From Panic to Power: The Mindset Tool That Changed My Everyday

I told my son not to look at a solar eclipse… then I did it myself—and spiraled into anxiety, convinced I was going blind.

What followed wasn’t an eye issue, but a powerful reminder of how quickly our thoughts can take over our body and shape our reality.

In this episode, I share the simple morning routine that’s helped me create more energy, joy, and patience in my real life with three young kids and a full schedule. It’s inspired by The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, but I boil it down to my favorite part: “emotional motivation.” In about 60 seconds, I choose one feeling I want to lead with, visualize what it looks like in action, and let that guide how I show up for my family and my work. We also take it further with two quick lists: what you usually feel and what you want to feel, then how to bring those emotions into your day on purpose.

If you’ve ever woken up anxious, overthinking, or already behind in your day, this tool will help you reset and show up with more calm, confidence, and purpose.

Thank you so much for being here. If you feel called to, please follow Essence Embodied, share the show with someone who needs it, and leave a rating or review so more listeners can discover these conversations. 

You can keep up with Tyne on instagram here:

https://www.instagram.com/tynestecklein?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Join Tyne's email list here: https://shy-band-100.myflodesk.com/mrxyszsu5h

I'd like to say a massive thank you to my editor and dear friend, Nikki Dalonzo, for supporting me on this journey! 

