Episode 74: Weeding Out Fear & Growing Confidence with Stephanie Cyr

Tending to your own strength is just as important as tending to others.

In this episode of The Well-Tended Life podcast, I sit down with self-defense expert Stephanie Cyr for a powerful conversation about cultivating strength—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Stephanie doesn’t just teach self-defense moves—she equips us with tools to stand firm, set boundaries, and uproot fear. Because just like a thriving garden needs protection from weeds and storms, you need boundaries and resilience to flourish.

This episode is packed with practical strategies that go far beyond physical techniques. Whether you’re looking to boost your confidence, strengthen your mindset, or simply feel more secure in your daily life, Stephanie’s wisdom will inspire you to step into your power.

Here are a few heart taps from this episode:

1️⃣ Strength isn’t just about muscles—it’s about mindset. Learning to trust yourself and set firm boundaries is key to feeling safe and empowered.

2️⃣ Your intuition is your greatest ally. Pay attention to those inner nudges—they’re often your first line of defense.

3️⃣ Confidence is contagious. When you show up with courage, others feel it too.

4️⃣ Self-defense is about more than just protecting yourself—it’s about believing you’re worth protecting.

💪 So grab your life-gardening gloves and get ready to tend to your inner strength. Hit play now—you won’t want to miss this empowering conversation!

⭐️ Connect with Stephanie Here: https://powerupmoves.com/

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Transcript

Introduction to The Well-Tended Life with Host, Keri Wilt:

 Hey friends, welcome to The Well-Tended Life podcast. What is a well-tended life? Well, let me start by telling you what it is not. A well-tended life is not a set it and forget it life, nor is it a perfect life. It is though, a life that has worked on every day in the sunshine and through the storms. And the truth is what worked in our life gardens last year may not work in the next. That's why. Here at the Well-Tended Life podcast, we're interviewing people who have grown and bloomed true in a variety of seasons and who are willing to share their well-tended wisdom and reed blocking advice with us.

Listen in!

(Episode begins)

 Hello everyone and welcome to the Well-Tended life. I'm your host, Keri Wilt, a speaker, writer, and heart cultivator who is on a mission to help you and me grow through any season. Today's episode as they all are inspired by a quote from my great grandmother's book, The Secret Garden.

And actually, this one's inspired by two, the first one, it says, "Somehow it was not doubted that she was safe. For sure". And the second one says, "So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness, he was a hysterical, half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine in the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand up on his feet If he tried to do it, then when the new beautiful thoughts began to push out of the hideous ones, life began to come back to him.

His blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood".  Y'all today, we're going to be digging into a topic that affects us all: fear. And it's easy. I think to think of fear as the opposite of safety, but I'm starting to wonder aloud, what if it's actually a signal or a guide pointing us toward what we need in order to feel secure? 

Our guest today is a personal safety expert who spent years helping turn fear into awareness and action.  Together, we'll explore the connection between fear and feeling safe, and we'll challenge you to think differently about how you can cultivate a sense of security in your own life. So grab your journal because this is a conversation that just might shift the way you feel.

See fear and safety forever. Stephanie Cyr is an author and attorney and an educator with over 25 years of experience as a specialist in violence prevention education. She's also and personal safety and empowerment. She's also a faculty lecturer in personal defense at San Francisco State University.

And y'all, I just can't wait to see what well tended wisdom she has to share with us today. Welcome, Stephanie.  

Guest, Stephanie Cyr:

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm pretty excited to be here. 

Keri: Oh my gosh. Why don't we dig in? Why don't you I gave them the top level of what you're doing, but tell us a little bit more about you and the journey that led you to this current path, whether your passions as a health coach and a personal safety expert.

Stephanie: It was not the plan. It was not the plan to become. I feel like it never is, right?  But here I am, and it all seems to have come together beautifully. I started out thinking I'd be practicing law.  And I was in grad school and I was stressed during the day and wound up tight. And I found a martial arts class and in the evening I would just go there and it helped me release tension stay strong in my body and and move and really move. 

As it progressed I stumbled upon it, but I had an excellent instructor. He had  Olympics in Taekwondo. So I was getting better and better at learning how to spar, to actually have physical contact with people.  And that was in the evening. During the day, I'm interning as a legal intern, and I'm in an office, and I'm basically not keeping myself safe.

I don't know this yet. To me, self defense was all physical. It was in the ring at night, during the day in the office. I didn't know yet how to use my voice. I did know though how to take a hand off me when I was touched inappropriately.  I was able to do that clearly.  And then I waited to get fired, which did not happen. 

