Things Need To Change: Breaking Bad Habits & Getting Back to Yourself

In this episode of They Call Me T, I talk about feeling unbalanced mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and the realization that sometimes things simply need to change. From doomscrolling and slipping routines to feeling stuck at work, this episode explores how small habits can slowly pull us away from ourselves and how we can start returning to balance. A thoughtful and honest conversation about resetting routines, breaking phone addiction, reconnecting with yourself, and making meaningful life changes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Something feels off not dramatically off, not like life is falling apart off just off. Like when your chair is slightly uneven and you keep shifting trying to get comfortable And lately I've realized something. Things need to change. Welcome back to They Call Me Tea, and I'm your host T.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Today we're talking about something that I think a lot of us go through, but don't always say it out loud. That moment when you look at your life and think, wait, when did I start doing things I don't even like doing? So let's talk about it. Let's get into it. Things that I I actually am beginning to really have a strong dislike for, these behaviors that I've picked up. And let's start with the biggest offender, which would be my phone. This little rectangle has been running my life lately, and I know better. I used to put my phone away an hour before bed like some kind of enlightened monk. I was really diligent about it. And I'm actually still very strong in that belief that you should have some downtime. So put your phone away an hour to two hours before bed. Now I'm doom scrolling and it's late, and I'm looking at videos of, you know, somebody reorganizing their refrigerator because that's important. Like I'm looking at this stuff for absolutely no reason. The other thing is my nighttime routine. It used to be so sacred. Reading, journaling, if I didn't do that in the morning, and taking the time to just slow my mind down. Now sometimes I look up and it's late and I'm still staring at my phone, thinking, how did I get here? It's true. It's just, it's so mind-numbing doom scrolling. That doom scrolling just takes so much time away from you. And I've been doing that lately. And I don't have a lot of social media. You know, I have Instagram solely for my podcast. I don't have a personal Instagram because unfortunately I got hacked. So I do have an Instagram called They Call MeTeed, but I don't have personal social media anymore. So I'm looking at clips that like people have sent me on YouTube or TikTok. Either way, it is kind of ruining my life a little bit. It's completely throwing me off balance. And then the mornings, I used to wake up and not even look at my phone. Now, on weekends, first thing I do is grab my phone. And suddenly my brain is flooded with information before I've even had water. I used to use a traditional alarm clock, you know, like a civilized person. And I, when I say traditional, the very old school alarm clock that wakes you up either with a buzzer or the radio, which I love it. It's a very old one. I used to have one of those when I was younger, and I actually went to the thrift store and got a new one some years ago. Anyways, that's what I've used for a very long time. And recently I just ordered a sunrise clock. It hasn't arrived yet. My sister got me onto that because I'm looking for something a little gentler to wake me up. However, I've been back to using my phone. And so when I wake up and I want to snooze it, I'm still looking at that blue light for the minute that I've turned on my phone in the dark to turn off the alarm. It truly messes with you. But again, I have to have my phone in my room to have the alarm on. And I'm really trying to disconnect from that when it's time to have the downtime that's so necessary for you to go to bed and wake up. And when you have your phone as your alarm, you know, you turn off the alarm, then you check one thing, then another. And suddenly you're in the internet before your brain is even awake. Now, I'm still pretty strong on my internet routine in the morning. So when I check my phone in the morning, well, actually, I I don't check my phone right when I wake up during the weekday. I turn off my alarm, I snooze, I get up, and it's about two hours before I actually check my phone because I don't check my phone obviously when I'm getting ready and then I'm driving to work. And by the time I get to work, I need to have my tea and just kind of get acclimated to what's going to happen for the day. And then I will check my phone. And by that time, it's two hours later. So I'm doing pretty good for that on the weekdays. However, when it comes to my physical routine, that's where I'm slipping. My workouts have slipped. And I mean they've really slipped. So last week I didn't work out at all. And the week before I got in three days. But last week I was so busy and I felt very overwhelmed. I didn't have a chance to work out. Either I didn't have a chance to work out or I just really wasn't committed to working out, which is not great. But it's not completely gone. I've been really inconsistent. And I've learned something about myself. When my body stops moving, my mind gets extremely heavy. I need to be in the gym. And I'm not a person that can really work out at home. I used to be able to have a great workout at home, whether I watched something or I just did what I needed to do, you know, freestyled my own workout and it worked and it was great. And I loved it and I felt a sense of accomplishment for the day. But the reality is for me, I need structure. So I need to be in the gym. And not having that or being very inconsistent has been very tough on me. Very, very tough. And I really need to get back to it. And it really impacts me emotionally, not moving. I do walk every day for the most part. I'd say I walk three days a week for an hour. So, you know, I take my lunch hour and I walk for an hour because I need to deal with what's happening at work for the day, or I get very grumpy. And I don't think my colleagues want that. I also need it to just kind of regroup. The emotional piece, the impact is also another part that's affecting me. I start to feel very stuck. I think for everybody, you start to feel very stuck if you're off your routine. And not because your life is bad per se, but because you know you're not showing up in the way you want to. And I find that this is so true for me, not only in my household, but in my work life too. I feel that I'm not showing up in the way that I want to, or that people are used to me showing up. Everything is just, you know, creeping into every aspect of my life, the unbalance impacting my friendships. It's affecting all of my relationships because I'm just so unstructured. And I don't think I'm always showing up in the way that I not only that I'm used to, but also in the way that other people are used to me showing up, you know, my friends. And I've been so busy that I'm not creating a balance with my work life, my personal