutes a day, and a piece of paper. 

It's not expensive, it doesn't take a lot of time, and honestly, it feels so good. So that's been my trick, and the thing I like to share with people as well is that you can direct gratitude towards a part of your life that feels not so great right now, and you will notice an immediate benefit there. So for example, if work is really a struggle for you right now, look for three small things that happen at work that are good. 

Or if you have a relationship that is challenging right now, look for three small things that that person did or that happened between you and that person that brought you some joy or made you feel good today. And it can just be like just an incredibly powerful practice. Have you always had a gratitude practice? Nope. 

I started my gratitude practice when I quit drinking seven years ago, because I'm a very science-based person, and I had read a lot of research about how gratitude can help people stay sober. And at the time, my dad had been diagnosed with a complicated neurological disease, and we knew he had about a year left to live. And I wanted to be present for that, which is one of the reasons why I worked so hard to stay alcohol free. 

But I also wanted to appreciate it, and I knew that gratitude was going to help me to be present and notice the things. So in that year, I directed one small thing every day to my dad. So for the first year of my gratitude practice, every time I spent the hours with my dad, which I'm so grateful for, and it was such an incredibly rewarding small practice in that at the end of it, he did die about a year later, I had this very cool list of all these tiny things like him tapping his toe to yellow submarine or, you know, just really, really little things, which was just so amazing. 

But I also felt like I had my experience that year had been different than it would have been if I hadn't been a sober and be practicing gratitude. So it was really, really powerful. And in the hardest days with my dad, and there were lots of very, very hard days with my dad, there was always something to be grateful for. 

And if we have one minute, I can tell you a super cool story that will hopefully convince people gratitude's worth it. There was one day where I was with my dad, and my mom was looking after my dad at home in his last year. And it had just been objectively a terrible day, everybody was in a very bad place. 

My mom was very emotionally exhausted. My dad was not clear at all, he was not functioning. Well, there's a lot of extra care that had to happen that day. 

And, you know, I was looking for the thing that was going to go on the gratitude list, like I always do. And it just was not there. And by the end of the day, I had to go home, I hadn't seen my kids all day to like 13 year olds at the time. 

And I just thought, well, today's going to be the day where I don't have it. And I put my coat on and I was getting ready to leave. And I turned around and I said goodbye to my dad. 

And he said, he said, good night. He said, good night, Wendy, drive carefully. And that was it. 

I was just had this enormous feeling of well being and gratitude about the fact that my dad was still, even in the sickest of sickness, was still thinking about me and still worrying about me like he'd always done my whole life. And he knew who I was, you know, all the rest of it. And I walked out of that condo and like floated into the elevator and went home in a completely different space than I would have if I had not been practicing gratitude.

(26:34 - 27:02)
I don't think I even would have noticed that to be honest on, you know, in a world where I wasn't doing that gratitude practice, I would have been so frustrated and exhausted. I would have just probably not even heard it. But because I was looking for it, I did. 

And it changed how I felt about that day, it will take a glass half empty day and make it a glass half full day in a second. And that is what I love so much about about gratitude. Oh, gosh, what a heartwarming story.

(27:02 - 27:21)
Thank you so much for sharing this. And I can't believe that we were actually maybe going to talk about something else. So that was exactly what was meant to come out right now practicing the attitude of gratitude. 

Thank you so much, Wendy. And I'll link in the show notes how you can find her. And yeah, we appreciate you. 

Thank you. Thanks Camille.