EP29: The Language of Empowerment & The Science of Changing Your Thoughts

Unlock your potential and transform your life with "The Language of Empowerment & The Science of Changing Your Thoughts." Discover how conscious communication and understanding neuroplasticity can rewire your brain for resilience, confidence, and lasting growth. Learn practical strategies to master self-talk, set powerful boundaries, and create a narrative of healing. Perfect for anyone seeking personal development, mental wellness, and true empowerment. #transformyourlife #rewireyourbrain #masterselftalk

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Welcome to the Irene podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Today is Empowerment Friday. And today I'm solo. My partner's out of town with some stuff for her kids, so it's just me today. So I want to kind of start out just first of all, have we have you ever thought about how your thoughts affect your day? Have you ever thought about how the things that you focus on you see more of in your life? I mean, even so simple as let's say you get a new car and then you start seeing that same car everywhere because you're noticing it more because it's it's something that you're conscious of at that time. That's something very simple and basic, but that's kind of the same thing with our thoughts around anything else. Whatever we put our attention on, we draw more attention to. So I want to start with um have you ever noticed how the words that you use, even just to yourself, affect your day, negative or positive? If you start out your day and your thoughts are kind of in a negative frame, you kind of see more negativity throughout the day. I've noticed this with myself for sure. But also I think that it's really important for us to be conscious of that and to understand the science behind it, because it's not just some random thing out there in the universe. It's a a real thing that we all are affected by, our thoughts. Um, our internal dialogue and our external communication aren't just reflections of our reality, but they're powerful shapers of it. So if we consciously shift our language, we can have a more profound sense of agency and truly empower ourselves. Because if you want to see more positivity in your life, you shift to positivity. You shift to trying to see everything good throughout what happens to you in the day. I am one of those people that I try to look for the good because I like to feel good and I like my days to go really well. I'm not perfect and I have days where I struggle as well. But ever since I've made a conscious decision to always look for the good in my day, I found that when something pops up and there's a good and a bad side to it, if I choose to focus on the good, I don't even really recognize the bad because I don't want that. I don't want that negativity. I don't, it might be there, but I want to focus on the good because I want more of that in my life. Um let's see. It's not just wishful thinking either. There's real brain science behind how our words and our thoughts impact our feelings and our actions. So let's define self-talk for a moment. The endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head can be positive or negative. Like I'm not good enough or I always mess things up, negative, to I can handle this. I'm learning. Because whenever we make a mistake, it's either an opportunity to get stuck or it's an opportunity to grow. Because anything that we do, there's always going to be hurdles to overcome. There's always going to be challenges ahead. But if we focus on, okay, how can I learn a lesson from this situation? Or, you know, this thing happened, but what it what hidden message might be in there that I can learn from, that I can see that can make my day a little bit better because I can see, okay, this happened, but why did it happen? And oh, there's a little lesson in here for me to learn. Whenever I learn a lesson, I feel amazing. Sometimes they're hard lessons, but if I truly just lock into the message that I'm trying to receive from that situation, I feel this positive shift. And it makes it more bearable, it makes it more um tolerable. I mean, we some things are outside of our control, but if we just try and focus on the things that bring us joy and happiness and positivity, then we see more of that in our lives. So let me, I'm just gonna read a little bit the the science behind why that is. So I'm sure we've all heard of the word neuroplasticity and cognitive reconstruction. So if we if we want to restructure, sorry, cognitive restructuring. So neuroplasticity, neuro, it's a tricky one, neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity, there we go, got it. Um means that our brains aren't fixed. It's not like we're locked into one way and we can never change. If that was the case, we would never be able to be manipulated. We would never be able to be um have somebody change how we respond or act to something because we would never allow someone to control us. We could lock into being this one person the rest of our life. But to me, that doesn't sound very great because I've learned through my life, through the challenges and the tough things that I've experienced, that the growth happens in those challenges, in those hard things. So I'm grateful for a brain that can evolve and change and become new again. And I can just like we can be um sometimes in a bad relationship that takes us into a negative headspace, we can redirect that back into a positive headspace when we get rid of that negativity that's in our lives as well. Every thought, every experience actually changes the physical structure of our brains, and repeated thoughts strengthen our neural pathways. So just like negative