Sash & Soul
Welcome to the "Fearlessly Authentic: Sash & Soul Podcast," the show that goes beyond the stage to prioritize mindset, wellbeing, and triumphs in the pageant journey. Each episode explores the power of embracing authenticity, sharing mindset tips, self-care strategies, and inspiring success stories to help you navigate the pageant world with confidence and resilience.
Sash & Soul
#28 Balancing Life with Pageants
How do you maintain balance while juggling life, school, family, extracurriculars, pageants, and finding time to rest and relax? Especially for high-achieving women, what happens when life feels like a never-ending juggling act? As we head into fall and for many of us, a new school year, shifting our priorities is inevitable.
Today we're tackling the art, or should we say the sport, of balancing life and pageants. From personal experiences and realistic tips, we discuss how to navigate life's many demands -- Keep your eyes on the prize, broaden your base for stability, and sidestep distractions to focus on what truly matters.
From career changes to major relocations, we dive into firsthand accounts of how any changes in general can lead to stress and feeling a lack of balance. Achieving balance isn't just a buzzword; it’s multifaceted. Whether you're striving for personal growth or pageant success, understanding and prioritizing needs can make all the difference. We also dive into the pitfalls of comparison and self-judgment, emphasizing the importance of self-acceptance and surrounding yourself with compassionate people.
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Welcome to the Fearlessly Authentic Sash and Soul podcast, the show that goes beyond the stage, prioritizing a healthy mindset, overall well-being and triumphs in the pageant journey.
Speaker 2:In each episode, we dive into the transformative power of embracing authenticity fearlessly From mindset mastery and self-care strategies to success stories that inspire. This podcast is your go-to guide for navigating the pageant world with confidence and resilience. Join us as we embark on a journey of self-discovery, empowerment and celebrate the stories of those who fearlessly embraced their authenticity on the path to pageant success. I'm Lila Sherry and I'm Rihanna Johnson. Welcome to Sash and Soul.
Speaker 3:Hi she said here we go, right before she hit record here we are, oh gosh.
Speaker 1:Lila.
Speaker 3:Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good, I'm really good Only because I just like I'm laughing and so it feels really good to be laughing, but like if I were to think about all the things going on in my world right now, like I probably couldn't say I'm really good, but like I feel it feels good to be laughing, it feels good to be chatting with you, I'm excited about our topic today. So yeah, like right now, in this very moment, I'm really good. How are you?
Speaker 3:Good Same Ditto to everything that you just said.
Speaker 1:What's wrong with me?
Speaker 3:Let's get it together, okay. Well, I think we can just jump right into this. Balancing life and pageants. What a big topic. It almost seems daunting to talk about. It almost seems impossible to talk about or to really answer this question, because we were before we hit record.
Speaker 3:We were going through our outline or what we wanted this episode to be, or what our goals were, what the resources or the solutions that we had were, and, honestly, it really just came down to well, why don't we just talk about what's happening in our lives? You guys have heard, throughout the episodes for the last few months, snippets and bits of our lives and you can kind of follow the journey. And so how have we navigated changes and transitions recently? What does that look like for us? What has helped us? What are mistakes that we've made? Because, frankly, I think we came to the conclusion that everybody is going to look a little bit different when it comes to what they're trying to balance or how they balance it or what works best for them. So we decided that, rather than trying to come up with all of these big psychological solutions to things, that we would just kind of just talk about our experiences, and that's what we're going to do today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, I just had a visual, as you were talking about this, like visualizing like balance and what that looks like, and there's so many different examples of balance.
Speaker 1:Like, we just wrapped up the Olympics a few weeks ago, so I'm thinking of like a gymnast on a balance beam or, um, you know, thinking of you could think of like a literal, like weighted scale and how to balance that out with with different weights on each side.
Speaker 1:Um, so many different examples of balance. But I was thinking to myself, if you are looking at it as a balance beam and you're crossing from where you are to wherever your goals are moving forward, the wider your base is, the wider that balancing beam is, the more sturdy you're going to feel, the more safe you're going to feel that balancing beam is, the more sturdy you're going to feel, the more safe you're going to feel and the quicker that you can get across to your goals. So I think what we're really talking about today is how do we widen our base so that we feel more sturdy and steady moving forward towards our goals? And sometimes our base gets a little more narrow and it feels like we're walking on a tightrope instead of walking on like a plank or a bridge and going straight towards our goals. And that's where we get tipsy and we got to figure out, okay, how do we widen that base again? So I feel like that's the visual that I'm using for myself today in this conversation.