But, I did not go to HR, I didn't feel safe going to HR, and I did not take the job that was then offered to me. And if I want to be cynical, you can think they offered to keep me around.  And I say all this because it didn't strike me, I didn't think of that as harm. I didn't think of that somewhere where I'd speak up for myself, use self defense.

I go along, become a practicing attorney. And I continue my martial arts because I see it as a form of exercise because I see it as a release. I'm starting to make the mind body connection.  I work better after I've had a physical workout. After living overseas for a while, moved to California, which is exotic for me.

I'm from New York.  And I start  Not only practicing martial arts, but I'm teaching it, coaching taekwondo team at the university, officiating, and immersing myself in it, part time,  until one day it took a student to pull me aside and say,  You know what, Stephanie, the moves the grandmaster is showing me, Didn't keep me safe last weekend. 

I still got beat up.  What did I do wrong? Blamed himself.  And we went over the moves and then I said, you know what,  I'm not sure what the answer is here, but I'm gonna go find out. And I still say that to the state of my students. If I don't know the answer, I'll tell you I don't know, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go find it.

I'm gonna start researching. And that led me, along this journey, this realization with this student, self defense is not all physical. There's so much more you can do. There's so many other ways to use your body to stay safe. And how about we avoid?  How about we avoid the violence? How about we don't wait till it's happened.

We're in the throes of it.  So I started doing my research and found empowerment, self defense. It's an evidence based Approach to keeping yourself safe. It started during the feminist movement decades ago, where a woman said, this physical self defense.  Is not working for us. There's other ways to keep ourselves safe, and they started experimenting, researching, and to this day, we have a lot of research still going on, showing how teaching empowerment based self defense,  say on a college campus, can decrease the number of sexual assaults that are reported, and a great aside and growing area of research, it can increase your confidence, your self esteem, and your confidence.

It can improve your mental health.  So along the way,  I start shifting how I approach self defense and when the chair of the department She observed a class, pulled me aside and said, I'd like you to start teaching this class. And that was in 2015. I've been teaching Empowerment Self Defense at San Francisco State University since.

I've taken all my notes and how I, my approach to teaching and have a textbook there. We now have an accredited minor in Empowerment Self Defense, which just rolled out  this past fall. So we're super excited. And a goal of mine is to see this on every campus. I was about to say higher education, but this would be super in secondary schools as well.

It's just.  Really coming into your own really becoming more self aware of yourself  your and communication skills as well as physical skills and more. And here I am.  It's a privilege to get to teach.  I look forward to connecting  meeting whoever's stepping on the mat with me. As I say, I have a class starting in about a week.

That's where I am today. I immediately wrote down self defense is speaking up,  right? And and I'd never thought of it that way. I'll be honest, like, when when Shannon said, hey, I have this, the self defense expert. I was like, I don't know, do I want to talk to somebody about fighting?

I think that's the first, right? That's the first thought process is that self defense, like you said is not just the physical part. And I don't know that I've ever thought about it that way before. So Carrie, it's you and everyone else.  Two things. I get excited and I go trying to think, how do I distill it down?

My line about it is self defense is. Is anything you think do say or believe to keep yourself safe? 

So we could sit with that for a moment and I will tell you that I have every time every course  I have students, maybe even sometimes the majority of them, who think, Hey, I'm just going to learn how to strike somebody. Or they think, as soon as someone has crossed me or insulted me, I need to fight back. 

It's a powerful moment when they realize, Hey, I don't have to. I don't have to be someone's punching bag. I can keep myself safe by,  Taking a step back ground myself in and decide how I want to respond and that might be with words that might just be with powerful body language such as walking away. 

So fighting or getting physical is the absolute last resort. And if we can avoid that at all costs, we do  so what are some of the maybe major tenets of the empowerment self defense? What are some of the things that, that someone would learn when going through that program? Major tenants, holistic.

This is, as I said, this is your mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical growth. When you're going through it, it's, I teach from a place of joy.  We start with where you are today and what are your strengths?  And we go right from there, which unfortunately a lot of people just pause. What do you, I'm like right now I could give you some Strategies to just start putting into play right now. 

I like to start with where are you? What do you see as your strengths and sometimes with students? It's actually there's some pre Quick test you can take online and see what comes up, but it's really good for self assessment to see what they come up with. And so with empowerment self defense, we start with where you are.

What are your strengths? Movement is so important. And I work with people of all different abilities. So that. Movement might look different from one person to the next, but  I have found that if we start with actual physical movement,  it actually gets everything fired up. People are more comfortable with that than actually talking about their voice.

Are using their voice they get more comfortable with one another. And the space we create is so important as people get more comfortable and trusting and showing respect. Then we move into what is the hardest part almost universally, which is learning how to use your voice. To protect yourself to avoid an altercation and to recover sharing stories.