things have strengthened those neural pathways towards negativity, positive thoughts and positive situations and positivity can retrain our brains into the positive side. So that neuroplasticity gives us the ability for us to come back and change the course of our of our lives by having a positive spin on things. Think of it like you're walking through a field, and the more you walk on the same path or think the same thoughts, the deeper the groove becomes, making it easier to walk that same path again. So, what path do you want to forge? What kind of um path do you want to take? Do you want to stay on the same path forever? Or if it's uncomfortable, do you want to forge a new path in a new direction towards more positivity in what you want for yourself? What you want to see of more in your life depends on the thoughts that you choose to think. So, cognitive distortions. Um, so there's caught there's some common negative thought patterns, right? All or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, um, or personalization. So, like, for example, personalization. Say your ex says something that sounds like they're annoyed, like their response to a message just they just sound annoyed. And a lot of us, because we've been with this person for a while, know what that sounds like, right? So instantly, and sometimes because we've been trained to think this, you think, oh, did I do something to trigger them? Um to be annoyed, or like, could I have said something different so that they weren't annoyed? But really, in the end, all you can remember, all what you need to remember is that all you can control is yourself, your own thoughts, and your own actions. You can we can never control someone else. We could try, we can try to manipulate, we can try to do all those things, but most of us don't want to do that. We would rather live in a live a life where we are true and authentic to ourselves and we can show up and be supportive for other people. So I don't want someone to tell me what to do every single day. I like to make my own choices because I like the freedom to be able to choose how happy I am that day. And it's a choice. And I love that I learned at a very young age that I get to choose those things for myself. Um, sometimes those shortcuts, like all or nothing thinking, personalization, catastrophizing, um, kind of lead us astray in our own brains. So let's talk about cognitive restructuring and reframing. So this is the how to change those thoughts, right? So the first step is awareness. We need to catch ourselves when we start headed down that negative negative path. We need to go, oh, that's not where I want to be. I actually want to be on the positive path over here. So the first thing is just acknowledging that you're kind of taking your thoughts down that way. And then you can just do a simple shift and say, okay, I can see that in this scenario, this is the negative thing, but what positive thing can I pull out from this scenario? Or what positive thing can I pull out from these thoughts that I'm having? Or it's it could be as simple as thinking, gosh, I look so terrible today. I hate the way my hair looks, I hate the way my makeup looks. Two, you know what? I'm beautiful no matter what my hair and makeup looks like. I love myself, and it's okay if I don't look perfect every single day and every single moment. It's also important to ask: is that thought 100% true? Um and then ask yourself, what is the evidence for or against it? And then is there another way to look at this? So reframe, reframe, reframe. Look at it from a different perspective. Think about this. Would you say some of the thoughts you have about yourself to one of your best friends? Let's say your best friend's feeling like they have a they're having a terrible hair day, and you look at them and you go, No, you're beautiful. Because we would never speak to our friends sometimes the way that we speak to ourselves. I that would that's one that hit me real hard when um I really sat and thought about it and started having some thoughts and went, oh, because when you think about it from that perspective, when you think about it from the perspective of, would I say this to somebody if this thought came in my mind? Or sometimes we keep it to ourselves, even if we have thoughts about our friends, we keep it to ourselves, but also sometimes we all we have is good thoughts about our friends. That's interesting, that's interesting to think about. Um, so consciously choose a more balanced, realistic, or empowering thought. So it's very simple. Now, I had a discussion the other day with my business partners, and we were talking about something, and I said it's simple, and then I went on to say something, and they both stopped me and said, It's not simple. And I said, I didn't say it was easy, I said it was simple. So sometimes it's important for us to remember the difference between easy and simple. Easy means it doesn't take any effort, right? Or it takes minimal effort. Where simple means it's not a hard thing to do. It's very simple in the fact that it's like change your thought from this to this, but it doesn't mean it's easy. Sometimes it takes time for it to lock in. Sometimes it takes time for us to really understand how to shift those thoughts, how to make things uh look and feel a little bit different for ourselves. But I promise you, with practice, you'll get really good at it. Another thing that um we've touched on before, but I really want to talk about right now is if you wake up every day and you try to set yourself on the right path, one of the best things that I found in my life and that I've shared with others and gotten great feedback on is a gratitude journal. Now, just a little notebook where every day