Episode 21: The Magic of Being With Yourself

🎙️ Episode 21
Welcome to Episode 21 of The Less Stress, More Magic Podcast ✨

I’m your host, Erin Wallen, and I’m so glad you’re here.

This podcast is for capable, caring women who are doing all the “right” things—yet still feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or stuck in stress. If you’ve ever tried to “think more positively” or reframe your mindset and wondered why it didn’t stick, this episode is for you.

In This Episode

In this deeply personal episode, I’m recording from a solo beach retreat in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, reflecting on what happens when we slow down enough to truly be with ourselves.

What started as a simple question — “What would be fun?” — opened the door to discomfort, clarity, expansion, and a deeper understanding of how our nervous system responds even to the things we deeply desire.

This episode is an invitation to reconnect with yourself beneath the noise, productivity, and constant consumption of modern life.

We’ll talk about:
• Why moving toward what you desire can feel uncomfortable
• The nervous system’s attachment to familiarity—even when it no longer serves you
• How solitude and presence create clarity and truth
• The difference between constantly doing versus truly being
• Why asking “What would be fun?” can open unexpected doors
• The importance of creating space to hear your own inner wisdom

Why This Matters

So many women are living in constant motion—taking care of everyone else, staying productive, and pushing through stress without realizing how disconnected they’ve become from themselves.

But often, the clarity, alignment, and magic we’re searching for doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from slowing down long enough to hear what is actually true for us.

This episode is a reminder that discomfort during growth is normal. Expansion can feel vulnerable. Presence can feel unfamiliar. But learning to be with yourself may be one of the most healing and transformative things you ever do.

If you’re ready to go deeper into this work and build a nervous system that supports the life and results you want, you can explore my signature program here:
👉 https://erinwallencoaching.myflodesk.com/powerofeaseprogram

Reflection / Journal Prompts

Take a moment to reflect or journal:
• What would feel truly fun for me in this season of life?
• Where in my life am I distracting myself instead of being present with myself?
• What might change if I allowed myself more space to simply be?

✨ Free Resource

Support your nervous system with my Daily Ease Reset Checklist—a simple, grounding tool to help you shift out of stress and back into calm throughout your day.
👉 https://erinwallencoaching.myflodesk.com/dailyeasechecklist

🎧 Subscribe & Follow

New episodes drop weekly on Tuesdays.

If this episode resonated, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a 5-star review—it helps more women find the podcast and step into more ease 🤍