I so appreciate you having me on sharing stories. Sharing strategies is very powerful and it helps with recovery to  studies are finding that 

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All while building some community along the way. Or you can find me hosting and hanging out in a brand new part of their app that is dedicated to all things journaling.  Sound like fun? Check out the link in the show notes to download the Modern Prairie app today. Then you can join the journaling circle and sign up for the class or join the club today.

I can't wait to see you there.    

so speaking of sharing stories. Could you share a story about? And, maybe someone in your class and how, what they have learned and how they applied it in a situation. 

Absolutely. I have two that come to mind immediately, which are it's them. Okay. It's students who say to me, I didn't want to take your class. I always ask goals, expectations and they will send me that email. I didn't want to take your class. My parent made me take the class. I'm just here for that reason alone.

I don't expect to learn anything from you.  I'll send a kind response  and then we're off to the races and one in particular, a young woman. She did show up every class. She did go through the motions with her partners. She did participate in discussion  and. We go on spring break, we come back and she is just bouncing off the walls telling me she wants to share. 

And what happens is a little part of this all is when we keep practicing, keep moving, even while we're talking,  these strategies are, they get embedded in your muscle memory as long as you're practicing. They're with you whether you believe in them or not. I always do visualization with my students and I have them walk through.

With a successful outcome,  so she shares with everyone. She is back at home  in her town where she feels safe. It's more a weekend morning and she's out for a jog  and someone  jumps out of a bush and grabs her.  She said,  I would even thinking she didn't realize until after the fact, she immediately physically turned in her protective stance, knocking his hands off her shouting into space back off.

Get away. I don't know you.  And takes off running and goes and gets help.  And she felt  so empowered. She felt just her confidence went through the roof and she shared with everyone, I didn't believe in it. I didn't think it would happen and I just did it. It's very, it's wonderful to have these moments, these where people  have an aha moments. 

With what they're learning. Another one is a very powerful, engaging young woman in one of my classes who seemed very confident in herself. We're in the middle of a practice and we start standing, but about midway through, I feel like the class is gelling and there's trust. We go to the ground  and she suddenly leapt up and ran out of the room. 

Later she told me she realized going through the practice that she had been assaulted in high school.  And  had been kind of gas lit told, no, it was your fault or, that didn't happen. So this, that can come up, that comes up to people realizing what is harm, what actually happened to them. And that is once again, in a positive light, that's helping her.

Then this is something that was embedded deep inside of her. She released it. She could now  recognize it, move through it and recover from it.  It's amazing what we bury. And that we don't even remember that it's there until we start to do that kind of work. Oh, my goodness. You said something earlier about the first girl and she said, I didn't think it would happen.

And I think that's probably the impetus or the reason maybe that,  that maybe people aren't doing. This kind of empowerment, self defense. They're not seeking out to learn these things. It's because I don't know if you're like me, I'm such a rosy sunshine blower. Like I believe in the good of everything.

And so part of me doesn't even want to believe that something bad could happen and that I would even need to know these things. But that's really not the truth or the reality. Of life, right? And I have literally I have  more than one student who  closes their eyes to the danger.

It's right in front of them and they close their eyes because they don't want to face it. That's  understandable. That's human nature. It's not your fault. It's fully the responsibility of the perpetrator, but it's.  It's in front of you. Now, I try and teach strategies to help you be aware of it before it's in front of you, but it's in front of you now.

And time to face it.  You said that I also think another powerful side to empowerment self defense is  that it really helps just build your confidence.  And your ability, one of my students, one just last term was all about, I can now do public speaking. I couldn't do before  there's a little side benefit to the class.

So my person who says, I don't need this. And I do have that. I don't need this. I'm just coming along keeping because my friend dragged me in here. I'm hoping people will start to see the other benefits to it. If you're going to go exercise, why not move in a way that might make you more confident in your body and your vocal skills.

Once again, let's exercise your voice. And I, in my gut says, I don't know this. I'm not the expert you are, but my gut says that a person who walks with that confidence is less likely to be attacked. The person who carries themselves assuredly and is able to, just the simple ability to be able to yell and stand your ground for a moment that catches them off guard.

They're used to someone immediately submitting and crumbling and. And the chaos because they can win in the chaos, right? Absolutely. So the famous study done, they took people who had been convicted of assaulting others.  They had them across from a subway station in New York City. I believe this was in the 80s.

They did the study again  in the 2013 or 14.  They basically took these people and had them evaluate the people coming out of the subway and said, who would you target? And it was all about the body language. It wasn't even gender. It was how you held yourself in. You made yourself small.  So just even just this working out, I sometimes my line, especially with younger children I work with, I'm like, be full of yourself. 