Speaker 3:Ooh, I was going to take it one step farther and say when you're a gymnast, you'll hear the commentators or the announcers talk about you know, when they fall off the beam, they lost sight of the beam Because a lot of being a gymnast, I've learned throughout my now that I'm a gymnast connoisseur. Yes, you are after the Olympics, so is everyone else. But one thing that I learned, I guess, was that you can lose yourself while you're in the air visually, and a lot of it is muscle memory. Yes, but if you can't find the ground with your eyes, it's a lot more difficult to land. So I'm going to take it one step farther and use that as an example of when you're losing sight of the beam as a metaphor. It makes it much more difficult to land on it or to see where you're going. So when you're focusing on all the wrong things and, like you say, rae the crap in the corner, oh, we did it again.
Speaker 1:We did it again. We said it. Last episode said it this episode. It's not a Sash and Soul episode if we don't refer to that.
Speaker 3:I know I feel like I could say it every day at this point.
Speaker 1:But you literally have crap in every corner of your home right now.
Speaker 3:So if you all could see, I contemplated just like documenting this for my own sake, for to look back on. But then part of me was like I don't know if I ever want to see this again.
Speaker 1:So anyways. So when you are not focusing on the crap in the corner, when you're focusing on what's in front of you, or where you're landing, or where your goal is, yes, and that could look like being present.
Speaker 3:That could look like writing down your list of stressors and deciding on what is actually stressing you out. Right, that is my visual part of that metaphor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have another one.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so maybe we'll just have a whole episode of metaphors and visuals. So you're a ballerina too, as am I, at least trained in ballet. You know, like you remember your instructor telling you like, when you're doing a pirouette or when you're doing flattes, to ground yourself, to press into the floor, use the floor. The floor is your friend. Use yes, absolutely Absolutely so that grounding idea, and I've heard that too in just mindfulness work and in other areas of like. When you feel more grounded, meaning like you feel sturdy and you feel like you've got sure footing, then you're going to have a better balance as well.
Speaker 3:You know what else that makes me think of is in track. We've been watching a lot of track documentaries, so forgive me for the last three episodes.
Speaker 1:You guys are nerds. I love you so much. You're such nerds.
Speaker 3:We are. Logan was a track athlete and I think he misses it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Well, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but in track it's not about moving faster in one direction, it's about putting more force into the ground and that in turn, makes you move faster. It's not necessarily trying to actually pick up your speed. It's the more force you put into your ground gives you the speed to move forward. So I thought that was interesting too, all of that to say. What are we trying to say? Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So here's. I'm so glad you asked, because all of this has a theme and it is truly like your base, focusing on your base and making sure that you have a solid base. What is it that you're standing on? Do you see it? Do you feel it? Are you standing firm in that base? And that is the launching point right there.
Speaker 1:So, if we're talking about finding balance and maintaining balance, I don't care whatever it is that you're trying to do.
Speaker 1:If you're just trying to get by in day to day, or if you are like I'm kicking off this semester and I've got 21 credits ahead of me that I'm going to be working towards achieving, like I never did that personally, but like I applaud all of y'all that do that.
Speaker 1:Or if you're starting a new job, or maybe you're an educator and you're starting off a new school year with a new set of students in your classroom, like, or maybe you're getting ready for Miss America, because I mean they just announced the dates of Miss America, which is so exciting.
Speaker 1:I think it's December 31st through January 5th. So like that's coming up, so like I can remember too, like when you get that date of you know when that end date is. Now it's all of a sudden so real and so you're focusing on that like no matter what it is, no matter what it is that you're going through, or if you have solid goals or you're just trying to get by, having that grounding is going to be the most powerful thing for you in order to succeed and to thrive and to be well, and I think that's something that Lila and I are going to dive in a lot more. I'm excited about this Talk about our lived experience in the last few months and feeling like we've been out of whack, off balance, off kilter, why that's been happening and what we have been trying to do to get back on balance.
Speaker 3:Well, you made a good point, rae is that a lot of feeling off balance is due to changes and transitions and a lot of the times when you catch yourself feeling just off in general, we use the word balance a lot in this world, but I think, just feeling off or feeling awkward or feeling out of a routine something has probably changed or there's some sort of transition that you're going through. Something has probably changed or there's some sort of transition that you're going through. If you want to talk about personal experiences, I literally this entire year since January has been transition and changes. Life looked different before Miss America, life looks different after Miss America, life looks different than after Miss Wisconsin in June. So Miss America was in January and then June Miss Wisconsin was over and then I went from being an employee at the news station to not working in the news to now being my own boss and doing that, and then also we're moving across the country and now it's August and there hasn't been an end to the changes this year.