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Episode Matters

Speaker 0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome to Essence Embodied by Tyne Stecklein. I am your host and I am so excited that you are here with me today because this episode is going to be life-changing. If you would like to bring in more joy to your days, more love, more abundance, more confidence, this episode is for you. I am going to share with you one of my favorite tools that I have taken into my own daily routine in this past year, and it truly has changed everything for me for the better. And I'm just really grateful that you decided to tune in today so that you can hear it too. As always, I have a story for you. This one is about my personal life, however, not my career. And it is one of the most embarrassing stories that I could share about myself. I am not proud of this, but I am showing up here as authentically as I can. So you get to get in on this one. If you're watching with me, you see these cute frames that I'm wearing. If you are listening, I have some glasses on, which is not my normal look, but these are actual prescription glasses. And today you're gonna learn the story behind why I have these. And also, more importantly, you are going to learn about the power of our mind and how to transform your days using the power of your mind. So we had a solar eclipse, I don't know, like within the past two years, right? I have I have mom brain, timelines are a little fuzzy for me, truly. But we had a solar eclipse. I had my oldest son in school for the first time, and he was four, I think, and I made it a really big deal of like, you cannot look at the eclipse, like you cannot do this. You could go blind. I didn't even want to send him to school that day because I was afraid he would look. And they said we have these protective glasses for the kids and we're not gonna have them out at the peak time and all of that. And I still almost didn't send him to school, but I have a lot of confidence in my child. And I sent him to school and he promised me he would not look at the eclipse. So, what do then I in turn do as the adults in the situation? Well, I do exactly what I told my child not to do because when we have stressed over and over how we shouldn't do something, it really gives us that itch to want to do that exact thing. So I was very newly pregnant at the time, I believe. And I had an OB appointment the day of the eclipse that morning around like 11 a.m., which happened to be the same time that the eclipse was at its peak moment where it's its brightest, most beautiful, shining self. And I walked outside and I just I could not help myself. I was like, I have to see what this is all about. I looked up, I looked straight at the eclipse. Not once, but twice. You guys, oh my god, I looked at the eclipse twice and it was bright and blinding and beautiful, and I felt excited and then very quickly terrified. And as I was driving to my OB appointment, I convinced myself, the power of the mind, that I was going blind or I was going to go blind, and that these beautiful children that I have and the one that I was growing inside of me, I was never going to be able to see again because I had done this horrible thing to myself that wasn't going to be reversible. So I go to my OB appointment and I'm looking at my phone and it looks a little fuzzy, a little blurry, and I'm freaking out. And I'm texting my husband and I'm texting my mom and I'm telling them what I did, and they're both like, how could you do that? I don't know. I'm freaking out. Well, I'm leaving the OB and I see that there is an optometrist right like two doors down. So I run in there, like panicked, weirdo woman. I run up to this doctor and I am like, you have to help me. I looked at the eclipse. I'm freaking out. I tell him the whole story. He was so kind, bless his heart. He shows me a text from his, I can't remember son or daughter, saying they did the same thing. He's like, you're gonna be fine. He's like, we cannot have prolonged exposure where we stare at that. He's like, but you wouldn't do that anyway. Like, you can't physically do that. He's like, you're gonna be okay. You're okay. He was very, very kind. I felt assured for the moment. I went home and I spent the next five days panicking still. I had that like not sick to my stomach feeling where you can barely eat, that I really had ruined my life. And I was just gonna wake up one morning and I wasn't gonna be able to see. So I made an appointment with that doctor, and he checked my eyes and come to find out I'm getting older. And my eyesight is not as good as it was. And because we spend a lot of a lot of our time looking at a screen on our phone, it's affecting almost all of our vision. Like now, teenagers are having vision issues that they shouldn't because of staring at a screen. So I need glasses for various things. Need is a strong word, don't need them, but I could now use them to make my vision better. So I allowed my mind to completely control the scenario and think that I was going blind when truly I just was getting a little bit older and aging. But you know how when something is in your head, like once you have convinced yourself of something, it's nearly impossible to talk yourself down, right? Or to change the scenario in your mind. So I also then, because I just was so like in this awful anxiety mode. I had been for five days. I ended up having to buy a pair of frames because I felt like it was the necessary thing to do after I made this poor man, you know, check my eyes. And it was not a cheap little shop. It was a very cute, fancy little shop. These were like one of the cheapest pairs of frames that I could find in the place. But I walked out with this massive eye bill and a lot of embarrassment. And I learned a lesson that day that our mind is so powerful. Our mind can take us to really great heights, and our mind can also really bring us down. So, what I am really excited to share with you today is a tool for the mind that is going to help us achieve the mornings, but more importantly, the days that we want, the days that we want to be living. So, I'm gonna have you do a little exercise with me. And if you are sitting and you have paper and you want to jot this down and a pen, go for it. If you're just listening, you could do this in your mind. I do this when I'm doing my motivational speaking or my interactive workshops with groups. So this is a really, um, a really fun exercise, I think. So I want you to think what are the top three things that I feel most mornings when I wake up? Or what are the three most common things that I feel? Annoyed, optimistic, excited, tired. Now, if you put tired, that's okay. Because almost everyone that I've ever done this exercise with has raised their hand that they feel tired, including myself. Because we are living much busier lives than I think maybe we were ever intended to are to-do list for every day is so long. And then I know myself, I don't always prioritize my rest and my sleep when I should. I want to binge the show, the new hot show that I'm loving, or I want just that like me time after I put my kids to bed. And I should be sleeping and I don't, and I wake up and I feel tired. And my reality is that I should be the most tired I've ever been because I have three young kids. I'm very much in the thick of it with motherhood and working and traveling for work, and I'm busy. I have a very full, busy life. But my secret that I'm gonna share with you allows me to not feel tired. I actually feel more energetic and alive than I ever have, than I did in my 20s, even when