Take up space. This is. Make yourself large. And then, yes, they're like, I will go, I will move on to someone else. And this goes to my young woman, you may not believe in it, but just the movement skills we do. I talk about a strong core all the time. You're hold yourself more erect. You hold yourself with confidence. 

We can then even go to people. If you feel lost, walk with intention,  head up, walk as if you know where you're going.  You said take up space,  right? And I feel like as women for so many years.  Women were told to not do that, right?  Absolutely. You were to make yourself the smallest thing in the room and all the things and wow.

Yes. I hope women can embrace that. I hope somebody heard that and went, wait, I can take up space. I can, stand tall and feel full of myself and confident. I, oh gosh, I love that. Gosh, so many good things already. This is so crazy. And we've totally, I always send my podcast guests for people from at home listening.

You don't know this, but I send them, a roadmap. And we so quickly went right off the roadmap because  there's so many things. Every time you say something, I'm like, Oh, I want to talk about that. And I want to talk about that, but.  I think what I do want to think I do want to talk about is you encourage people with power up moves to ignite their power.

And you ask, what could you do if you didn't allow fear to hold you back? And I want to talk about fear, right? Because it's probably, what stops somebody even from taking your class and from going about this. How does somebody. Get a handle on fear. It's different for everyone, but we, I talk about fear is this loss of control and.

And connection. There is a poll that came out recently saying not only women, but women and men recently, there's an uptick of people fearing for the personal safety.  And let's just take a moment here. We've been through a pandemic  where we lost control. Over our day to day,  in so many ways, and then we've had an election  where we might feel at least half the country, feels that they've had a loss of control over the representation.

Then we've had a change in legislation, we've had a rollback on reproductive rights, and as women do we feel a loss of control over that. And economy,  all of these things. Exactly. So just give yourself a pause, a breath. Ooh, that's a lot.  So let's focus on what you can control. Yeah. It's very important. What can you control? 

I talk a lot, people ask me a lot, and we talk a lot about fear and anger. I even, I, when I'm talking to you, I have students flash in my mind, I have people come in last resort,  end of the rope, there's something, they're, they feel there's going to be imminent harm, and they're also, when they feel comfortable in the space we're in together the anger comes out too,  and talk about those being, let's sit for a moment, those are just, those are emotions. 

And I believe so strongly in, in the power of our bodies, your body is telling you something, so let's listen, let's sit with it and listen, don't dismiss it, don't stuff it down because you know what, it will come out another way,  so  address it no matter how uncomfortable it is.  And from there, and actually, I go even farther, fear can be so powerful, anger can be so powerful, it just depends how you move forward with it.

Personally, in my life, and times, I've used anger to motivate me,  propel me forward. Okay, things aren't how I want them to be, alright, let's just sit and think about how can I make a difference, how can I? Take a step forward in a positive fashion. When you're feeling stuck in fear, literally something has you fearful, sit with it,  acknowledge it and really go through it.

What is why? What has made you so fearful?  So good. I love the focus on what can you control? I always say. I remember in 2020 when everybody was just like, these, these unprecedented times, like we had, we have no control. And it was all illusion. Anyways, we weren't in control for right.

We're in no more control today. And then we were yesterday or 20 years ago or 50 years ago. There, there are always things that are happening around us that we will never be in control of. So we can allow ourselves to get crazy with the ups and the downs and the swings, or we can do exactly what you said, which is  stay focused on what you can control.

And that's huge. I love what you're doing and I love that your goal is not to create fear, but to encourage women to adventure and feel confident in their experiences. And I know that, you are doing like solo travel and et cetera, that maybe some women out there are like, I can't travel by myself.

  Friends, let me ask you a few questions, and I want you to answer them honestly.  Are you exhausted from years of watering everyone and everything else but you?  Does it feel like your gifts, dreams, and passions have been locked up tighter than the secret garden? Do you struggle  with Things like anxiety, jealousy, busyness, or maybe fear. 

Would you like to see more joy, goodness, and growth in your life?  Listen, if you've answered yes to any of these questions, I am thrilled To tell you that the fall session of Cultivate You has just been announced and it begins September 18th.  Now, what is Cultivate You? Cultivate You is a six week online journey where I'll walk beside you and teach you new ways to water your dreams, unearth your gifts.

And finally tend to your relationships needs  and needs  in this live group experience, you will dig deep and discover a garden shed full of perennial tools that will help you to cultivate your best well tended life for seasons to come.  Want to learn more? Check out the link in the show notes or head over to the welltendedlife.

com. 

 How can women travel safely, but also what are the benefits of traveling by ourselves?  Oh my gosh. So many benefits. I want to start by saying  that  it wasn't just traveling by myself at a certain level is scary for me.