you write 10 things down that you're grateful for that day. That instantly puts your mind in the in the mode, in the like in the what's the word? Puts you in the mode. It puts you in the way that like so. If I'm looking thinking about all the things I'm grateful for, and then I go out the door and start my day, I already started with my brain looking for things that I'm grateful for. And so if I never disrupt that, then the rest of the day I get to see things that I'm grateful for all throughout my day, whether it's that I had the opportunity to speak to this stranger at the grocery store, but we had a wonderful conversation, and they ended up telling me that I made their day because I spoke up and and just was kind to them, or as simple as driving down the road and being grateful that you know you have that red green lights all the way to your destination, or whatever it is. It can be so simple. But the the thing is, is getting in the habit of practicing, looking for those positive things in your life. And it's a real thing, and it's so simple to do every single day. And then before you know it, you don't need to even really need to consciously do it every single day. It becomes a habit, and you'll still have moments where maybe you slip back into your old habits, and it's just as simple as okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do take a couple steps to get me back in that path, back in that mode where I'm thinking of the positive things throughout my day. Just like thinking I'm a failure because I messed up, you can reframe that, catch yourself and say, Well, I'm not a failure. You know, mistakes happen. Everybody makes mistakes. Everyone has messed up once in their life, at least. Two, I made a mistake and I can learn from it. And it does not define my worth because I made a mistake. And I'm one of those people that when I fail or when I fail at something or I make a mistake, I look at it like, oh good, I get to grow because I'm not gonna stop trying. I'm gonna do it again, and hopefully next time I'll get it. And if not next time, the next time after that, because you never fail unless you stop trying. And that's a momentary failure. If you just stop trying in that moment, that's a momentary failure. But you're not a failure. Your worth is always great, no matter what choices you make. So let's talk about the impact on empowerment. So when we change our self-talk, there's a few things that we do. We reduce anxiety and depression, we increase self-esteem and confidence, we improve problem-solving abilities. Think about that one, because that one we're gonna come back to. That's one of the ones I love. And then we strengthen our self of our sense of control over our internal world. So the more we practice positive thoughts, changing our thoughts to the positive, doing positive things, looking for the good, the more that just shows up in our life. Let's I want to go back and touch on improved solving problem-solving abilities. As a business owner, things come up all the time that are outside of my control. Things will happen. And I have decided, because of the practices that I've taken on, to look at a problem that's in front of me as an opportunity for me to learn something new that I don't know, for me to understand something in a different way, for me to see something in a different light. So, what I do is a problem comes up, I write it down. Because now I have my problem and it's on a piece of paper, and now I can do something with it. And I will look at different ways to think about the problem. I will look at different ideas. Sometimes I even will use our tool, Irene GPT, to say, hey, this is an issue I'm having. What are some things I can do to change this situation that I'm in? Or I Google it. Sometimes we need a little bit of like that external like ideas to come in. But if we just were to stop when a problem happened and just go, oh, there's there's this problem. I guess I'll deal with it later. I don't know what to do with it. Then it's forever just lingering around, but you haven't put any action towards solving that problem. But what happens when you decide, okay, I'm gonna solve this problem because I know there's a solution. I just have to be creative, or I just have to think, or I just have to be more strategic. And you start looking at it from that perspective, it changes everything because you're telling yourself, there's a solution, let's find the solution. And your brain always wants to prove you right. So whatever your self-talk is, whatever your ideas are around a certain subject, your brain is always trying to prove it correct. So if you're sitting there thinking, I'm a loser, I'm a failure, I'm this, I'm that, all throughout your day, you're gonna see things that pop up that prove that mental narrative correct. It doesn't mean it is correct, it just means that your mind is gonna start looking for ways to prove that right. Because your mind always wants to align with your thoughts, like everything needs to be aligned. So if you're having negative thoughts, you'll find any like any and everything out there that solidifies those thoughts and makes them feel real to you. Just like the opposite is true. If I wake up and I'm having a great day and I said, you know what? No matter what comes across my path today, I'm gonna be happy and I'm gonna find the joy in the day. And everything that comes up, even if it like could potentially be devastating or really hard or really awful, your mind will find a way to put a positive spin on it. That's powerful. That's amazing to me. That's amazing what our minds are capable of if we just give a little redirection sometimes. So let's talk a little bit about external language. So shaping your reality. How we speak