It goes without saying that our thoughts can have a powerful impact on our moods and emotions. We also know what we think can turn into words and influence actions. Thoughts can even have a direct effect on how we feel about ourselves. Is there any way to gain control of our thoughts and impact our lives in a positive way? In this podcast we look at that question. According to our guest, it’s not only possible but a lot more simple and direct that you might think.
Christine Meyer is an executive life coach and author of "Keep It Simple, Smartypants! Stop Overthinking. Start Aligning. Live Happy”. She has some remarkable advice and guides us on a journey of empowerment, so we can stop self-sabotaging and find a way to create and live out our dreams.
For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF with Lanee Blaise and Sandy Kovach or to contact us, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com
Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
It goes without saying that our thoughts can have a powerful impact on our moods and emotions. We also know what we think can turn into words and influence actions. Thoughts can even have a direct effect on how we feel about ourselves. Is there any way to gain control of our thoughts and impact our lives in a positive way? In this podcast we look at that question. According to our guest, it’s not only possible but a lot more simple and direct that you might think.
Christine Meyer is an executive life coach and author of "Keep It Simple, Smartypants! Stop Overthinking. Start Aligning. Live Happy”. She has some remarkable advice and guides us on a journey of empowerment, so we can stop self-sabotaging and find a way to create and live out our dreams.
For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF with Lanee Blaise and Sandy Kovach or to contact us, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com
Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com
Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Christine Meyer [00:00:02]:
We all have struggles, we all have issues, we all have things from our childhood and whatever. Whatever. But do you let it inform you or form you? Do you let it help refine your decision making and your perspective of yourself and find the benefits of it? Or do you let it form you in a way that is diminishing to you?
Sandy Kovach [00:00:21]:
Welcome to Imagine Yourself podcast, where we help you imagine your next chapter of life with grace, gratitude, courage and faith.
Lanee Blaise [00:00:29]:
I'm Lanee here with Sandy, and here's a question that only you can answer. What do your thoughts look like? Your little daily thoughts that run around inside your head. Thoughts about you and what you can and cannot do. Are your thoughts helping you, hurting you? Pushing you too hard or not enough? Are they positive or negative? Do they activate you or smother you? How about your dreams? Are your dreams big or small? Do your dreams give room for you to grow and blossom? Or do you squash those dreams before they even get a chance to develop? I want you to really think about this stuff because we have a great guest who is here to help us look at these thoughts and these dreams of ours and how they connect to what our lives end up looking like. Her name is Christine Meyer and she is an executive Life coach. She's an author. Let me tell you the name of the book. It's called "Keep it Simple, Smarty Pants". It's stop, overthinking, start aligning, live happy. Because Christine's on a mission to empower, educate and uplift. And I want you to listen to this also. She coaches the ultra successful people, those people that you don't even think really need to have a coach. She helps them to dream bigger, reach beyond their limitations, and know themselves from the inside out so that people can have a happy, confident life and finally start making the impact they want to make. I hope this is getting you excited as you're listening, because she's about to come on soon. But even more exciting, her clients include Emmy Award winners, bestselling authors, entrepreneurs, leaders of change, and beyond. So we know that we're going to get something wonderful today because we love to imagine ourselves thinking the thoughts that help us rise up from wherever we are right now. We want to welcome Christine Meyer.
Christine Meyer [00:02:33]:
What an intro. Thank you.
Lanee Blaise [00:02:36]:
Thank you for helping us because we truly believe in just making things better. That's what our whole podcast is about.
Christine Meyer [00:02:44]:
Good. We're on the same mission, so yay yay.
Sandy Kovach [00:02:47]:
And we're going to improve ourselves and our thought life, and I look forward to learning how in this podcast, one of the things that strikes me is that people can have these dreams, big dreams, small dreams, whatever. And probably they're doable dreams. Maybe we got to work hard for them. But before we can even get started, we self sabotage with our thoughts and then maybe not even into pursuing them 100%.