I share this with my students, I'm supposed to come and be all I'm  nothing scares me. I'm the expert. No, no scares me. Beer is healthy, but it's moving forward with it.  I like to challenge myself. There's a quote about I like to do something scary every day.  It helps me grow.

I see it as a form of growth  traveling by yourself. You have to sit with yourself. What you can do is definitely doable. It is definitely safe in many ways, much more than people  realize it can be. And it can be profound to sit with yourself  and rely only on yourself  and Expand yourself.

However, wherever you are, whether you're camping out in the wilderness or you're in a city exploring new sites, you're completely in charge of the itinerary and what you do. That's fantastic. As a person who's been married over 30 years. Oh, to have that time. So just focused on myself taking care of myself.

It's a form of self care. It's  I grow from it. I have friends who grow from it. I have people that once they start, they it's it. They do it every year. There's time carved out for them every year to do this a  couple of things. I would just say that universal with it is you prepare. You really do your homework.

We almost say you over prepare. You can't prepare enough which is getting know your location. True. Know where you're going. Know your location. And frankly, say, it's a city know that culture. You be curious, but also know that neighborhood know where you're choosing to stay ahead of time. Be well prepared.

And this is a time more than ever. I know we're going to talk about intuition. You listen to yourself. You listen to your body. It's a signal. Once again, it's a signal something, your body registers a threat before your mind does. So think about a time when you felt uneasy, but you didn't see it in front of you quite yet.

Your body is registering it. It could be behind you. It could be somebody's. Acting a little off. We pick up on body language so quickly. So don't dismiss it.  The more you listen to it, the more you can strengthen it.  Just know your body's just about never wrong. Frankly, if it's  go, alarm bells are going off once again, it's every act sits,  be thoughtful.

Is this intuition or is it implicit bias? If we're going to go there, we all have implicit biases. So is.  And when you want, when you're questioning that, if it's a person, you look at the behavior,  look at how they're acting. Is there something off with their behavior that's registering a threat to you  and make sure you create distance with that.

But let me go back to travel because I know I'm going off on tangent on you.  Listen to that intuition. So I've had people talk about walking into a hotel they booked  and immediately. Something doesn't feel right, but I booked this hotel. I put a deposit down. Your safety is worth more.  Get out of there.

A friend who went camping pulled into a campground and there's a a lot of times, you can't, you should know your campground ahead of time. A lot of times you pick a well lit area with people there. They set up camp and they just had that.  Person at the campsite next to them that was too friendly, too nosy, paying too much attention to them.

They felt uncomfortable. There were two options. They left. Sometimes you can sleep in your car if you're comfortable with that, but they left. They took that pause. Okay, I'm going to have to pull up camp. Abort this mission. Do this another day. Your safety is more important. It's really hard for us sometimes to back out or back away from a plan,  but always think that your safety is most important. 

Finally, if you're traveling, especially if it's camping with hiking practice staying up camp quickly practice your fire skills, depending how rustic you're getting but practice. Ahead of time, you can never do enough. Too much practice.  So you went camping all by yourself?

I did. And that was to challenge myself. And I love being outside. It recharges me  to get outside and move.  The next step was, and you do it for me, it was baby steps. Anyone do it how you'd like baby steps? I recommend go on an all day solo hike.  Go out somewhere a little more remote, but I've checked the weather.

I know how to use a compass. I know my sites on the trail. I can be reached. Someone has my location. It just, you just be prepared because usually something  unexpected can happen. Can be good can be bad, but something unexpected can happen. So you just want to be over here and then slowly to the point of, okay, I'm going to go overnight.

And then guess what? When I'm in that moment, overnight, zip myself in, have my flashlight that can be used in so many ways to keep you safe and distract,  breathe, because you might get a little scared or nervous, breathe, know how to ground yourself.  Yeah, and it's exhilarating clearly if you do something scary every day  That's exhilaration right there, right? 

That's training yourself to get excited about scary things  Tell me more about that practice  of doing something scary every day. It's It's I talk to myself a lot, so I have the things I say to myself will over prepare. I'm going to use this as an example, talking to you on the podcast first time I will over prepare I'll do everything I can to get ready because that helps actually just relax me,  calm myself down for whatever it is. 

And I remind myself that once I'm in it.  I almost always enjoy it. Yeah, and if there's those few times i've tried something And it's not that I love talking to you It's not this but say i'm trying a new martial art  And in the middle of it i'm like, you know what I am not enjoying this. I do not think I want to do This sambo again and be flipped on the ground every two seconds I know that there's an end I can exit then I always give myself an out so important for my mind I can I can step off the bat right now if I'd like. 