to other people. So there is assertiveness, which means like you're direct and you know, you kind of just say it how it is, and then there's passive aggression. So let's talk about those two. So it's important to be clear, respectful, and direct when we communicate. Now, sometimes I get the clear and the re and the direct, and I forget the the respectful. Not that I'm trying to be disrespectful, but my default is just clear and direct. I'm getting better at the respectful part because that's important to me. I don't want to hurt somebody unintentionally, because my intention is never to hurt. But sometimes if I'm not careful, I've I've hurt people's feelings. And of course, I'm gonna correct that and I'm gonna do better. But that's one thing that I'm working on right now is the respectful aspect to try and hold space for somebody that might be in a different place than I am. So I have to be careful how I say things sometimes because I don't want to hurt other people. Um I statements. So this is where we emphasize I when we're making a statement to express our needs and our feelings without blaming another person. So I feel sad when, oh gosh, when for me, I feel sad when other people are sad, but um, I feel X when Y happens. So that's basically the synopsis of the statement is to express needs and feelings without blaming. So this helps us to understand and not be defensive. Because what someone's saying to us is usually a reflection of them. You know what how somebody speaks to us or how somebody talks about us is usually a reflection of them. Because we speak from the place that as far as we have healed, as far as we have grown, as far as We have taught ourselves to be respectful and kind to others. That's how we speak. Now, look, I just admitted that I have a problem sometimes being not trying to be disrespectful, but not adding that respectfulness when I speak. Because my language, I like to be very direct. Because I don't want somebody to get the wrong impression about what I'm saying, but it happens. Always, always a work in progress over here. Um setting boundaries verbally. So yesterday we talked a little bit about setting boundaries, but if we clearly articulate limits and expectations, this is a direct expression of our agency. So if we're very clear about this is what I expect and this is this is what I'm willing to do, then we let people know like this is this is where I'm at right now. This is what I'm capable of of handling, this is what I I'm agreeing to do, but this is where it is. Um let's talk about the science of social psychology and reinforcement. Um reciprocal communication, so how our external language influences others and how pers how others perceive and respond to us is creates a feedback loop. So how we influence other people affects how they respond to us, and then that's our feedback loop so that we can we can understand ourselves and we can understand them better. If we constantly speak negatively about our capabilities or situation, we might unconsciously act in ways that confirm those beliefs, the power of your words, the power of your thoughts. So sometimes we're confirming something that we actually don't want to give any energy to. But when you've been in an abusive relationship, sometimes when you leave and you're really working through some things, we tend to kind of go to the negative a little bit because we've lived in negativity for so long, or everything feels really heavy and hard. But if we can just change that, then we can reinforce some better beliefs for ourselves, and then in turn we'll act better, and then in turn we'll be better.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Um, let's see.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

So research shows that clearly articulating goals can increase commitment and likelihood of achievement. So when I was growing up, I was very fortunate to have parents that taught us how to set goals and taught us how talk writing them down every day or even reading them every day. For me, it's rewriting them every day because I can read it, that does reinforce. But I have found for myself that writing, rewriting my goals every single day helps me to remember them because for me, that pen and paper connection makes a uh bigger impact in my brain than just reading it. So I like to write it down again every day. Another thing that I learned, another hack for me for goal setting is um or affirmations to is to record a voice note in my phone and then every day re-listen to it back. So now I'm saying it back to myself and I'm hearing it in my own voice. And I get to re-remember those things that I'm working towards, those goals that I want to achieve, those things that I want to have happen in my life, the way I want to see the world, the way that I want to show up for others. Those are the things that I have added to my goals and my affirmations. And those recordings for me, that's something you can do while you're driving. You know, like we a lot of us have really busy lives and things feel chaotic sometimes, especially if we have small children. And having the ability to when you're running errands or you drop kids off at school after you drop the kids off, you can just go back and start listening to those affirmations and listening to those goals. That kind of reframes your mind, right? So it sets your mind right for the day because okay, these are the things and always in the positive, everything always in the positive. We don't say I don't want blah blah blah. We say I want this. Because when we use the negative, like when we say I don't want, all our brain hears is the end part, it doesn't hear don't. So if you say I don't want negativity in my life, our brains can't quite, our brain needs the