life. There's no balance. And I, again, been feeling so overwhelmed that I'm not managing my time well. And that's become very detrimental to my life right now. So currently, I'm working on a few things. I'm working on a book that I'm trying to get finished. I'm working on a documentary, and I've been writing a couple of scripts for some other projects that I've been asked to do. And then I'm also finishing up school. And I am struggling with all of these things. I used to be able to do these things all together on my artistic ventures together with ease, along with working and you know, going to school. I used to be able to do all those things with ease, but I'm feeling very overwhelmed now. And I think it's because there's one major aspect in my life that I'm not quite happy with. And it is making it hard for me to be excited about everything else that I'm doing, because I am focusing on the one thing that is negatively impacting me. And that is making the emotional piece a lot larger for me. And because that emotional piece is so large for me, I'm now having a feeling of spiritual disconnect. I don't know if I would say lost. Actually, maybe a little bit lost. I think maybe I feel a little bit lost because I'm in a situation that I'm not fully happy with. And I think that is just quite overbearing for me. I am a very controlling person, as I have found out. Some people have said to me, I'm a little controlling. So I've always been able to control most aspects of my life. And I do like to have that control. I like to know what's going to happen. Now, to be fair, you can't always know what's going to happen in your life. And you can't always control everything that's going to happen in your life. But the things that you can control, I'm very serious about it. When I feel like I've lost a little bit of control, then I think I tend to feel lost. And right now I feel a little bit lost because I am doing something that I'm not quite happy with. And it's a big thing, and I'm looking to change it. But because I'm still in it, it's it's a bit tough. And so I'm working on change with that aspect right now. There's just something that I want to change, something big that I want to change, and I'm working on that change, and it's been a little bit slow going. And so that feeling of spiritual disconnect, although I say that it's not a lost feeling, but actually a little tiny bit, it is a lost feeling. I just feel quieter than usual. So when I'm journaling, reading, reflecting, I feel aligned. When I'm not, I feel like I'm floating around without an anchor. I just feel like I'm here, there, and everywhere. And it's without purpose. And that's a big thing for me is I need to feel purpose. When I take on a project, it needs to be meaningful to me. It's not to take on a project just to take on a project. I really need to believe in it. Whether it's somebody has asked me to do a project or it's something that I've come up with on my own. I need to see the value in it. And right now, all of the projects that I'm doing, I see value in them. However, because I'm so overwhelmed elsewhere, I'm not excited about it. So it almost feels like I'm just going through the motions. And that's just how I'm feeling right now. We can talk about how quickly discipline disappears. I don't feel like I have any discipline right now. Like I said, I'm just floating around without an anchor. I feel like I have completely lost discipline. Like I was saying earlier, I need structure. I really need structure. I am not a person that can be without structure because I can be very fickle. I'll just do whatever. You know, I really do need some structure. If I don't write things out, could be a problem. If I don't, you know, schedule things, it could be a problem because I'm so fickle. Like one weekend of staying up late suddenly turns into, oh wow, I guess we're just night people now. And I'm not a night person. I have this stupid thing where on the weekends, you know, I go out with my friends and I'll stay out really late. And sometimes if I'm not with my friends and I want some downtime, maybe I'll be on the phone with a girlfriend really late. Or maybe if I just want some time to myself, I will stay up as late as possible and watch a movie or a couple of movies or do something. I feel like I'm wasting the weekend if I don't stay up. It is the most ridiculous thing ever to have that idea that I'm wasting the weekend if I don't stay up late. But that's what I do. If I go with my friends, it's like I got to stay out as late as possible. And it is really ridiculous because on the weekends, I really like to get up, go to the gym, do those things, but I can't do those things if I'm tired. If I've stayed up till three o'clock in the morning and then I want to sleep in, I don't usually sleep in. I try, but my body will not allow it. So then I'm I just haven't gotten enough rest. You can't go to the gym when you don't get enough rest. And it just throws off my whole day. So this is where discipline is really important. This is where structure is really important. And I lose it every weekend. And this just brings me to realization. The real wake-up moment for me was work. Because when the imbalances start spilling into work, that's when I know something deeper is happening. Like I said earlier, lately I've been feeling very stuck. And being stuck is one of my least favorite feelings in the world because I'm not someone who believes in the moment. I am a person that does things on the whim. And I've lived my life like that. Now, I'm not saying it works, you know, I'm not saying that that works for everybody. It's just something that I've done. I don't always plan everything out. And the things that I do plan out, I've been very controlled with. But there's also things in my life that I haven't planned out. I've just decided or I've just known or had a feeling that this is going to work, this is what I want to do. Or maybe I didn't know it was going to work. A lot of the times I don't know it's going to work. I just do it. And I'm comfortable in just doing it. I don't always believe in stagnation and doing something because I am someone who believes in movement, growth, change. I wholeheartedly believe that. I believe you need to keep moving. We're always evolving. We're always changing. And I feel like you can't evolve as a person if you don't believe in that. You can't evolve spiritually if you don't think about movement, if you're not thinking about growth and change. You just can't move forward. You can't stay in one place for too long. I mean, if that works for you and you're the type of personality that needs one thing, like you find that one job and you're going to stay there for 30 years, by all means, do it works for you. But for me, I have always wanted to learn more, attain more. I've always wanted to learn more as much as I could about anything, especially if it's something to do with anything I have a passion for. I want to continue to grow. When you feel stuck, that means you've stopped growing. And there's just no other way that you can continue to grow in whatever situation you're in.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