And nine times out of ten, or even more, I finish, as long as I'm not going to be harmed, and then I know I tried. And I share this with my children, my nieces, my nephews, of  try things, be curious. It's not always going to be your cup of tea, but you don't know until you try. Or learn something new in some, in so many different ways.

I'm horrible at languages.  And then even having to try and speak a new language, but I make myself do it.  Love it. I love that you push yourself like that. I do. I also take solo retreats usually at least once a year, but usually twice a year. I tend to go somewhere, take my journal and kind of work on a project all by myself.

And I go for walks every day, but I, same thing I overprepare, I make sure I know my surroundings where I go and and have traveled for business quite a bit over the years by myself. And I love it. I love that time. And if there's somebody at home who is thinking I could never. Do that.

I love the idea of just going out on an all day thing all by themselves, right? Or I think that's a great toe in the water. And then, hey, just one overnight all by yourself. And, you don't even have to go far. You can go to the next town and rent a hotel room, right? Or like you said go camping.

And those little baby steps will get you to a place where I don't know, there's something about when you have to sit with yourself or you get, you don't have to, you get to sit with yourself. Wow.  For me, it's when I, when the clutter finally settles, right? Like when all the other things that are happening finally can fall away a little bit in a way that doesn't happen on regular vacation, when there's a husband and kids and family or whatever it happens to be.

And so I highly recommend it for those who who think they can't do it. You can but for sure, make sure that you're prepared before you go. Okay.  Is there anything we haven't covered yet that you want women to know or to do differently when it comes to their health and personal safety? 

Oh, gosh.  I know. Big bull. Thank you. I, first of all, I just wanted to say something about the travel that we're moving on because I didn't say it and I and the story has come up over and over again.  Once you're out there and you're traveling, if you are staying in a hotel be mindful about.

Who you're talking to who you're meeting and talking to in the information you're sharing. I've heard more than one story. And even at check in,  it's not just even saying you're traveling alone is giving too many details about yourself. You're just meeting these people. And that's great to be excited.

But I always say, flip it. Why are they asking you all these questions? It's super that a lot of people are just friendly, but take care of you and remember, you're just meeting people. Be mindful about how much information you share as you travel, because that comes up.  I appreciate your broader question because.

I feel our safety is directly connected to our health and this really came home to me in some simple ways with my students years ago. We went during coven we flipped online. So here we're gonna have a movement class online. So great. I'm ready. I've got my camera up. We're gonna start moving. Everyone turn on your cameras.

No, I have the student who will not turn on a camera. Why? Because their environment was not safe.  They literally didn't have a place to not only a place to practice, but they couldn't practice because of other people in the room.  And.  If you're not feeling safe in your environment, how naive of me to be like, come on, let's just get moving.

Let's practice and move together. You need to have a healthy environment around you, literally your own space. And we spent an entire class talking about how to carve out your space when you're sharing it with others or it's small  area and keeping it clean.  And then when you can move, if perhaps it's not safe for you to move outside, even going to the window, like this window behind me whoo, get some fresh air, get some sunlight, connect with nature, this goes to emotional regulation. 

Your mental state,  if you're not taking care of your mental state,  it affects your decision making, which affects your safety, so they all go hand in hand.  I also bring in food sometimes to my classes. I'll bring in, I have, fortunate enough to have apple trees and lemon bushes, and  I'll bring in a basket of apples, and everyone just so what does this have to do with self defense?

What? Hey,  here she goes again. What is this? It's so important that you're taking care of your body and you're eating. It affects your emotionals, your emotions, your mental state once again, which all goes to keeping you safe. And then you're feeding your body. Which you want to have build stronger. I don't think a lot of people make that a connection.

I think once again Self defense. How do I defend myself? The best way to defend yourself is to take care of yourself and say that again The the best way to defend yourself is to take care of yourself  It's so important. You do that. I love that, that I don't know that there could be a better way to end this part of the conversation because that's the crux of it.

Yes. Taking care of us. It's what we talk about here at the well tended life all the time, most of our listeners have spent a whole lot of time taking care of everybody else except for them. And they're just starting to learn how to take care of and tend to their lives.

, and I never thought about it until today as a defense strategy. But it is absolutely, oh my gosh, so good. 

  And now it's time for my favorite part of the interview,  because it's inspired by my life tending journal practice. But let me be clear, this is not your grandma's journal. It's more of a growth chart, reflection diary, planting reminder, observation deck, and research notebook all rolled into one.  And when used daily, this journal practice is a life guarding game changer,  guaranteed to protect you.

beautiful purpose filled blooms in any season. Now it's by far the most important tool in my own personal life gardening shed. And I want to gift you a free journaling template today.  So check out the link in the show notes or head over to thewelltenderlife. com and download it and get started today. 