the direct positive. So I want more positivity in my life, is how you would say that. Instead of saying, I don't want negativity in my life, you flip it to the positive. I want positivity in my life. Um we change our external language, we improve relationships, we gain respect and are taken more seriously, we feel more in control of our interactions, and we create more supportive and create a more supportive external environment. So again, just shift. It's such a simple thing to just shift to the positive and make it a practice every single day. And I promise you, if you just take take a week and be really disciplined for a week, and you'll see everything in your world. I call it like black and white in color. You know, like negativity to me is like it's dark. It's just there's no nothing exciting about it. It's it's a black and white or a grayscale picture where positivity is full of color, full of light, full of joy, full of happiness. That's where I want my whole environment to be. I can't make my my world perfect like this all the time because things happen in our lives that kind of disrupt things, but we can still look for that positive and and shift so that most of our thoughts and most of our actions and most of our brains noticing things is positive. Um, let's talk about practical strategies. So, aware, like we talked about, awareness is key, being aware of the things that you are saying to yourself, your internal dialogue. As women, we have so many thoughts throughout the day. So many. Countless. Like, there's no way we could ever keep track of the thoughts, especially like I know this true for myself. Sometimes my brain is going a thousand miles an hour, and I'm only getting half those thoughts consciously, but I they're running, they're going, they're they're there. So, how can I reframe that? Um, I like how this is put. Become a thought detective. So when a thought comes up, what is it? Is it a positive thought? Is it a negative thought? What where is this thought gonna take me? And how do I reframe this thought? If I don't like what this thought is, now I need to change that thought. So um sometimes we'll have the thought like, oh, I don't want to. Nope, that's not a good example. I'm not sure. Sometimes we'll just have a negative thought, you know, something that's even just slightly negative, or that we just feel like it's a little off from where we really want to be. Just a simple little nudge in the right direction. Because just like we know what a negative thought is, it's so easy to flip it to a positive thought or to try and see something positive. And the more you practice, the easier it gets. A powerful two tool that a lot of people use is to I uh to identify recurring negative thoughts and patterns is journaling. So if you just write down your thoughts and write down your thoughts and you read those, and you when you read through them, sometimes that helps you see them more like is this a positive thought or is this a negative thought? And then think of your favorite person and say, would I say this to my favorite person? A friend, you know, a sister, somebody that you're really close with. Would I say this to them about them? That's a good one. And it's important for us to always know that we can make those changes. We can always make those changes in our in ourselves. And it might be very conscious at first, like we have to really work on it at first, but it's just like anything. Like I grew up playing sports, and the more I practice, the better I got. So just like that, just like practice makes perfect or practice makes improvement, you can practice this and you'll get better and better at seeing all those positive things in your life instead of focusing on the negative. Sometimes we focus on the negative because we get something from it. But if you live there for too long, you'll get a lot of stuff that you don't want. So um be mindful. Practice observing your thoughts and not judging yourself for having those thoughts because sometimes it's just a bad habit. Sometimes it's something that you've done for so long, you're just not quite sure what to do with it. So give yourself grace, but also practice changing those thoughts so that you can have more of those positive thoughts. Um, okay, the reframe challenge. So here's your daily practice. Pick one negative thought per day and actively try to reframe it. You could do more, but start with one. Start with one negative thought. Be conscious, like be take this seriously because I think that you'll be surprised at how much it changes your day. So pick a negative thought, reframe it. So instead of saying, I want to do X, but I'm scared, try this. I want to do X and I'm scared, and that's okay. And one of the things that I heard a long time ago that I love is do it scared. Because if you let being a little uncomfortable or a little afraid stop you from doing something, you're missing out on so much growth and so much learning. Not just empty phrases, but statements that resonate and feel believable. I am capable, I am resilient, I am worthy of respect. Repeated positive statements, which those are my affirmations that I have recorded, even if initially hard to believe, can start to rewire your neural pathways over time. Just like if somebody said something to you that was awful after, like you just met this person, they said something terrible to you. You're not gonna be like, oh, well, it must be true the first time you hear it. But if that person repeatedly says that to you over and over and over and over, somewhere in your brain you start to believe that. So just like that can happen, the opposite is also true. I am capable, I am resilient, I am worthy of respect, I am loved, I love myself. The way that I love myself