📱 Connect with me on Instagram for more support and behind-the-scenes:
👉 https://www.instagram.com/joybyerin/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Just because it seems like this would be better than what I have right now to step toward more of that means that we are having to release something and it might be releasing something good too. So the discomfort is part of it. And even if it's something like I am releasing something that no longer serves me, what is familiar feels very safe to our nervous system, even if it's not healthy and supporting us. So knowing that discomfort, the resistance, all of that is normal as we step toward what we want. Welcome to the Less Stress, More Magic Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Wallen, stress freedom coach, intuitive strategist, and former clinical pharmacist. This show is for busy, capable women with big goals who are ready to stop living with so much stress and are ready for a more ease-based, effective way of living and working. Here, we explore how stress is a survival response, not a success strategy, and how regulating your nervous system leads to more clarity, better decisions, and everyday magic. I can't wait to share with you. Let's dive in. Hi, and welcome back to the Let's Stress More Magic podcast. This is Erin Wallen, and I am excited to tell you about where I am today as I'm recording this and just share some takeaways that have been going through my own mind. Um, but right now I am recording this at in my Airbnb at the beach in Isle of Palm, South Carolina. And I say this as I am looking out my front patio of this Airbnb, and I see the ocean waves just crashing on the sand, and it is so stunning and amazing. If we're not connected on Instagram, make sure we are connected there. I'll have shared some things from the trip. And then also, if you're watching a clip on Instagram, you're gonna see that my background looks a little bit different because I'm sitting in my Airbnb. There's this beautiful seashell print behind me. I just got back from walking the beach at sunrise, which is one of my favorite things when I'm at the beach. Um, so my hair looks very much like we're at the beach. And I just was like, I just want to come on and talk about this. So I'm gonna like rewind how I got here to this beach trip that I just planned a few weeks ago. And I'm here by myself on a solo retreat and just talk about over the last 24 hours, like what has been going on in my mind. So, anyway, a few weeks ago, I was taking a walk in the morning and I was just asking myself this question, what would be fun? Which has been one of my favorite questions lately to ask myself and really dropping into this realm of potentiality. Like, I don't need to know how that would happen. I don't need to know how to create it. I don't need to figure out the logistics of like how would this actually fit in my life and my schedule with work and family and other commitments, but just letting myself dream. And it has been so fun. I have had some little things drop in, some big things drop in. And I encourage you to play with that question, right? We don't need to take it anywhere past the dreaming stage, but I think we all need to dream more. I think we miss the magic when we are just in that autopilot of day in, day out, but let yourself dream. Like, what would you really want? What would you it really, really be amazing? And when I was walking one morning back home a few weeks ago, I just heard going to the beach by yourself, going to the beach by yourself. So I do have an incredibly supportive husband that sometimes I'm like, anything I say that I want to do, he's gonna be like, do it, go for it. And he was. So I am very grateful for that. So I came home and I just said, you know, I just like have this calling to get to the beach by myself. And he did it. I found this place. I was gonna come for two nights. And he's like, why don't you go for three? So here I am three nights by myself at the beach. Like I am just, as I'm sharing this, like feel fully immersed in how delicious this experience is. And in the last 24 hours since my solo beach retreat started, I have felt some discomfort. So I want to talk about that too, because it is very interesting as we go more toward what we desire, we are going to hit discomfort. This is normal. So I really like thinking about how good we can stand it is almost like a thermostat setting. And if we want life to be more of what we desire, more good, it's gonna actually take shifting that thermostat and it's gonna feel a little bit uncomfortable. And as we go closer to what we want and desire, it means releasing things too, right? We can't just like add in things. And sometimes I really look at like sometimes when our lives are already co-created and intentional, stepping closer to what we desire is not about like just releasing things that are bad and not serving us, but it's about releasing what is good and working for us for what is great and expansive. So I definitely had some of these thoughts come up about taking four days and three nights to go away by myself just because it felt delicious. And as a mother and as a wife and as someone who runs a business and has other commitments, I definitely had some thoughts about like, do I deserve this? Like, should do I really need this? And I am so glad that with all this work, I could witness those thoughts and still choose what I wanted. Um, I am thinking about too how recently Kathy Heller is one person that I really like to follow for her manifestation tools. And she shared something about how she recently went to Paris with her daughters. And during the beginning of her trip, she experienced this panic attack. And basically, she was talking about how, like, you know, it was life was getting better. This was a dream she wanted to take. And almost like we sometimes have this really period of deep discomfort as we're going towards something that we want. So yesterday in the morning, I left. I drove down to Charleston, which was about three hours away, and I spent the day shopping and walking around. And they have this beautiful area of town called Rainbow Row with all these really beautifully colored homes. And I went to lunch and I got a milkshake, and it just was like so amazing. And I do really like time to myself. Those of you who know human design, I'm a projector. Like I actually thrive having time and my own energy. It allows me to really fill up and serve other people. So I love being around people. I think I'm like an introverted extrovert or vice versa. Like I'm kind of a blend, but I need that time to myself to recharge. So going away by myself sounded great, but I definitely was sitting with periods of loneliness during the trip or during yesterday, like walking around, seeing groups of people. I every year I take a trip with my cousin. And I was kind of like missing her and being like, oh, it would have been fun if she was here with me. And I also knew that like when I took that walk, the idea was not get away with your cousin or get away with your girlfriends or get away with your husband or get away with your family, all of which are great. And I want all of that. But the idea that dropped in in that moment of clarity that I'm listening to was take a solo trip to the beach. That was what I needed. And it didn't mean that it was going to be a hundred percent positive feelings all the time because that is not the human experience, right? So it's this blend. And as I was being able to sit with that yesterday and just notice it, I always say, if we're able to be with ourselves in the truth of our experience, there is always a gem on the other