 Okay. We're going to move on to the back half of the interview, which is basically some questions that I ask all of my podcast guests. And the first one is, tell us about the life season that you're in or maybe finished or just heading into, and how does knowing that season impact how you do life today? 

You say season, I think literally.  I really do feel I'm at the end of winter and spring is coming, right? That's it. I, Oh, I'm so excited. I really, I feel, we know that growth happening underneath the soil and the buds are going to appear. I sometimes, like I said, I talked to myself, it might take me a while, but I get there and I really feel I'm in this place where I'm. 

Spring is coming, but I and I appreciate the growth happening right now underneath the soil. That's so important  to me. So that's the season. I'm in it completely informs  how I my thoughts and how I interact.  I take a breath and it's.  I keep hearing this phrase intentional living. It really is for me about being in the present appreciating my surroundings and surroundings being literally my environment,  my creatures, my dogs, the people I love and the people I'm just meeting.

Just taking it in what's around me in the present.  Love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. Tell me about your regular practices. Do you have any regular practices that might help us to live our best well intended lives?  Absolutely. Absolutely. For whatever this means to you, this word, get up and move,  get move.

As I said, different abilities. I'm kind to myself.  I've had moments in life where maybe it's a little hard to get out of bed in the morning. Get up.  And I say to myself, that's all you have to do today. It's okay. One step forward at a time, really giving yourself  that space to just be in touch with what you need and what's going on with you today.

But move your body every day.  What ways do you move your body besides your your practices?  I appreciate you asking that  for me. I'm outside. I walk outside and if I have the time, I am hiking outside. I love my animals and for many reasons, but it's so great to have dogs and.  If I'm feeling a little down or if it's not just for me, it's for them.

So let's get outside. And and move. So that's 1 way. I do it another way. I will literally do sitting in this chairs. I'll start stretching.  Yeah. The power of stretching, I just started a stretching slash yoga. It's really probably more yoga stretches, but it's for a long time, I thought I, I've always wanted to have yoga practice.

And, but I kept thinking it had to be this one hour long session and et cetera. And finally I had this aha, matter of fact, while I was out on a solo retreat. And I was like, Why do I keep waiting?  I have everything I need and why am I trying to make this big thing? I was like, you know what I'm going to do today?

I'm just going to stretch for three songs.  And I would just, I turned on my playlist and I stretched through three songs. And now I do that every morning before I journal. And it was so freeing for it to just. Be simple, right? I think sometimes people when we think about even moving our body, we've been told, a million different ways.

It has to be 45 minutes. It has to be 10, 000 steps. It has to be. No, it doesn't like just start. Start small, start easy, start somewhere. And it's amazing write my three songs. Some days it goes to five. Some days, whatever. But it was a big aha moment for me. And stretching makes you feel so good.

Yes, and I'd even go further of just, one little stretch in your chair for a few minutes, just something moving your body. And like I said, I have people of different abilities, so  maybe there's a certain limitation to the physical movement. And we haven't even touched on this journaling. 

I'm a turtle girl. You said my first words in the whole Iowa.  Because that is an act as well. Movement. Find what is it for you? Sit with it. What is it for you? When I say move and just do something, just do a little bit.  I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. Speaking of journaling this next part is a part of my journaling practice that I teach.

And it's called a life tending journal. And every day we read, reflect, weed, seed, and water.  This is about the reflect part where we look back on the day before, or in this case, I'm going to ask you just in general, look back to notice the joy, goodness, and growth that is planted around us every single day.

There's a quote from the secret garden. It said, Mary hadn't noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. So tell me, where are you spotting joy in your life right now? What's bringing you joy?

I'm a visual person. The image right comes to mind. This was just the other day, but this every time gets me. It doesn't matter how down I am. I have one of my dogs. She's four years old.  When we go to the beach, she loves the beach so much. She will race ahead and she leaps in the air, all four paws off the ground, her ears are flying,  the joy, and her tail's in the air, and she comes back to me with a big toothy grin. 

And it doesn't, it's just  a simple thing. It's just pure joy, and she brings pure joy to me. So that is  The first thought that comes to mind. I love that. It's funny because you were talking about how the dogs, help you go for a walk and stuff. I have one dog that literally the whole time I take her for a walk, it is pure joy for me because it is pure joy for her.

Like , she's a Catahoula Basset Hound and she looks more like a Basset Hound than anything. And she loves a walk more than any of my dogs. Like same thing. The tail wagging those ears flopping like she's happy as a clam. Okay, then the next one is goodness. So goodness is little bits of goodness that you feel would feel grateful for.