is the way that I want someone to love me back. So it's just little things that we say that come to fruition in our life. And it does, it's okay if you don't believe it, and it's okay if it even makes you feel a little uncomfortable. I used to stand in front of the mirror and say affirmations. And the first time I did it, I felt so dumb. I felt so silly, I felt like, is this really even gonna work? But I kept doing it because someone told me they challenged me, just like I'm challenging you today. They challenged me to do it and do it and do it over and over and over again until I started to believe the words that I was telling myself as I looked myself in the eyes in the mirror. So if you want to 10 times your power, say your affirmations to yourself by looking yourself in the eyes. There was even a time when I cried, when I started to believe the words, and it made me emotional because I was seeing myself in a different way than I ever had before, or in a way that I used to, but I had lost it for a few years. And when that came back around, and when I started to believe in myself and see myself, everything shifted for me. The hard thing is, is like sometimes those thoughts will still creep back, even now. I mean, it's been almost 30 years, and sometimes I have thoughts that creep in that aren't mine, that just kind of come and try to like mess me up a little bit. But I'm to the point now where I've practiced this positive thinking for so long that I see them and I understand where and recognize where they came from, and then I just send them back from where they came because they're not mine to keep. Um practice in low stake situations. So um when you're when you're setting a boundary, it's okay for you to say, if somebody wants you to go out, let's say you're a friend calls and wants you to go over to their house or go out that night, it's okay for you to say, uh, not tonight. I need some alone time tonight. You don't need any other reason, you don't need any other excuse, you don't need to feel guilty. It's okay for you to just set that boundary and then enjoy your night. Or to say something like, I'm not available for that right now. That's a complete sentence. I think sometimes maybe it's women, maybe it's, you know, how we were raised or some beliefs that we had when we were younger. But sometimes I know that I would somebody would ask me if I could do something, and I really didn't want to do it, but I didn't know how to say no because I didn't have a good excuse to not go. Well, I've taught myself and I've learned over time that it if you don't want to, that's enough of an excuse to not do something. If it just if you just don't want to, you don't have to do everything somebody asks you to do. Um, Dee Dee and I kind of talked about this the other day, like when someone asks you to help them move, and you have had a really busy week at work, and you were looking forward to just relaxing on Saturday and enjoying a day of rest and recovery. And so you tell your friend, I really can't, because that day I've set aside for rest and recovery, but I hope everything goes well. Let me know when you're moved in. I'd love to come see your new place. And that's okay. That's completely okay. And sometimes that makes us feel uncomfortable, or we feel like our maybe our friend won't understand what we're saying and they might be upset at us because we didn't set aside our rest and recovery to help them. But that's not for us to judge, that's not for us to overthink, that's not for us to even do anything with. We've decided that we need rest and recovery because we're important too. And so we decided to rest and recover, and that's fine. That's completely fine. So, in conclusion, I want to talk about. Um, I just want to reiterate changing your language and your thoughts is a practice. So it doesn't fix everything if you do it once. It's practice, right? Practice makes practice makes things better, practice makes improvement. It requires patience and persistence. You'll have one good day, and then the next day you might have to start all over again because, right, you've created those neural pathways toward negative negativity sometimes, or someone else has kind of been in your life enough and created those pathways too for you. But you get to reframe that. You get to um remind yourself that you have inherent power to shape your internal and external words, one word and one thought at a time, and that's true agency. So we all have agency to say and to do whatever we want. So why not choose positivity? Why not choose to see more joy, happiness, love, compassion, whatever words it is that you want to use, how great is it that we get to control how much more of that we see in our life. So I want you, I want to challenge you this week to find one thing that you're gonna pick up from what I said, whether it's recording affirmations, it's practicing being a thought detective. When you have a thought that comes in that doesn't feel good, try to figure out how to shift that thought into something else. Um writing goals and reading them every day, or writing them down every day, or listening back to them every day if you've recorded them. Just pick something that I've spoken about in this podcast today and apply it in your life. And I'd love to hear back from you. Put in the comments down below after you've practiced some of these things and let us know. Did you see the change? How did it feel? Which which thing did you choose to do? And did it feel good? Is there another way that you had that you've learned to practice positivity in your life that I haven't mentioned? Share with us your thoughts and your feelings about this. And as always, thank you for being a part of the Irene podcast and God bless.