side. So I have started 24 hours later, and even yesterday, I've started to have like just new clarity emerge. And it is this beautiful underrated gift about really being able to sit with ourselves and understand what we need. And I'm really curious for you. Number one, are you telling yourself, like, I can't do that? I have too much time to myself. Like, how comfortable are you spending time with yourself without the distractions? Because it's so easy to distract ourselves with social media, with email, with productivity. When I'm at home, it's easy to distract myself with like throwing in another load of laundry, doing some organization project, all the things, right? All the things that are not inherently wrong. But we also need to carve out time just to be with ourselves. And sometimes that might even just look like going for a walk without your phone. I have so many good ideas come to me when I'm like, I'm gonna walk without a podcast, I'm gonna walk without my phone and just be with myself. We need this balance between like consuming and just being with what we already have. Like we are all these wells of resources and knowledge, and we need time to like immerse in that and really see what is resonant in this season. So just really sitting with that today, I love that I'm feeling on the other side of some of the discomfort, some of like the loneliness that I felt a little bit yesterday, and not all of it. Like there was definitely moments where I was like, I love this. I love that I have this experience. But I was also, even though I know all this, I was also a little surprised in those moments of discomfort, in those moments of being pulled to doing, to busying myself versus just slowing down and being. And I really think too, it's like ultimately the very best moments in my life, like when I look back and I'm like, this was the best. This was just like a highlight. And I keep coming back to that memory and I can feel it in my body. It's the moments where I am being in super present. It's not the moments that I'm like running a million directions or even busying myself or like doing all the things. It's like the present moments, the being moments. But those in the moment take really a lot of intentionality and it takes a different level of energy to be than to do, right? So I think just I'm sharing this because I just feel inspired for you to start really thinking about like what would be fun and allowing yourself to have space and time to answer that kind of that question unique to you. So go for a walk without your phone. And then it could simply be that and just like notice like, how do I already have hints of this already? But what would be something where you're taking that a little further? So maybe you hear taking a trip and you boldly decide, I'm gonna take the trip, and maybe not. Maybe it's something smaller. Maybe you're like, I'm just gonna sit with that. Because like sometimes awareness, awareness is always the first step, but sometimes more changes simply with awareness than we realize. So if you have a hard time just being with yourself, just know that's not uncommon. Um, they've done studies. There's one study that I always remember, and I don't remember the exact details, and you can look it up, but the general just is like they put people in a room with themselves, like they had nothing they could do other than the one thing they could do was administer themselves a strong electric shock. So it was like you can be alone with your thoughts. They didn't have anything to like write or color or watch or do. It's like be alone in the room with your thoughts, or give yourself a painful electric shock. So those were the only two options, and they were in this room for a set amount of time. And the vast majority of people administered themselves this painful shock. And many people did it multiple times. So it's like that just shows how uncomfortable many of us are to be with ourselves, to be with our own selves, maybe to hear what we truly want, to know that like it is so common that we are conditioned in some way. As children, we are sponges. So we absorb messages of conditioning. And 95% of our beliefs that are driving our behavior are buried underneath the surface. So it's like we need time with ourselves to uncover our truths and to realize like it might feel uncomfortable. Feel uncomfortable that like I am actually living a version of my life that is not as aligned with how I truly desire. And I believe this is a constant unfolding. I don't believe we ever get to this point where we are feeling perfectly 100% in alignment, but we can step toward it. And each step, I feel like opens up so much magic in our life. So, number one, spend some time with yourself asking what would be fun. Allow whatever comes in to come in and be surprising and illogical. I was not taking that walk asking myself what would be fun about like where would be fun to go or what would be fun to like experience. It was just like what would be fun. And just to give an example, like so many things come in with this question for me. One thing that had come in also recently was I almost always have my nails done. I love having a fun color in my nails. And other than a brief period during COVID, I have had stuff in my nails. And of course, like having my nails always done means my like nails are pretty thin and pretty damaged. And I have had asked myself that question. It was just like, let your nails breathe for the summer. So I don't know how long I'm gonna have just like my natural nails. And I actually don't hate it as much as I thought. They're definitely like more fragile, more bendy. But that was an idea that came in. So it really could be anything, but like give yourself the space and safety to hear what is true for you in the in this morning. And just hearing this, I'm like, I'm gonna go take a beach walk after this episode and ask myself this question again and see what comes in and just allow myself to be surprised. And the number two, even when you're giving yourself what you desire, what sounds fun, allow it to be uncomfortable, right? That is normal. So just because it seems like this would be better than what I have right now, to step toward more of that means that we are having to release something. And it might be releasing something good too. So the discomfort is part of it. And even if it's something like I am releasing something that no longer serves me, what is familiar feels very safe to our nervous system, even if it's not healthy and supporting us. So knowing that discomfort, the resistance, all of that is normal as we step toward what we want. So I would love to hear how this episode resonates. I would love to hear what comes in with this what would be fun idea question that you ask yourself. So make sure you share with me on Instagram. We have a new fan mail option right here on the podcast so you can message me directly. It's really fun because you can send me a text that way, or you can even send me a voice message. I would love to hear from you. And if these episodes have felt supportive to you, I would love for you to leave me a five-star review, leave me a testimonial because this just helps spread the word to other women who might resonate with this message. So thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you next week. Thank you for spending this time with me today. If this episode had supported you, you can download my free Daily Ease reset checklist. It's linked in the show notes and designed to help you shift out of stress and into ease this week. Make sure you're following the podcast so these conversations can meet you each week. I'll see you next time.