I was like living my dream job, dancing professionally, working on these amazing shows and for artists and whatnot. I remember a lot of days where I felt tired. I want to introduce you to this book called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. You want to order this as soon as you are done listening to this podcast because it says the not so obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life before 8 a.m. And that is true, or it has been true for me. So he's gonna talk you through what he calls the savers, which are different things that are gonna help you live your best life and start your day the way that you want and need to. I am gonna kind of combine it into like Tyne's version into one thing that I give a different name. But this is me, you know, paraphrasing and just giving you my rundown of what I really took from this book, but there's a lot more, so check out the book. But here's my main little secret tip that has been huge. So when I wake up in the morning, which is usually because a child has jumped on me or is, you know, like wanting me to get up or crying or what have you. And I'm not gonna lie, most of the time I'm like tired and like a little annoyed, and like, how am I gonna do this day? And then I look at in my mind, I visualize what is tired and annoyed look like if that's how I move through the morning with my sweet dear children. What does that look like? It looks crappy, is the answer. It looks like I'm gonna be impatient, like I'm gonna not be loving, like I'm gonna regret that because I'm gonna regret how I treat them or my husband. So then I think, what do I need? Or what do I want? What do I want to feel this morning? It might be playful, it might be present, it might be loving. How does playful look? Let me visualize that. Well, playful with children always looks really good because they are gonna love it. And my inner child, the part of us that always wants to feel alive and playful, is also going to enjoy it. And my morning is all of a sudden gonna get so much better or loving. How does loving look? Well, it looks and feels loving, which is always a good thing to bring to anyone, including ourselves, first thing in the morning. So I pick a word and I get motivated by it. So I call this like emotional motivation. Like I want an emotion to motivate me. This is how I want to feel. This is how I want to move through my morning. And here's the coolest part the tired or the aggravation or the dread of the day just disappears. And I haven't even had my coffee yet, which I do need. That is my one vice. I need coffee with a lot of sweetened creamer, like more creamer than coffee. It's a must. But not even for the energy at this point anymore, because whatever word I have chosen to bring in, you guys, I swear it is like the most powerful thing. It comes in and the tired or the other thing that I felt just disappears. And it has actually changed my life. It has changed my mornings. And don't tell my husband this. I think it's changed his mornings because we respond to what we are met with. If I wake up in a bad mood, then that's gonna rub off on everyone in my family, in my little bubble, in my circle. If I wake up and I'm playful, then everyone responds to that. So it's been like really cool to kind of see the ripple effect of that in my own home. But just for me and how I connect with myself and the people that I love the most first thing in the morning, it has been the greatest gift. So I would love for you to try this. I would love for you to implement this into your mornings. And I would love for you to share with me how it works for you, how beneficial it is, how much it's changing your life, hopefully, because it truly has changed mine. We can take the exercise we did one step further. I said, write down the three things that you think you feel. Well, now, could you, in your mind, or write down, think of the three things that you want to feel. What are the three main things that I would like to feel in my days? Joy, abundance, gratitude. Okay, well, remember we talked about the power of the mind, right? Mine made me think I was going blind when I'm just getting old. I can choose to feel those things if I want to feel them. I can choose to feel gratitude in any moment, love in any moment, abundance in any moment. Even if I feel like I need more money coming in, what do I have an abundance of? Love. What do I have an abundance of? Dancers when I go teach that are so like eager and willing to learn. What makes me feel um happy? Well, there's a number of things. Painting, nature, my family, the ocean, right? Like I can choose to feel the things that I want to feel, which doesn't mean maybe I'm going through something really difficult. I'm having a really challenging time in my life. But we can feel two things at once. I can be tired and loving. I absolutely can. I can be deeply sad and optimistic for what's to come. I encourage you to make those two lists and then also cross-reference. Do I have anything on those two lists that's the same? One thing, two things, three things. And if not, then you could spend 2026, right? We're pretty fresh into the year. You could spend that really trying to achieve your list of the things that you want to feel, really trying to get one step closer or three steps closer to that every day because it has really worked for me. The cool thing about this also is that we can do this throughout our day as many times as we need. So, you know, if I'm showing up for my kids in the morning, I might need patience or energy or to be loving. But if I'm showing up for a work thing that has me feeling a little stressed or anxious or frazzled, maybe I just need confidence. Maybe I just need to be connected. So I can do this at different points throughout my day and visualize what's it gonna look like if I walk in without my ego, but confident. It's gonna look a lot better than if I walk in nervous, right? So this works for so many different scenarios. Now, you might be thinking, I don't have time to meditate all day. No one does. I wish that I could meditate for 20 minutes every morning before I see any other human. That is not realistic. I literally do this, this emotional motivation, as I call it, for like 30 to 60 seconds, typically with one or three children on me while I am still in my bed. I'm like, you guys, mama needs a minute, mama needs a minute. I might even pull my covers up, again, be like playful, pull my covers up and visualize what I need and then begin my morning. I I very rarely get to do this alone. I might go pee for the morning and try to do it then or while I'm brushing my teeth. If I can have a moment alone, fantastic. But if I don't, I can do it so quickly now, even with other people around me, because it's that valuable that I now require it. I now crave it for my day. It changes my whole day for the better. So I am more than excited for you to implement this and try this in your life, in your mornings. Check out this book. I wouldn't know about this if it weren't for this book and for Hal Elrod. And if you enjoyed this episode, if you find that it's helping you or that it might, you could send it to someone, to a friend, a family member, someone who you think maybe wants to find more joy or more energy or more um playfulness in their day, right? Send it to someone who you think might also benefit from this. And as always, continue to embody your authentic essence. If we all started doing that, I think the world would be a much more vibrant and beautiful place. So we could start one soul at a time. I'm Tyne Stecklein . Thank you for being here with me today.