And because I question everything, when you feel stuck, you start asking bigger questions.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Do I need a routine change, a mindset shift? I know that I need both. I need a routine change and I definitely need a mindset shift. And I need a mindset shift because the things and the habits that I've picked up lately have really affected me and kept me off balance. So I really need to shift and I need to get more diligent in my routines and in my structure. And seeming to have a hard time getting back to that, which I cannot figure out because I used to be so strong in it. So what is it right now? And it's making me feel very lazy. And I'm not a lazy person. I'm a person that can't fully sit still. That doesn't work for everybody either. But it works for me. I don't always like to sit around and watch Netflix and watch TV. If I've done that, I feel so lazy. It's just something that I just think, ooh, I've wasted the day, I've wasted the weekend, I've wasted an hour. Then I think about it constantly about how much time I've wasted.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So is it I need a routine change or a mindset shift? I don't know. Or is it something bigger? I I I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

You ever have that moment where you dramatically think, maybe I just need a whole new life, you know? New routine, new habits, maybe a cottage somewhere with no Wi-Fi. I've thought about that a lot. Like just going off in the boonies somewhere and just having me time, like true me time, being somewhere where I do not have access to the internet, where I just have books, a pen, a notebook, and my thoughts. That's spiritual time away. And I just thought how much more enlightened I would be after coming back from something like that. I seriously think about it. And I've done a digital detox before, and boy, did I love it. It was so good. It changed my life. And I feel like I need to do that again, minus recording and uploading my episodes. But I do feel like that is where it's at. Just being somewhere without all of those things interfering with you. It's a reality check, right? The truth is that most of the time we don't need a new life. We need to return to the things that already worked. And me having structure, that worked for me. It worked so well for me. It's so important for me to be structured because it brings balance to my world. And I wholeheartedly believe that that's what I need. I need something to help me return to myself. I don't need to become someone else. I need to return to the version of myself that felt grounded. The one who put the phone away, moved her body, read books, journaled, protected her peace.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I still journal. It's just I'm not regular with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I miss days. I'll miss like a couple of weeks. I'm not as diligent with reading my books anymore. So I have a book that I've been reading for a long time. Again, if this was my old self, I would have finished that book a long time ago. I need to write down small changes that I want to make. I already know the changes that I want to make, but I feel like if I write it down, it'll help me progress a lot faster and keep me on track. Small changes.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