Speaker 3:So personally, I think first of all, all of those changes and transitions came with a different set of challenges. That's important to recognize too, because just because you're going through a change or transition doesn't mean it looks the same as the person going through another change or transition next to you. But two, a lot of it didn't necessarily have a solution. So I didn't have the ability to take away the change or transition that was causing the stressors, unless it was as big as not doing the business thing that I want to do or not moving like I want to move right, like that was really the only big, major decisions solution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when you think about it, is it a lot of a radical acceptance? That's what I had to do was a lot of acceptance into this is just what my life looks like right now. And then to also realizing how much the little things can be really life-changing. Because right now I'm sitting here in complete disarray in my place and I could be really stressed out, but I could also trust the fact that the packing is going to get done. There's no way that it doesn't. I've never not packed and been okay with that.
Speaker 3:But also number two things like having a routine to as much of a routine as I can have making my morning coffee, doing my journaling, even the podcast recordings. We're in the middle of a big move. You're about to leave for Italy and we're still making sure that our podcast episodes go up. Can we pat ourselves on the back for that? Yes, also really helps, and that also really helps. For me at least, that tiny little snippet of a routine has been just the saving grace, because when you're in those routine moments, I'm making my morning coffee, I'm doing my journaling and I'm doing this podcast recording. It takes up maybe 20% of the time in your day, but when you're doing those things. That's all you're able to think about. I guess my solution is find the things in your life that, when you're doing it, it's the only thing that you can think about. Okay, I'm done now.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, I love that there's so much complexity when you feel off balance, and so I was frantically writing down notes as you were talking, because you're just sparking ideas for me left and right, which is why we're such a good team. When you're off balance, oftentimes and not always oftentimes it is because you are going through a period of change, transition or some level of unknown. So oftentimes that's what it is and that's what's happening when you start a new job, when you start a new school year, when you move, when you're traveling, when you've lost someone you're going through a breakup, when you're starting a new relationship. Truly, there's so many things in our life that are changing on any given day and that causes that level of anxiety and unknown. So often and this is the point I want to touch on in Fearlessly Authentic, we talk about being solution-focused, but I want to really point out that we can't always find solutions, like Lila was talking about. Sometimes you just have to go through it. You have to just pack up your stuff and be as organized as you can. There's no avoiding it. But there are other things that there are no solutions, and that's when Lila mentioned radical acceptance.
Speaker 1:I think this is a really important point to talk about, because I struggle sometimes with being able to figure out what I can and can't control. It's such a valuable tool and skill to use when you can literally sit down and write down all the things that are on your mind, all the things that are just like ruminating for you, and sort them out between. I can't change this. I'm just going to practice radically accepting it. Radical acceptance does not mean that you like it. It does not mean that you have to change how you feel about it, but just accepting that it is what it is, instead of going over and over in your mind how you wish it would be different or wish you could change it, or trying to figure out some solution for something that doesn't have a solution. You're going to keep spinning your wheels and it's going to continue making you feel off balance because you're going to exhaust yourself. So, practicing radical acceptance for the things that you truly cannot do anything about. And there's another option then with other things on your list what things on your list can you actually do something about? And then decide if, when and how you're going to do something about it. You have to kind of take the emotion out and be a little bit more neutral. Talk about that too. There's heightened emotions about things all the time. If you can get to a neutral zone, it's a lot easier to take action there, or massive messy action, which I think is another way of being in the neutral zone, of just like all right, setting a timer 20 minutes I'm going to bust out as much of this stuff as I can possibly get done. I think you'll be amazed at how much energy and motivation you have by the end of that 20 minutes that you're like all right, what's next? Because all it takes sometimes is just that little spark to get moving. So I think that's really, really important to think about.