Christine Meyer [00:03:13]:
We do sabotage ourselves. And that's not intentional per se. That's often simply because of old habits of thoughts. The way that you were brought up, your life experience, what you were told, what you saw, what you heard, and what you acclimated to. And so we all have blinders on when it comes to our potential and how powerful we truly are. None of us are taught really to think of ourselves as being empowered and powerful. And so part of my mission, if you will, is to inform and educate people on how empowered we are born and how to live a life that feels empowering and to have conversations that are empowering. To have conversations of our abilities and possibilities and probabilities versus where we came from and how that held us back and how we're going to continue holding ourselves back. I want people to be honest about who they are. But also there's a different conversation you can be having. You can be talking about your struggles or you can be talking about those things that are working for you and that will bring all of the struggles into working at some point eventually. To the subject of our conversation, here what you're thinking now. And what you're talking about now is like making a reservation into your future.
Lanee Blaise [00:04:27]:
That's a quote right there. I know this is being corny, but almost as if you're setting a reservation for dinner, I have this group of people that's going to come to this restaurant at this time and we plan to have a great meal versus, like Sandy said, sabotaging the whole thing even before. And you either have no reservation in mind or you have no plan or you have some ridiculous place that there's no good thoughts behind it, no good support behind it.
Christine Meyer [00:04:58]:
And that's one of the examples that I use when I help break that statement down. Your thoughts are like making a reservation into your future. If you were taking a vacation, you would take the time to make a reservation for the plane before you got to the airport, and you would also take the time to make a reservation for the place you're going, the hotel, or wherever you're going to stay. So often we as human beings have conversations without the understanding that we are constantly creating our reality. What is now was created before, and the conversations and the stories, what you thought, what you said, what you expected, what you perceived and how you felt. And so as you are in your now, your now is your most powerful moment. You can't go back and undo the past, but you can create your future. And in fact, you are. So you might as well do it on purpose. You might as well do it deliberately. And why is that important? Well, number one, because you are that powerful. And number two, the more deliberate you are about your intentions and what you want to create in the future. And intentional with your speech, intentional with your words, intentional with your thoughts and the direction in which you want to go in, then the more you're going to land there.
Sandy Kovach [00:06:12]:
And you say too, and you brought up thoughts and speech and many things that go into it. But I also saw on your blog where you said your power lies in your ability to manage how you feel. Is this the driver of all that? Or is that just one aspect?
Christine Meyer [00:06:27]:
That's one aspect, the driver. Your thoughts create your emotions, let you know what you're in the process of creating. So I'm glad you brought that up. How that comes together is to understand what kind of reservation you're making in your future is by paying attention to how you feel. If you're in the midst of a conversation or thoughts by yourself or with someone and you're feeling bad, some negative emotion, and I will clarify that in a second you're feeling bad, then you're in the process of creating a future moment that you're not going to like. If you keep at it, it doesn't just happen like boom, done, sorry, you're doomed. It's more the practice of that is going to result in something. It's like the practice of overeating will result in something. The practice of getting up late every day will result in something. If you don't get to work on time, you see? So it's the same thing with your thoughts and your conversation. Your thoughts create your words, add momentum to that. But how you feel lets you know what you're in the process of creating. And so we have much more ability to direct our thoughts, choose the conversations that uplift versus diminish us. And you can tell the difference. When you're talking about something that you believe, you perceive that you have failed at, you didn't do well, went wrong, was unfair, uncalled for all of those things, you can tell again, those things happen. I'm not trying to suggest to your audience that we should not talk about those things, but and do not continue to talk about them in the same way. Otherwise, in this net now, you are making future reservations. For more of that, you are perpetuating it. So address it, discover how you feel, pinpoint how you feel and say, darn it, all that happened, whatever. This is how I feel and I want to feel better. And by doing that process and we can talk about how you go about feeling better, certainly by doing that process, then you are taking charge of your perspective, of your past. Bonus, you are taking charge of your now, which is where the only power you have is now. It's not tomorrow, it's not next Tuesday. And you are also creating a future moment and moment that you will prefer to rendezvous with. And I like this analogy of your thoughts are like making a reservation into your future because I don't think that a lot of people think of it. We all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, talk, talk, you know what happened, you know what happened, you know what's going on. We all bond on diminishment. Why? Because in most of our lives again, there are always exceptions. But in most of our lives there are way more things working than not working. But the human little brain wants to the beautiful, brilliant brain and the human little brain wants to go to what's not. Because we have this tendency to fixate on what needs to be in our perspective, fixed versus what is working. And when you start to train yourself, when you start to get in the practice of finding things that feel better, thinking about things that feel better, even unimportant things, they're not world changing things. What that does is it elevates your future outcomes and it also elevates your air quotes here problem subjects. Because you're now no longer spending time perpetuating them by addressing them as if they are a problem. The more you point at anything, the more you talk about anything, the more you think about anything, whatever that is, you are perpetuating. And that's why when you meet people, they've changed but they really haven't. Or their condition has been the same forever or this keeps happening. Listen to what they're saying, pay attention. But I want to turn this conversation around rather than it's easier to see it in someone else, but where I really want you to turn the attention is on yourself. Everyone out, let leave. Take your nose out of everybody else's business, really use it as a way to notice it, but then do it for yourself. And again, I'm not ever making anyone wrong for how they approach their life or how they communicate. And this is no insult, but it's oblivious. You see, most people don't understand the impact that they are having in there now on their lives and their ability to take charge of it.
