Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life

The Courage to Take Risks

• Dr. Julie Merriman

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What if the very risks you're avoiding are the keys to your personal growth and fulfillment? Join me, Dr. Julie Merriman, as I recount a life-altering risk I took in college that not only reshaped my path but also led me to my husband. Society often whispers caution and safety, but I’m here to champion the idea that risk is an integral part of holistic self-care. Together, we'll uncover how embracing the unknown can nurture self-belief and deliver lessons from both successes and failures. Plus, discover how my charming yoga goats in Meridian, Texas, have become a unique part of my wellness journey—and yours too, if you decide to join me for meditation and mimosas.

We also venture into the realm of overcoming resistance, identifying fears that keep us stagnant, and harnessing our inner superpowers to leap over life's hurdles. Here, you'll find encouragement to recognize your worth and see obstacles as opportunities for growth. By the end of our conversation, you’ll be inspired to take bold steps toward your dreams, armed with the knowledge that the potential rewards of risk are well worth the pursuit. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review, and let this episode be a testament to your capacity for courageous change.

Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. In today's episode, we're going to chat about the courage to take risks. Y'all this is a necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care. I like to call wellness us Okay y'all. So thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time. It means a lot to me. You dropped by.

Speaker 1:

So in today's episode, we're going to talk about the courage to take risks. The courage to take risks, it's important. It really is important, and I'm going to give you some examples how it changed my life. But before I go there, I want to talk to y'all just a hot minute, about my yoga goats. I love my yoga goats. I've got Zen and Karma and Dharma and the boy is named Apu and they are so cute. They've really gotten friendly and I think they're all pregnant. So I'm excited for when the babies come because they're going to help me do my goat yoga. So if you're ever in the Meridian Texas area on a Sunday, look me up. We'll do some goat yoga. We do meditation, goat yoga and mimosas Not all in that order. So that's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

But back to the podcast. So, professional helpers, I've created this podcast for you and it's dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of our career, and overcoming the occupational hazards of our career Specifically, I look at burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. So if you need to know more about that, check out my book In Pursuit of Soul Joy. It's available on my website and on Amazon. But today and on Amazon. But today we're talking about how do you feel about taking risks. A lot of times I think we have been programmed to kind of step back from taking a risk. I think we get shamed and I don't think we celebrate and embrace risk-taking like we really should as a society. Let me tell you about this. One risk I took and I'm telling you it scared the hell out of me.

Speaker 1:

But y'all this was when. But y'all this was when it's not when I met my husband, but it's really when our relationship changed. So we met back in college in domestic violence class. Now my undergrad had a social work minor and his undergrad is in criminal justice, so we weren't in trouble. This was a college class we had to take, but we met in domestic violence and we flirted and we talked to each other all through the semester. That was fall semester and then Christmas break hit and y'all this was back before the days of cell phones. You know this was back before the days of cell phones. You know this was back in the early 90s and you didn't just type someone into your phone. In fact, really, we had done nothing to get each other's information so that we could find each other again. But anyway, christmas break hit and I tell you that's all I thought about over break.

Speaker 1:

I could not wait to get back to school and see him again. Well, sure enough, january hits and I'm walking into the humanities building at Tarleton State University and I saw him sitting over here. I'm pointing over to my right and I, of course, I'm such a nerd. I had this giant book bag and all my books were stuffed in there, and my first class that day was Spanish. So I I walked to my Spanish classroom and I set my book bag down and I remember pacing back and forth.

Speaker 1:

I just I wanted so bad to go out there and talk to him, but I was terrified of the risk I was going to take, especially as I've told y'all, I'm a good child from the 60s, and girls did not, were not the ones to confront boys first, which confronted in the right word, but girls weren't the ones to make the first move. So I was, you know, going through my head pacing around thinking, oh my God, I'm going to go talk to him, but oh, I can't because first I don't know how he's going to respond to me. Oh, I can never take such a risk as to go out there and engage him. Well, I took a deep breath and I told myself that I would never forgive myself if I did not go say something to him, because, again, that's all I thought about all through Christmas break. And sure enough, I went out there and engaged him. I'll never forget. He looked at me and anyone who knows my husband he's got quite a dry sense of humor and this was his effort at humor I learned. But he looked at me and said, oh, it's you. And I remember I just shrunk inside. I was so like, oh my God, I should not have come up to talk to him. But that was just his first approach at humor and he's not been one that has dated around a lot. So he really he didn't know how to approach me back. But long story short, he was thrilled that I'd come up to him and spoken to him, because he too had done nothing. But think about me over spring break and the rest of the story's history. We haven't been apart since and that was, I don't know, 92. It was years and years ago.