Speaker 1:We talk about focusing on the crap in the corner. Some of that crap you're just going to have to be accepting of Practice that radical acceptance Again, you don't have to like it and a lot of that stuff is stuff that you can take action on, even if that includes delegating to somebody else, because you don't have to do it all. So I think, in practical terms, that is one way to help at least regain your balance. If you feel like you're off whack, off balance, out of whack I keep doing that or if you just want to maintain your balance. Like keeping that perspective in mind.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I wrote down as, as you were talking, was this idea of practicing balance. We're going to dive into practice. Lila and I were talking about this before but like, what practice is and what practice isn't, but practicing balance and finding the value and having to find your balance. So when I talked about the balance beam, or like going from one ledge to the other, when you're going after your goals and sometimes you feel like you're walking a tight rope rather than walking over a bridge, that's nice and sturdy. There's value in having to practice that balance on the tightrope. There's a reason that if you're doing a workout program, the instructor, the trainer, is going to add balance into that workout, because it's just another way of like working out little kinks and working on different smaller muscles that are going to support your larger muscles. There's value in having to practice balance.
Speaker 1:And when I say practice, I do not mean practice to the point that you have reached perfection at it. I don't think that any of us are ever meant to be perfect at balancing. That's just not a thing. We're supposed to have those moments where we feel a little bit out of whack, otherwise, are we really experiencing life? Are we really experiencing change in a way that helps us to grow? Because you can't have growth without change, you can't and without pushing yourself to be uncomfortable a little bit sometimes, self to be uncomfortable a little bit sometimes. So there's value in the imbalance and it's about practicing. But practice does not mean perfect, and I don't like practice makes perfect. I don't think that that's a real thing either. So practicing is truly just for your overall wellbeing and maintaining your level of self and wellbeing. What am I trying to say in order to accomplish those goals and whatever it is that you're trying to manage in your life right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I just I think this just goes into balance. What does all of like? What does this actually mean? What are we balancing? How do we balance it? What does all of like? What does this actually mean? What are we balancing? How do we balance it?
Speaker 3:I think balance is really the need to prioritize things, and I think, when we're talking about balance, I think you feel out of balance when you for me, at least when you don't know what to prioritize first. I feel out of balance when I feel like I have to get a lot of work done, when I know that the main thing during my day right now should be packing and packing up to move. Not all of us have that luxury. However, make a list of the things that you think that you have to get done. Anytime I've done this and the list is five or six things long. It really only ends up being two or three things that actually have to get done.
Speaker 3:So what is it that you're prioritizing? What is important to you? If it's sleep right? Logan hasn't been feeling well lately. His priority right now is not to pack, it's to sleep and to rest and to make sure that he's feeling good physically Because, again, the packing doesn't happen if you don't feel good physically. So I guess number one when you're trying to balance all of your things and you're feeling off, prioritize what are the things that actually have to get done first, and don't forget to prioritize your actual physical human needs also. And that brings us to the hierarchy of needs that we brought up a picture of the hierarchy of needs, the classic pyramid.
Speaker 1:Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 3:Yes, that we all learn about in Psych 101. And I forget about all too often. And that baseline is really should I run through this?
Speaker 1:Maybe we just run through this, Maybe we just yeah, I think the one thing I want to just point out before you run through it is like we all have these basic human needs, but even within our basic human needs, we are all unique in that our needs are going to look different. Therefore, our priorities are going to look different, all within the scope of each level of these, of this hierarchy of needs. But your priorities are going to look different than somebody sitting right next to you. My priorities look different than Lila's, because we're two different people. Your priorities are going to change and they're not going to look the same as other people. And so, therefore, practicing a lot of self-acceptance and grace for yourself on exactly where you're at and we're going to dive into that a little bit more, because I want to talk about how much I struggle with shame and self-judgment and I know so many people do when it comes to trying to prioritize and practice that balance. But yes, for now let's talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Go ahead, lila.
Speaker 3:There's five parts of this. Your baseline is going to be food, water, shelter, basic survival, and then love and belonging. This is your sense of connection, your community, your relationships in your life, your family, your loved ones. All of that. I think that there are different ways to find community.
Speaker 1:I think it doesn't have to be the classic things that are lifted listed, like family Then there's self-esteem, which is your unique level of confidence, your achievement, your goals, your respect of others and, honestly, just your need to be like a unique individual. And then, finally, there's self-actualization. So this is the top, top level of hierarchy. So all these other things, this is what I want to make sure everyone is understanding. So Lila walked through those first three in order. The baseline is physiological needs, then safety and security, then love and belonging, then self-esteem and then, lastly, the self-actualization. So your purpose, what you're experiencing in life, the meaning that you're attributing to your life and your inner potential. So if your physiological needs are not being met, if you don't have adequate food and water or shelter, if you're struggling with your health, if you're struggling for your body to function in order to stay alive I'm talking about breathing, like getting oxygen in you're not going to be worrying about love and belonging. At that point You're going to be worrying about love and belonging. At that point You're going to be worrying about survival. Okay, if your safety and security is at risk.