Lanee Blaise [00:11:03]:
Yours is one of the first times that I've ever heard someone explain that entire concept of you are constantly creating your reality in a more tangible way and even the part where your thoughts determine what's happening and your words determine what's happening. I always had a lot of pushback personally against that because I was like wait a second, I've had really bad days where I was in a bad mood, negative attitude and sometimes things would still work out in a beautiful way and just like that could happen. But the way you're breaking it down and I know that people definitely want to focus on saying good things and positive things and gratitude. But something caught me when you talked about you focus on what's going right and then I could just add to that and then keep doing more of that. When you focus on what's going right and you're going in that direction, your whole body and mind and even thoughts, everything has turned and pivoted towards that direction instead of the downward direction. I like this element of creating your reality a lot better than what I thought that was about.
Christine Meyer [00:12:16]:
Well, and I am 100% with you. There's a lot of information out there and it can be in your face a little bit and misunderstood. And that's why I get on these podcasts. I want to clarify. I like being practical with anything that I offer. I like to help you make sense of it and make sense of it in a way that is helpful to you. And so to your point about your day, you might be having a really awful day and something turns around and goes really well. That's all about momentum. If you stop and think about it, your momentum of well being, of things going well, of things moving in one direction is in place already. So you really can't go screwing it up. So, yeah, maybe this one thing or two things are out of place, but eventually you get distracted in your day and boom, there's already momentum there. It's like you had the brakes on and you just released the brakes on that train. Okay. And certainly when we're talking about momentum, we really can't have this conversation without the idea of momentum. The more you do something, the easier it becomes to do it. And so that momentum of intentionally looking for things that are working intentionally. I like to offer to my clients this game of what makes my life easy. Because a lot of people don't stop to think about what makes their life easy. What makes my life easy? Well, certainly zoom makes my life easy. Yes, good lighting makes my life easy. Drawers to put stuff in makes my life easy. Plates, utensils, closets, indoor plumbing. Oh my gosh. How easy does that make our? You see, like, seriously, the three of us could go on for the next 4 hours each, taking turns about what makes our life easy. And those things are overlooked. But it's important to practice because it's so darn easy in today's world where we can access all of the bad news that seems to be happening all at the same time. It's so important as individuals if we want the quality of life and we all want things to go well for us, and it's all set up to go well for us. But to your point, I want to emphasize a point you made earlier. If you get in the car and want to go west, you're not going to put your car pointing east.
Lanee Blaise [00:14:33]:
Yeah, very practical way of saying, yeah, right.
Christine Meyer [00:14:38]:
Or if you get in your car and start going to the grocery store that you didn't mean to go to and you realize that you're going to turn your car around and go the other way. But also to create new habits, you see relative to your thoughts, relative to your observation of what's going on around you. It's also in the same analogy, really. If you go to the bathroom and the power is out, you're pretty much guaranteed you're going to flush that toilet. Habit. Habitless. So you're going to have to stop and think about it and say, right, leave it, or you're going to walk into the room and flip the light switch on because it's a habit. So new habits do take intentional thought, and you need to remind yourself, what is it that I want to think here? How is it that I want to focus here? What games can I play to get me into the practice? And so that game, what makes your life easy is a way to get yourself into the practice. Because that's easy.