Speaker 1:

But I took that risk and it changed both of our lives for the better. And I'm telling you, it was a scary risk to take. But I would just invite you to consider what are you putting off for fear of failing or being rejected or whatever might be? On the other side of it, a successful life has many risks taken. I will never regret having taken that risk of going and engaging my husband, but I'm telling you, all our risk won't work out, but all the effort that we put in will have a valuable lesson on the other side. For you See, y'all, you've got to believe in yourself.

Speaker 1:

You've got to believe that that risk, be it a failure or be it a success, is worth it. And that's chakra work. And I'm still working on the root chakra this week again. I think this is the third week in a row. But if you don't have a good, balanced root chakra, you're not going to allow yourself to take risks. You have to know what you want. You have to know the life you deserve and the life you want to create. To not know this leads to that stuck energy, and stuck energy is misery. A good, clear, balanced root chakra is going to allow you to dream and manifest and take risks.

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You have to be willing, y'all. You've got to get out of that comfort zone. Had I stayed in that comfort zone that January day 30-something years ago, it might be a very different life I'm living, and I'm living a great life. I'm in love with a man that gives me butterflies every time. I'm living and I'm living a great life. I'm in love with a man that gives me butterflies every time I see him. It was worth the risk. You've got to get out of that comfort zone.

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Nothing good ever came from living 100% of your life in a comfort zone. You get well, you just you start. You get stagnant, you start going the opposite way of thriving. You've got to allow yourself to quit living small. Embrace that trying and failing is absolutely fine. To have not tried, that's what's never okay. Fine, to have not tried, that's what's never okay.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to dust off your root chakra, balance that energy and give yourself permission to not know the outcome, but be willing to dream and try Again. Y'all. I had absolutely no idea how my husband was going to react to me when I went up to him that day after Christmas break. What a tragedy it would have been had I never taken that risk and found out. And, as a side note and I've said this again he told me he was hell bent on finding me that day. So that was really lovely to hear. But I took the risk and at that time I had no idea how he felt.

Speaker 1:

What risk do you need to take today? What are you holding yourself back from that might lead to a completely different life to live? It all boils down to deciding to allow yourself to go bigger. Grab that dream and take a risk to make it happen. And again, y'all this is self-care. This is one of the baseline things you need'all this is self-care. This is one of the baseline things you need to be doing for your self-care. You need to be doing things that add joy to your life, not having to sit back and have created a life that you want to escape from. Risk-taking helps you create that life that is joyful.

Speaker 1:

So before I go on to the activity, I just want to invite you to subscribe to my email list to get my weekly emails that I send out with this podcast and the bonus PDFs, all you've got to do is go to my website and sign up for my newsletter. Also. Grab my book while you're there. Also grab my book while you're there. My website is juliemerrimanphdcom. Okay, the activity today I call going bigger, and it is so easy, but it is so powerful. It's a rare client that I haven't had.

Speaker 1:

Do this for. Whatever we might be working on, this is a really powerful exercise. All you have to do. It just requires a timer, a pen and a piece of paper. All you've got to do now. I would invite you to maybe do a little meditation before you do this, or maybe go outside and get grounded. Just do something so that you have access to your full mind.

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But all you've got to do is set a timer for five minutes and I want you to dump your brain's contents, all those words between your ears. Dump that onto a piece of paper Now. I would have you set up this brain. Dump that first. You're thinking about who do you dream to be? How can you go bigger? What risk do you need to take? What might be holding you back? So you set that timer and you just start writing. You don't worry about punctuation, you don't worry about if the words make sense together, you just write, do not hold back, write, write, write and at the end of that five minutes, when that timer goes off, you take a big, deep breath, you get yourself grounded and you read that dump. You see what all that voice between your ears had going on.

Speaker 1:

And I want you to pick a few topics to take through a superpower model Topics. And again the topic is how can I go bigger? What risks do I need to take? Risks do I need to take? Taking those thoughts through your superpower model is going to really help you see where resistance might be getting in your way or fear. It's going to help you see what's holding you back and that's going to help you be able to shift those thoughts and create an opportunity to take risks. All right, all right. So we've talked about the importance of risk-taking and how, on the other side of taking risk can be the life that you really, really, really want to live. So that's it for it, for us today, and I invite you to, I invite you to know that you are worth taking risk and you are worth whatever might be standing. You're worth overcoming whatever might be standing between you and that dream. So please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen, please leave me a review and, until next time, take care of you.