Speaker 1:So now we're talking about, like, think about kids that are experiencing trauma at home, that are struggling to focus in school because their safety and security is at risk so they can't focus on the higher level of needs in this or the lower level of needs, rather, in this hierarchy. So everything when we're talking about balance, we're looking at it as a pyramid. Think about your own balance, and you can even use this as a tool to figure out are all of my needs being met here, at this most basic level? Okay, are all of my needs being met here? At this next level, are all of my needs for love and belonging being met? And if not, maybe that's why I'm feeling out of balance with my self-esteem. Maybe I need to find more connection. So we can use this as a tool and that's really why we're bringing it up in terms of how do we prioritize what we?
Speaker 3:need. Well, I want to bring this back to, I guess, pageantry, because this episode is balancing pageantry and life and to me pageantry falls into the top two sections of this hierarchy. So you have the baseline level of pageantry right, which is achievement, the need to be unique, the confidence. Those are kind of the basic things that you work on with the younger girls, I think, especially when you're coaching. And then the real highest level of all of this is where pageantry comes in and that is the experiencing, the purpose, the meaning, the inner potential and how you showcase that through pageantry.
Speaker 3:Because, again now I feel like it's not a Sash and Soul episode if I don't say this Nobody's actually good at pageants. It's not like a running sport. It's not a Sash and Soul episode if I don't say this Nobody's actually good at pageants. It's not like a running sport, it's not a point-based sport, it is a subjective thing. Pageantry is a subjective thing, so you're not actually able to be good at pageants. Yeah, you can find success, but you find success in all these other areas of life before you find success in the self-actualization portion at the top of the pyramid.
Speaker 1:And when you say you find success in other areas of life, we're talking about the skills like your speaking skills, your ability to put together a really powerful community service initiative that you're passionate about, that you're driven behind, that you're doing really cool things with that. You've got a talent that you're showcasing with that. You've got a talent that you're showcasing. You've really honed in on your hair, makeup, clothes, your walking, your interview skills. Those are the skills you can practice and succeed in those areas and then you put it all together. But at the end of the day, it's still subjective. You can be good at these levels of skills that are also going to help you in other areas of your life, but you can't just be really good at pageants, like Lila's saying.
Speaker 3:Right, there's a reason why pageantry is one of the only things in the world that combines all of these different aspects. So, anyways, so bringing it back to pageantry, right, please realize that if you're struggling with health or employment, or struggling with family, or whatever it is, your priority should not be competing in a pageant and, if it is, find ways that you're able to fill these baseline needs before you are putting in all this effort into your community service initiative or your walking right, because none of that is going to fall into place if you don't have those baseline needs. And sometimes we will have clients where we're like okay, you need to go and focus on the fact that you need to have your baseline needs covered. You're going through a job transition, or if you're not sure if you want to be in school right now, or if you're not sure if you want to be in the location that you're in right now, all of these things, you don't have to have it all figured out.
Speaker 3:That's not what I'm saying, because I've never had it all figured out and I've still done pageants my whole life. But the priority should be different. I've walked into different competitions with different goals, because what was going on in my life at the time looked different because of this priority hierarchy. So I guess that is what we're trying to get towards. Is that, instead of trying to balance pageantry with your life, take it step by step, in the way that Ray was talking about. Right Like you have food, you have water, you have shelter, cool. Move on to the next thing. Is your employment feeling secure? Do you like what you're doing in that way safety and security and then move on to your family and your sense of community and what you're doing there and feeling like you belong somewhere. I think that is really the base of what we're talking about when it comes to trying to balance pageantry and life, and it shouldn't be your whole life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk about it then in real life terms. So for me in particular, as I'm looking at this hierarchy of needs and thinking about the ways that I've felt off balance this summer in particular, well and honestly, for about a year and a half now at least, if not longer but like my safety and security piece has been hasn't been completely, my needs haven't been completely met there. So I'm feeling off balance for a lot. In a lot of these other areas I'm feeling off balance and love and belonging, certainly in my own self-esteem and definitely in my self-actualization. I can't focus on creativity and purpose and experiencing that purpose when I'm struggling with personal health issues and with family issues, like losing my brother and going through grief and then going through this like huge, like legal drama behind all of that that is not going to be over anytime soon.