Sandy Kovach [00:15:37]:
It's the same thing with gratitude. Although I like how you're putting it. What makes my life easy? Because it just makes it easier to think about. Gratitude is such, I mean, it's a wonderful word, but it's not like a term that we can necessarily think of something right away. Whereas what makes my life easy? Oh, the fact that when my lips are chapped, I have CarMax right next to me. That makes my life easy. So we want to turn it around. We want to be focusing on the positive rather than the negative. And you said we kind of have a default position to focus on the negative. And you mentioned things like gossiping and talking about what's wrong. And I also saw on your, I think on one of your blogs about complaining and how that is one of the worst things you could do.
Christine Meyer [00:16:18]:
Well, it's one of the things that many humans tend to do because we get attention, right? We get validated. We feel justified when we complain. And a lot of people will join us in our complaints. So it's like, yay, let's all come together and complain. Okay? So number one, I've learned, of course, over time to hear complaints as a request for something. So if you find yourself complaining, stop number one. Number two, ask yourself what it is that you're really asking for here. Because with every complaint comes a request for something. If I'm complaining that I'm too hot, what am I really asking for? I want to be cooled down. If I'm complaining that I don't have enough money, what do I really want is more money or an easier way to make money or more flow or more certainty or more stability? And so I like to turn it around and complain if you want, but understand what you're in the process of doing right? And I think that's the it factor, if you will, when you start understanding that you are in the process of creating a reality you might like or you might not. Again, I'm not here to have people feel scared about it. It's just it takes time there's momentum and all of those things, but you are always in the process of creating a reality, adding momentum to something. What are you adding momentum to in terms of complaining? Being one of the worst things you can do? That is a complaint, is a projection of thought that will perpetuate what you're complaining about and more. Not only that, you'll have more to complain about. Do you want to keep doing that or do you want to say, wait a minute, I'm complaining. That's okay, I'm not wrong to complain. All it means is I want some improvement here. What improvement am I seeking?
Sandy Kovach [00:18:03]:
So what happens when and you talked about the power being out. That's funny. It happens a lot where I live. And it's always fun. Not okay, and that's not always fun, but I do this, and I don't know why I do this. Maybe you could tell me. I go on Facebook and say, gosh darn it, the power is out again, and there's only a little bit of wind. Why is my power out? And then, of course, a lot of comments people commiserating. So is that why I do it?
Christine Meyer [00:18:28]:
I don't want well, I'm not going to analyze you right here and now. I'm going to ask you to figure that out for yourself, to have a conversation on the side. But it's habit. It's habit. It's a way of connecting with people.
Sandy Kovach [00:18:40]:
Yeah, that's true.
Christine Meyer [00:18:42]:
It's a way of getting and this is no disrespect, it's a way of getting attention. It's a way of getting feedback. It's a way of being heard, feeling heard, feeling validated. I'm not the only one who experiences this. And that's really what people want to hear is they're not the only ones. And I promise you, you're not the only one in anything. You're just not the only one. There are plenty of people who feel the same way and plenty of people who have similar experiences. But like I often say, you can walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but still, they're not your shoes, they're theirs. Yeah, so not to be insensitive here, why are we trying so hard to get into other people's shoes? Why don't we stay in our shoes and understand that we have shared experiences or similar experiences and that we all have struggles, we all have issues, we all have things from our childhood and whatever, but do you let it inform you or form you? Do you let it help refine your decision making and your perspective of yourself and find the benefits of it? Or do you let it form you in a way that is diminishing to.
Lanee Blaise [00:19:44]:
You and kind of like you said at the beginning of talking to us too, as far as I wonder if many times as humans our default is, like you said, to diminish versus to embrace how much power and goodness and wonderful things that we do have within us and without us. And around us.
Christine Meyer [00:20:07]:
Imagine yourself, right? Imagine yourself. Because we are all born knowing that. Look at babies. They're not small for very long before they're looking up to the big ones around them. And they want to walk, and they fall and they fall and they fall. And you watch that baby, and that baby does not maybe has a temporary temper tantrum, sure. But soon enough, they're up and at it again and up and at it because they know the essence of them is to move forward, is to evolve. They believe in themselves. None of that garbage that comes after for us is there. And so we have the ability to elevate our conversations. And some people get scared of that or worried that, well, if everybody just felt good, then what?
Lanee Blaise [00:20:55]:
Everything would be awesome.
