Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
Just Count Me In is a podcast designed to help us navigate and flow with our lives through conscious awareness. When we live with less resistance and more receptivity it is easier to express who we came here to be and enjoy life. We are all walking each other home.
Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
#49. New Year's Reflections
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After a week of deep presence with family, we unpack the difference between doing what looks right and choosing what feels true, and why that distinction changes everything from motivation to joy. What if the most powerful shift you make this year isn’t a bigger goal, but a softer nervous system? What are you no longer available for? What are you now ready for? We pull back the curtain on fear-based habits and performance pressure to reveal a steadier path: alignment you can feel in your body, not just measure on a calendar.
You’ll hear how safety and connection unlock the brain’s natural learning systems and how to spot alignment. We share practical ways to close the year with integrity and start the next one with clarity. If you identify as sensitive, thoughtful, or burnt out by demands at work, school, or home, this conversation offers permission and tools to create the conditions you need to thrive.
We also talk about our private, highly personal coaching for those who want guidance in nervous system regulation, self-trust, and aligned action. Whether you’re ready for 1:1 support or simply want a place to breathe and reflect, you’ll leave with kinder questions and doable steps that make real change possible. If this resonated, subscribe, share with someone who needs it today, and leave a review to help more listeners find their way to alignment.
Thank you for joining me!
Welcome to Just Count Me In, a podcast designed to help you break free from your limitations and step into the life that you actually were meant to live. I'm Sari Stone and I'm a holistic coach with a background in education. For the past six years, I've been guiding people to transform their lives from the inside out. My journey, to be honest with you, was not always clear. For years, I actually felt like I was living someone else's life, checking all the right boxes, but never feeling quite truly fulfilled. That all changed when I experienced a few miracles, met some incredible teachers, and had a major wake-up call that forced me to shift my entire perspective. Wayne Dyer once said, When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change, and that is exactly what this podcast is about. Helping you see your life in a new way so that you can start living with authenticity, purpose, and passion. Each week I'm going to bring you episodes filled with insights, practical strategies, and inspiring interviews to help you uncover what truly lights you up and identify what's been holding you back. Eventually, this is going to ignite your motivation and create real change. Are you ready to step into the life you were meant to live? Then just count me in. Hit subscribe and join me on this journey. If this episode resonates, please share it with a friend who needs a little inspiration today. Let's do this together. Welcome, welcome to the last episode of Transform Your Life. Just count me in for 2025. And I'm coming off of a week of just heaven with my daughter and her family and my two youngest grandchildren, where I was just so present, so not on my phone, so not pulled out towards my work, which I do love, but so totally present because they're little. They're six and two and a half, and they ask a lot of questions, and the other griffin says a lot of words. And I really, really thought deeply about how I want to end this year and why I'm doing everything that I'm doing. And it's not really so much about goal setting, it's more about what do I want to be present and how can I be more aligned next year? So as I stand at the edge of this year, I've been sitting with a question that feels a lot bigger than goals or resolutions or vision boards, and there's nothing wrong with any of those things. I'm just actually feeling a little bit differently about expansion this year, and I'm asking, why do we actually do what we do? Are we doing things out of fear? Like fear of punishment, fear of failure, fear of falling behind, or are we doing them because they feel aligned, meaningful, and alive? I've really been getting very honest with myself about this, and so much of what we're taught is fear-based or future-based, and you become really aware of that when you're around little children because you don't want in any way to contribute to that type of conditioning. And my daughter's very aware in the way that she's raising them. I mean, have you gone to church just because you don't want to go to hell? You know? Have you worked harder now so that you can rest later? Are you being good just so you don't create bad karma? Like neuroscience tells us something that's really important. When we're driven primarily by fear or pressure, our nervous system goes into complete survival mode. And in survival mode, we don't access any creativity, any learning, any joy. We just try to get through. When something feels like obligation rather than alignment, and this comes up a lot during the holidays, too, it's not because we're lazy and not because we're ungrateful. It's often because our nervous system just doesn't feel safe in the situation or congruent, and your body always knows the difference. This past year asked me to look really honestly at my own life, at what I do because it looks right and what I do because it feels true. And I've been giving a lot of thought to what do I need to do to truly, truly honor my life. Where can I be more aligned? We all know, you know where you're at a congruence with your life, and every single decision that we make is either life-affirming or death affirming. It's either affirming of your natural path and the reason why you're here and your expansion, or it's not, it's the other direction. Alignment feels different in the body, it feels open, it feels expansive, it feels like there's more breath, more presence, more energy, even when the work is deep. Neuroscience shows us that when we feel safe and seen and connected, the nervous system opens up. And from that state, change happens naturally. Learning happens naturally, joy is possible again. So this is essential for us to see a different year and some different outcomes next year. I mean, a year is a year. There's no such thing as a bad year or a good year. It's how you view your experiences of that year or world circumstances of that year. And maybe the question for this year isn't what should I be doing? What do I need to do more of? But more like what allows my nervous system to soften and engage fully with life. Presence is the currency of the future. And my relationship with presence is where I've done my greatest healing this past year. When we can learn from that state, change happens naturally. Learning happens naturally, and joy becomes really, really possible again. If you're someone who feels sensitive, thoughtful, or burnt out, especially within systems like school, work, or relational expectations, there's nothing wrong with you. Often it's not about trying harder. It's more about creating safety and clarity and self-trust from the inside out. And that's the work I care really, really deeply about, both here on the podcast and in my private work with clients. I really love helping adults and children stay connected to themselves while learning how to live inside systems that were not always built for their nervous systems. People often tell me my child feels so safe being who they are again with you. And that's when the big changes start to happen. So as we enter this year, maybe the practice is not forcing ourselves into new habits. And this is a mind shift for me too. Maybe it's listening more closely to our nervous system, it's being more mindful of our joy, it's deciding what we are no longer available for and what we want to be more available for. As we move into this new year, I want to say this gently. If something in this episode resonated, if you're tired of pushing, tired of performing, tired of trying to make yourself fit into structures that don't quite fit you, you are not alone. In addition to this podcast, I work privately with a very small number of people through one-on-one coaching. The work we do focuses on nervous system regulation, self-trust, and learning how to engage with life in a way that feels aligned, not forced, not artificial. And this is deep reflective work, and I keep it intentionally personal. That's why I limit the amount of clients that I see. So if you're curious, you can learn more about this through the link in the show notes. And if this podcast is simply a place you like to come to to take a breath and reflect, I'm glad you're here too. Thank you for walking this new year with me.