Speaker 1:Um, a lot of that is just causing some upset for me.
Speaker 1:So it's going to be a lot harder for me and this is where I have to have grace for myself. I need to look at this and be like no, this is science, you guys, this hierarchy of needs, it's been studied in psychology. I can look at this and try really hard to have grace for myself and to have a nonjudgmental stance of looking at the circumstances in my life and how those circumstances are affecting my overall well-being and my ability, or lack of ability, to accomplish some of these other things that I would like to. And that's what I've been struggling with. It's the judgment, it's the shame, it's the frustration with myself that I'm not doing more as a high achieving person, as someone that loves being just so focused and passionate and purposeful and intentional and like the depth behind my conversations, and I can't really reach that level of depth and creativity and meaning and just interconnectivity when I'm struggling with some of these external things. It's just not possible. But it doesn't make it any less frustrating, which is, you know, we go back to the radical acceptance.
Speaker 3:It's like one big circle cycle, because now I'm thinking, is it actually the struggle of balancing or is it the struggle of accepting that you're prioritizing different things and that it looks different to other people? Right yeah?
Speaker 1:because part of the balance isn't just like maintaining this hierarchy of needs. Part of the balance is in your own mindset about the balance, and if your mindset about being off balance is also off balance, then, man, we're just like tumbling around in space with no idea of where's up and where's down.
Speaker 3:I think this is really important to talk about, because we could sit here also all day and talk about the science behind it and the hierarchy of needs and how much sense it makes.
Speaker 3:But if you're not in the space of giving yourself grace and accepting that you're prioritizing different things at different times, and accepting that it looks different than the other person next to you, it could again, like you said, it looks different between me and Logan right now too.
Speaker 3:If I was comparing, if he was comparing himself to what I was prioritizing, that would not be good for him. So that, to me, is probably the most important thing that we could be talking about is accepting that you will prioritize different things. I think we naturally actually probably do that as humans, but so much of our comparison gets in the way, so much of the shame can get in the way, and that's almost really the most important piece of it all when it comes to balancing is not necessarily the science behind it. While that's important, I think if somebody had shown this to me or talked to me about this in my most transitional times, where I was struggling the most, I don't think that it would make as much of an impact or feel as authentic than them. Just talking about accepting the fact that you are prioritizing different things.
Speaker 1:So I think that leads into a next really important point that I've been kind of thinking about here and there through this whole conversation is you don't have to do it alone. You don't have to do it alone. The comparison becomes a larger problem when you are with people that are reinforcing your own self-judgment, rather than being with someone that is generous and understanding and compassionate toward you and not necessarily empathetic, because empathy means that they can feel what you're feeling, and that's not an easy thing to do for everyone, but to have that compassion. Yesterday my husband and I were talking about the trip coming up. We were talking about um.
Speaker 1:I've been, we've been doing a lot of estate planning and we've established a trust where we put, like, our house in the trust and like um, like all of our assets, to make sure that all of that is protected If anything were to happen to us.
Speaker 1:And this is important to my family in particular, because my mom is dealing with all of my brother's assets, um being in probate, uh, right now, which just basically means that it's going through the state and she doesn't have access to any of these assets and they have to, like you know, like provide a death certificate and like go through all of these hoops um to to get access to to my brother's assets, and so she has been gently encouraging all of us to make sure that all of our estate is in order, and so we wanted to prioritize that before we left for Italy.
Speaker 1:But we were talking about it yesterday and I went from being like really, really excited about Italy to having some anxiety about it and my husband was like, look, I get it. He's like I don't feel this level of anxiety, nor could I possibly feel what you're feeling about putting together a trust and like planning for if something were to happen to us, Because he's like I haven't experienced the level of loss that you have, but since you have, you're empathizing with the rest of your family and that fear for you is very real. And so for him to just be that compassionate and to validate what I was feeling allowed me to find my grounding and practice, that self-grace and acceptance, that radical acceptance of myself, so that I wasn't as judgmental on myself self, so that I wasn't as judgmental on myself.
Speaker 1:Now I don't think that it's healthy to rely on other people for that validation, it's really important to practice validating yourself, but it's certainly not helpful to be around people that are invalidating you.
Speaker 3:Goes back to the inner circle episode, picking your team.