Christine Meyer [00:20:58]:
Is there really a downside to that? In my book, I have a page that says, getting happy sucks. I'm being sarcastic on that one because a lot of people argue for the limitation of but we need to talk about how bad we feel. And I say there's some things, yes, that maybe you need to process and talk about. Again, I'm not saying don't do that. What I'm saying is, understand that your intention for doing that is to get to the other side and feel good, feel better, improve how you feel, change your perspective, see it from a different vantage point.
Sandy Kovach [00:21:30]:
So you're saying we can process it just with the intention of bettering ourselves through the processing how you feel. Right.
Christine Meyer [00:21:39]:
Proving how you feel and making new decisions. Right. Bringing to your awareness, well, what does this make me want more than ever after this experience, this really crappy experience that I don't ever want to have again? You have a right to feel that way. And if you take it and you say, all right, I feel really crappy about it right now, but I'd like to feel better about it, then you have already started the process. Because right there, to use a really tangible analogy, you just took your foot off the brake and you turned your.
Lanee Blaise [00:22:06]:
Car around into the different direction, and.
Christine Meyer [00:22:08]:
You'Re starting to turn it around. Exactly.
Lanee Blaise [00:22:11]:
You're not sitting in that with the intention of sitting in it forever.
Christine Meyer [00:22:15]:
Yeah, correct. And that is enough. You might not feel better right now. You might not be able to think of anything that makes you feel better. And that's when I encourage my clients, if there's something that you feel really bad about that is just really awful or bad, then leave it, set it on the table and overthinking. Really, the only place where people overthink is with their problems or things they.
Lanee Blaise [00:22:39]:
Think will be future problems that aren't even problems yet.
Christine Meyer [00:22:42]:
Worrying and imagining future outcomes that don't feel good is like having a nightmare on purpose.
Sandy Kovach [00:22:47]:
Or there's another quote of the day. So much wisdom here. So, Christine, before we get any further. And there's just a couple more things I'm sure we'd like to ask, but your book and your coaching business and all the things your social media, can you give us a wrap on that?
Christine Meyer [00:23:04]:
Christinemeyercoaching.com is my website. My book is keep it simple, smartypants and it's on Amazon and on social media. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. I'm Christine Meyer, coaching across the board. I kept it simple.
Sandy Kovach [00:23:20]:
You did. And that's the whole thing. And we'll put links to all of that on our website, in the show notes as well. But speaking of keeping it simple, what led you to that title? Keep it simple, smarty pants. I got to ask.
Christine Meyer [00:23:33]:
I was overcomplicating it. True story. I was talking with my editor, and we had sort of tabled it that we would okay, we'll come up with a title at some point, and I would think and not come up and so on. And so we were on the phone one day, and we were going back and forth, and I just had this thought of, oh, man, we're just making this way too complicated. And then boom. Keep it simple, smarty pants.
Lanee Blaise [00:23:57]:
Wow, that's perfect.
Christine Meyer [00:23:59]:
So I have a trademark on the title for a series of books, and book number two of that series will be out in 2024.
Sandy Kovach [00:24:06]:
Awesome.
Lanee Blaise [00:24:07]:
Excellent. Awesome. I wonder, too. Now, your website says something that I want anyone who's listening to really sit and think about, but I want to make sure that you explain how they can take this and use it. But it says, what do you want your life to look like? You're talking about creating on purpose. And I know we definitely talked about aspects of that with the way that we think and the way that we talk. Anything that you usually start with your clients or that people can start with on that journey, to really getting to what do you want your life to look like and how do you create it on purpose? Because some people are going to say, I can't help the way that I think. I can't help these negative thoughts. How do you.