That's where I want to start. Small. Phone out of the bedroom again. Back to the alarm clock.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And then when my sunrise clock arrives, I'll be using that. Movement every day. I need to get back into the gym. Even though I walk during the week, it's not enough for me. I need to work out. I love working out. And when I don't work out, it shows in every aspect of my life, mentally, emotionally, physically. And then what's the bigger change? I have a list of things to me that would be like the big changes. I also know something deeper might need to shift. Sometimes when life starts feeling misaligned, it's a signal. It's not a failure. It's a signal. And I often have to tell myself, you're not failing because I truly feel like I'm failing at life right now. I'm not failing. I'm just a little misaligned, as my sister would say, I'm off balance. And that's why I say I really need to go back to having structure. But I do need to tell myself often that I'm not failing. Even though I say I'm failing at these things, I'm not failing. Because the minute you start saying that you're failing at life, it triggers something different and it makes things even worse. The reality is there's a shift that has happened. I need to get back to being grounded. And how do I do that? But the question is like, why do we drift? The thing I've realized is these changes did not happen overnight. No one wakes up in the morning and decides, you know what? I think I'll abandon all the habits that make me feel grounded. It happens slowly. One late night here, one skipped workout there, I'll journal tomorrow. Those last two for me. I'll go to the gym tomorrow. I'll go to the gym tonight. Let me get home and do this, and I'll go to the gym tonight. Then I don't go to the gym. Then I'm like, I'll go to the gym tomorrow. And then something happens and I don't go. I'll journal tomorrow and then I don't. That's how it happens. It's slow. It creeps in. And suddenly you look up and think, wait, when did I stop doing the things that made me feel like myself? And somehow the phone is always involved. It's amazing, really. This tiny device has convinced us that we need to know what everyone else is doing at all times. It's so ridiculous. Why are you paying so much attention to what everybody else is doing? It's so time consuming and such a waste of energy. Meanwhile, my brain at midnight is learning absolutely nothing useful. Like, what did I learn from watching? Some girl eat 15 bowls of soup or somebody, you know, talking about their new boots. What did I learn? I learned absolutely nothing. I well, maybe I learned that it's possible somebody can eat that much, or that I can't eat that much, or I don't like those boots that I just finished watching a review for 20 minutes. I don't know, but I don't think it was useful. Maybe it was, who knows? I digress. But it's just random information like how to fold fitted sheets, which celebrity broke up. I really try not to follow that crap, but it creeps in. And whether someone in another country reorganized their pantry. And I'm sitting there like, yes, this is essential information for my life. Why? So I have to take a step back and really dig deep and think what does elevation really mean? When I think about the word elevate, I don't think it means becoming some perfect version of myself. We would all love that. Trust me, I would love to be perfect. I often say that I'm perfect, but that's that's not true. That hurts me to say it, but it's not true. When I think of elevation, I it's not that I want to become perfect, I just want to be a better version of myself. It means returning to alignment.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

When my mind is clear, when my body is moving, when my spirit feels quiet and steady, that's when I feel like myself. And I miss that feeling.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

And part of this reflection has made me realize something else. When the rest of your life starts feeling out of rhythm, work starts feeling heavier too. Even if nothing has changed. Because when you're grounded, you bring different energy to everything. Right? Like everything's great. You may have something negative happen in your life. Maybe other people think it's negative, or it's something that throws you off, but you take it with a grain of salt because you're just so balanced and grounded that it just slides right off your back. You just bring a different energy to everything. But when you're tired, distracted, and disconnected, it spills into everything.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