Speaker 1:I think too, just because my you know, my second level here on the hierarchy of needs has been rocky for some time now, that doesn't mean that I'm not also still like feeling the love and belonging or trying to lead and lean into that, because that can be supportive for me in what I'm going through and definitely struggling more with my own self-esteem and my self-actualization.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean that I'm not still doing what I need to do. I'm trying to balance in a sense, that I know I'm out of whack in one area and I'm going to give space to that, but I also have priorities and things that I need to get done elsewhere. But part of the mindfulness and the self-acceptance and the grace that I'm practicing is understanding that I'm not going to perform at a level that I might otherwise in these other areas. You know if I wasn't also struggling with this over here. So that's part of the grace is like just accepting that you might not be at your best right now, the best that you've ever been or the best that you could be, but you're at your best for where you're at right now and that's good enough.
Speaker 3:I think that's the point of this whole episode is recognizing that prioritizing looks different for everybody. You're not necessarily throwing everything away when you're balancing things, but it can. It shifts. What am I visualizing in my head? It's if you see a time lapse of a pie chart that's changing over time and how everything is just changing all the time. That to me, is kind of the visual and accepting all of it and not comparing.
Speaker 3:And I think that so many of the issues for lack of a better word that we talk about comes this big comparison piece of life and how much that would change the way that we navigate or struggle with different other things going on, Because a lot of this stuff is very natural, honestly natural life things that are just going to happen.
Speaker 3:It's impossible to prevent it from happening and you're going to hit your head against the wall constantly if you try to prevent difficult things from happening. So then, how much of it really is just realizing that it's a lot of the yuckiness is coming from the comparison portion of what we think our life should look like when we're looking at other people's lives, and also remembering that we're not meant to know what everybody else is doing at all times or we're not meant as humans to know what's going on in the world 24-7, all the time. That's like the biggest thing and that's kind of all I got for this episode right now and I feel like we've talked about everything that needs to be talked about, but also the solution pieces are really just accepting, not comparing, prioritizing. Those are, like my three main takeaways. Are those three things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I just I want to end on recognizing again that if you're listening right now, I mean I don't know where you're at, I don't know what space you're in, I don't know what needs are not being met for you, I don't know how you're feeling, but if you happen to be feeling pretty off balance and if you happen to be feeling like you are just really struggling to get anything done or really being frustrated with yourself because of your level of ability right now and where you're at, I think the best thing that I could say to you is that I've been there. I've been there more times than I care to count and even as a coach, feeling this sense of responsibility to my clients, feeling like I'm supposed to be pushing myself through whatever it is that I'm going through, and the best thing that I could have done for myself and it was not easy, I think this is my message to you the best thing that I could have done for myself when I lost my brother and I was catapulted into horrific grief and re-traumatization because I had lost my brother in high school, my older brother in high school. So it was just bringing up a lot of that my brother in high school, my older brother in high school. So it was just bringing up a lot of that and fear for my family and my own mental health was just in shambles.
Speaker 1:At that point, the best thing I did for myself was practice grace and told myself I don't, I'm not going to be the same type of coach that I was before my brother died, and I have to give myself grace for that. I also recognized and really kept reminding myself multiple times a day sometimes that I wasn't at my best at that moment, but I was going to be better and stronger somehow because of it. And I was certainly and I'm still not in a place where I'm grateful that it happened. I will never be grateful that any of this happened, but I can be grateful for the growth that I experience and I think, whatever you're going through, my encouragement is it's okay to feel what you're feeling.
Speaker 1:Allow yourself to feel that growth and healing is not a linear process. There's a lot of pausing and there's a lot of feeling like you're backsliding, but just know that you will get stronger for it Because, like we talked about that, balance is necessary. Practicing balance is necessary for you to grow and evolve. So balance is going to look different for you than it looks for somebody else right now, and that's okay, and I just feel like I have so much more in my heart to share, but the words aren't coming to me. So just know that I'm pouring love out there, because we all find ourselves in just really crappy situations sometimes, and it's not forever. It's really really not forever.
Speaker 3:I feel like that needs to be the last thing that people hear, so with that everyone.
Speaker 1:Please be well, take care, put yourself first, practice that self-care. Check out Maslow's hierarchy of needs. See kind of where you're falling right now and what needs maybe need to be met a little bit more and be solution focused on the things that you can take action on and practice that radical acceptance. The things that you really can't do anything about. Yeah, with that, we'll talk to you next week. Thanks for tuning in. See you guys later.
Speaker 3:Bye.
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