Christine Meyer [00:24:53]:
Plain and simple, you can. Well, number one, what makes my life easy is an awesome game to play, right? And that starts to train you differently. What are my five favorite things about fill in the blank. What are my five favorite things about my dresser? What are my five favorite things about my work? If you can't find five favorite things about your work, don't go there. Find five favorite things about the candlestick. It doesn't matter. Find five favorite things about brushing your teeth. Find five favorite things about your partner. Do this on a regular basis, especially if you have to go into work, if you need to address your employees, if you have to live with the person that you're living with that you've chosen to, or your kids. This is imperative to the quality of your perspective of them and the quality of the relationships that result from that. Think about how in relationship to other people, how much do we practice that? What are my five favorite things about you, if you're not so lovable right now, I'm not practicing my five favorite things about you. And guess what? If I think about that thing that I don't like so much about you because we all have those things about people, then guess what? I'm going to keep bumping into you, because that is my expectation of you. And so I am in charge here of how I create you to rendezvous with me. I am in charge of how I create me going out into the world, and I am in charge of my world as I create it to be, you see? So what do you want? Well, when you're really quagmired in what you don't want, I just want out of here. I get that. But again, those games can help elevate you into a different mindset to then start more accurately and clearly identifying what you do want. And I have to say, everybody that's listening does know what they want. I don't mean in a tangible I want a gray coloring pencil. It's more I want to have a good life. I want to feel good. I want to be happy. I want to feel fulfilled. I want to feel fun. I want to feel energized. I want to feel healthy. I want to feel vital and vibrant, and I want to feel successful. All right, then what does success mean to you? What do you think is associated with success? Like, there are layers upon layers upon layers of these things that we make up that we could really identify. And so success well, what does success mean to you? Does success mean money, fame, status? What?
Lanee Blaise [00:27:21]:
Because not just what everybody else has.
Sandy Kovach [00:27:23]:
Yeah, it's different.
Christine Meyer [00:27:24]:
Yeah, not just what everybody else has. Define it for yourself. What is success? And then what's associated with that? Success. So if you decide that success for you is having status and money, which is a pretty common one, right? So we'll go with that. Well, what does that feel like then, Will? It feels I feel proud. I feel accomplished. I feel successful. Yes, we're talking about that. So what does success mean to you? Will I feel happy. I feel inspired. I feel now you're getting to them.
Sandy Kovach [00:27:52]:
So it's not so much about attaining that because other people could say success is a happy marriage or raising successful children.
Christine Meyer [00:28:00]:
Yes, and so it is. And so it is. But what is at the heart of that? Because raising successful children and having a happy marriage, in that happy marriage, I feel happy. I feel appreciated, and I appreciate in return. I value, I embrace, I love. And so everything that everybody wants really is at the heart of everything. I say go for it. Have. All of the stuff you want, go for whatever you want. Because we are human beings who are constantly expanding and evolving. Without desires, life as you see it would cease to exist, you see. So desires are ingrained in us. And so many people say, you need to stop wanting. Why do you want so much, you greedy little bugger? Right? And that's the nature of our being. We are here to evolve, but evolve joyfully. And so my question really is, all right, you're going to evolve whether you like that idea or not. Are you going to do it joyfully or not, or more joyfully or less joyfully? Are you going to go along with your expansion that you came here to experience, or are you going to resist it all the way?
Sandy Kovach [00:29:11]:
Yeah. And God gives everybody different gifts and talents, and sometimes those gifts and talents stay dormant because we don't understand the evolution of them.
Christine Meyer [00:29:22]:
Yeah. And, you know, we're here also for the discovery of us. With every life experience you have, you discover yourself. You have the opportunity to discover yourself and discover your desires, discover who you want to be, discover what you prefer. So it's really good if you can identify at the core of everything you want, there's an emotion or a few emotions. Identify those, and then you really get to the heart of what you truly.
Lanee Blaise [00:29:45]:
Want because it's making me think of so many things. As far as talking about you said that with dreams, we start as kids. Kids have dreams. They want to do everything. They want to be Superman, they want to be a basketball player, they want to have twelve kids, they want to be a businessman, they want to be the president, all these things. And people over time, teach the kids to squash some of that. You're wanting too much success. Also, some people are taught that success has to be money or fame or power or this. But for some people, especially who are struggling a lot, success might be having more space in your life, in your calendar, to actually sit and breathe and spend time with your family members or your friends or yourself or your God. A different way of seeing success. It doesn't have to be what everybody else says. I think it was Mel Robbins who had a quote about when you start thinking something about someone, your brain will try to find information to make it true. So if I focus on either my kid or my husband or my mom and say, oh, she's just a wonderful person, I'm so grateful for her, she makes my life easier in this way, then my brain will find evidence to support that versus they suck, they get on my nerves. They're always quote, unquote, always doing XYZ or me. I'm always there's evidence for everything. I don't want evidence for me anymore. I don't want to be that.