And that's when you start thinking, okay, something needs to shift. Something needs to shift.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Something needs to change. I need to get out of whatever space I'm in and create a new space, a better space. You need to give yourself permission to reset. Maybe this isn't about reinventing my life. Maybe it's about giving myself permission to reset, to pause, to recalibrate, and to slowly rebuild the habits that made me feel strong, balanced, and present. That's what I miss the most. People used to make fun of me because I was so serious about my routines and how I used to go about life. I miss that. Because that was 100% the way I wanted to live my life. And when you are so aligned, everything just falls into place. Work falls into place. And I don't just mean like things at work. I mean you get the job you want, you get the job you're best fitted for, you get the job where you bring the most value, you get the job where everyone around you is great, and you're thriving.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And that's where you know you should be. Your dating life is great. Your your eating habits are great. Everything is exactly where it should be.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

And I miss that. And that's where I need to work really hard to kind of do a reset and give myself permission to reset. And there's nothing wrong with having to do that. We are evolving creatures. Like cats, there's nine lives. We have a different life from the time we are born a child to our teens, to our early adulthood, to adulthood, to like, you know, being senior, we have different lives. We're constantly evolving, and you have to just go with it. But not everything is going to be perfect. And that's the other thing I've always had to tell myself. It is not always going to be perfect. You can't let when your life gets a little, I don't want to say imperfect, but when things start to shift in a way that you don't really like, you can't let that completely throw you off. You can't let that put you in such a negative space. You have to just take a step back, reassess, and figure out what it is that you need to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

And that's the thing that I think most people don't understand is that again, like I said before, it's not that it's failure.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Just you're just you're just in transition. And right now, I really do feel not only that I'm in transition, but I'm also balanced. So I feel like if I just look at my transition on where I'm supposed to be next, where am I going next? Where do I want to take myself next? I need to have some control over what it is that I'm going to do next. Not everything is within my control, but what is within my control, I need to make sure that I'm on top of it. And that's the thing that I think a lot of people have a hard time overstanding. There's things that you control and there's things that you can't control, but the things that you can control, get on it and realign yourself. And I'm in that space right now. And I'm looking forward to the next part of my life because right now I feel like I'm in a transition. And I know the things that I want to change from the small things to the very big things. And I know what I want to happen after I make those changes and what I know will happen after I make those changes. One of the things that I need to do is just be present. And I will say that I don't always feel that I am present because I'm so busy thinking about the things that I feel like I've messed up. Again, that mindset. It's a negative mindset to be in. So I'm so focused on the things that I'm doing now that I don't like. And instead of being focused on, okay, what can I change now? How am I going to get there? How am I going to do all of this stuff? I'm overwhelming myself. So I need to just think about making the small changes and then transitioning and making the big changes. And once I do that, everything will just fall into place. But because I'm not living in the present moment, I'm it's hard for me to make those necessary changes. So I really need to focus on being in the present and just doing what I've got to do. And I think that that is so true for so many people. I know I've gotten emails from you guys basically saying, I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

I'm feeling the same way.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

It's so good to know that if you've got something going on that you need to change, there is a ton of other people that are in the same boat. And it's always good to talk these things out with people. I was on YouTube actually looking at this topic. How do I make the changes that I want to? How are like what are some of the tools I need? Even though I think I know, I think for the most part I know, but I'm looking for that advice. I'm looking for outside the box information to help me. Because sometimes you you just you need somebody else's perspective. I am at the point where I need somebody else's perspective on how I'm going to get there.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

If you've been feeling off lately, unbalanced, a little bit stuck, a little disconnected from yourself, maybe you don't need a new life either. Maybe you just need to come back to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

And honestly, that's where I'm starting. I hope that you really enjoyed this episode. I hope it resonated with you. I hope you had some good takeaways. I hope you understood that you're not the only one going through this, if that's how you're feeling. And I would love to hear your take on this topic. I would love to hear what you're doing and some of the strategies and tools that you've been using to get yourself back on track, to feel grounded and balanced and structured again. Feel free to email me. I love getting your emails at theycallme teapod at gmail.com. Please share, like, subscribe, comment on my page. I absolutely love getting your feedback and learning more about you guys. Thank you for joining me. Until next time.