This would be something that you would write in a gratitude journal. What goodness are you feeling grateful for right now? , my family,  I even wrote this down the other day about one of them. And I, by the way, I am a,  I rebelled that I don't journal. I write every day  and I write my thoughts down  and I wrote this just a  sentence.

A nephew said to me that, oh, I am so grateful for my family and for the. People I'm surrounded with, they,  I, it's goodness. Love it. Okay. Last one is growth and growth is always the hardest thing to spot because growth happens in tiny little shoots. Like you said, there's you mentioned there's a lot of growth happening underneath, but would you share where you're spotting growth right now in your life or where you feel in it?

I'm definitely feeling it in this personal safety space of,  I feel so compelled to get this information out. I've been teaching for so long, and I'm a doer, the head down, I do in front of me, I'm working with the people in front of me, and I can't tell you how long I've had people hitting me over the head, you should be sharing this with more people, you should be I wasn't ready.

Yeah, and I was all beginning the, roots were going out before there was much above ground and now  I'm ready and I presented back in September to a group about the power of storytelling  and. How in my space, this is a very powerful part of recovery. We've all had something. Harm comes in many different forms.

It could just be a slight or being ignored all the way up to the assault. Sharing this, sharing your experiences, it's not only helping you work through them, understand what happened, you're helping others. That's a huge area of growth for me and now I just feel I'm ready to share more about empowerment self defense and I see the power behind it and share that story. 

I want to repeat what you just said a minute ago and I hope somebody at home is listening to this.  Harm comes in many different forms  and I think sometimes women discount what happened because it wasn't something big. It wasn't nobody hit me. Nobody attacked me. I wasn't raped or whatever. And I hope somebody hears that.

They can count that as harm and figure out how to move forward from that instead of sweeping it under the rug, which I believe most women do. May I add something to that? Just thinking about people listening,  never dismiss it. And the harm could be more powerful than, think about being ignored in the workplace. 

Think about your contributions or someone even talking over you in a meeting.  That goes to financial harm.  Never mind emotional, psychological, financial harm. You may be overlooked for the promotion. You may be overlooked for the next special projects.  Don't dismiss it. If it didn't feel right, if you're not comfortable addressing it, write in the moment.

Write it down. Once again, this goes documenting. Write it down. And share it when you are ready and as you see fit. It could be in an email, it could be going into your immediate supervisor. You have then documented when these incidents have happened.  And you're speaking up for yourself. It's very powerful.

You're taking care of yourself. Financial harm  is, comes in many different ways. But in the workplace, it's very important. I feel like every time you speak, I write something down, but you said the heart is more powerful than, yes and walking through hard is powerful and using your voice is powerful and empowerment defense  is powerful. 

Oh, my gosh. It's so good. Okay, Stephanie. Thank you so much for coming on today. Can you tell people like how to find you and follow you and all the things?  You can find me under power up moves. I'm on social media. I started it for my students  during COVID. You could find me at the university, San Francisco State University.

I have people now reaching out to me in that way. But I'm out there and I'm very responsive. I really appreciate. You carry and I appreciate this conversation because I've said this is important to me and if it touched someone in your audience, if they heard it, it resonated with them.

It's that's what it's all about.  Oh, my goodness. Okay.  Thank you. Everyone who has been listening to this podcast, I sincerely hope this episode has inspired you today to to control what you can and to seek out some sort of empowerment self defense in order to live out your best well intended life  until next time, y'all blessings and blooms. 

Thank you, Stephanie.  Thank you so much.

  Oh my goodness, y'all. That was so good.  Don't forget to check the show notes for my favorite heart tap moments from this episode.  What is a heart tap? Well, whenever I read, listen to a podcast, or watch a speaker, I'm always on the lookout for those like head bob, heart tap, and aha moments. You know what I'm talking about.

These are the things that cause your head to bob in agreement, your heart to make that tap when a much needed word of wisdom comes along, or your soul to scream, Aha.  That was the word I was looking for. So for each episode, I like to share a few of my heart taps in the show notes with you. But I'm curious, what are your heart tap moments from today's episode? 

Run on over and direct message me your favorite moments, questions, heart taps, and more over at Instagram or Facebook today.  And if you were inspired by this episode or maybe learned something new, make sure to share this show with a friend or post about it in your stories.  Finally, could you do one more favor for me today?

Will you take a minute and hop on over to Apple podcast and leave a kind and thoughtful review for the Well Tended Life podcast?  You see, this is how people find us and every positive review helps to unlock the door for someone else to get in on the magic of life tending too.  Thank you again for listening and being a part of this well tended life community.

And until next time, y'all blessings and blooms.