Christine Meyer [00:31:23]:
You see, you create you and you create, how you experience others and how they show up. And yes, you can collect evidence regardless of whatever. If you're looking for the good, you'll find good. If you're looking for the bad, you'll find bad. It exists, but it doesn't mean that that's the T truth. It means that's what you're focused on, that's what you're looking for. So you'll see it. You're always going to find evidence of what you're looking for.
Lanee Blaise [00:31:46]:
100% I hope that anyone who is listening, and including myself and Sandy, that we listen to the advice that you've given. We don't have to consume it all or ponder it all in one sitting. But if we take one I don't want to say that part, like where my thoughts, like my head will explode, but my head will visibly wonder about all that. But I do want each person to take whatever really stuck out to them the most and what resonated on what they need for this moment to get back on the horse in a good, positive way and make some changes. And then once they get that down, then they can move to another piece that they listen to that really did it for them. Some people, they need to understand the power of now. Some people are going to need to understand the power of doing things deliberately. Some people need to focus in on that reservations that you need to make for the future. Some need to play that game about what makes my life easy.
Christine Meyer [00:32:51]:
Just a simple question, how can I feel good now? Like the direction of your question really paves the way for the evidence you're going to start collecting. You see, like a simple question, a bad feeling question is pretty much going to result in a bad feeling answer. Why am I such a loser? Why do I keep failing? Why doesn't this work for me? I've tried so hard. I don't understand. Well, what's the other question? How could this work for me? What is working for me? What does feel good? What's in my immediate area of observation, that is beautiful. There are so many redirects in terms of just a question alone that can have you shift your point of focus.
Sandy Kovach [00:33:39]:
I really love that. And I think when we do our bonus episode, like Linnae said, we're asking everybody to take one thing away. So that's what Linnae and I are going to do. We'll each focus on one thing. And then what I would ask for everyone to do is if you have something that when you hear Christine talk about you're working on, or maybe you go to her website and see something there, email us or let us know. Or Christine. And we'll kind of include you in the bonus episode as well. And you could do it on social media. All of our information is@imagineourselfpodcast.com or her website.
Lanee Blaise [00:34:14]:
Christinemyiercoaching.com, this is good thoughts work.
Christine Meyer [00:34:18]:
I like to think so, yeah.
Lanee Blaise [00:34:20]:
This is what we're supposed to do. Because now as we wrap up, we like to ask if there is one thing that you want to make sure any person listening takes away from today, what would that be?
Christine Meyer [00:34:35]:
Our emotions are information. Our emotions are changeable. Don't ignore how you feel. Pay attention to how you feel and do something about feeling better.
Sandy Kovach [00:34:44]:
I love it.
Lanee Blaise [00:34:46]:
That is beautiful. We thank you so very much for your wisdom, your advice, your kindness, the grace that you give us as we're working through these things within us. Because a lot of us, or all of us maybe will have some learning curves as we move through this. And to really learn how to comfortably change. Because however many years we've been alive, we may have been thinking like this. And to try to change that, turn that direction of the car.
Christine Meyer [00:35:16]:
It doesn't have to take long. It just takes practice. Like anything. If you don't make it this time, try it again. And try it again and try it again. There's no judgment of pass or fail. It's more, how do I want to feel? And what can I do about that? That's really it. And knowing that you have the potential.
Lanee Blaise [00:35:35]:
Like the wizard of Oz, it was right inside you all along.
Sandy Kovach [00:35:38]:
Just tap your ruby slippers together three times, only we don't really need the ruby slippers.
Christine Meyer [00:35:44]:
Yeah, but get the ruby slippers if you want.
Lanee Blaise [00:35:47]:
Makes you feel good.
Christine Meyer [00:35:49]:
Whatever helps.
Lanee Blaise [00:35:50]:
Makes your life easier.
Christine Meyer [00:35:52]:
Yeah. Find ways to remind yourself of what you want to be thinking about today. Find ways to remind yourself of how you want to feel. You're going to slip and fall and something's going to be in your face and your kid's going to have a temper tantrum or somebody's going to cut you off in traffic. All right, fine. But now what? Are you going to go home and tell your spouse and tell everybody? And are you going to say, wait a minute, that happened? Okay, I rendezvous with that. All right, now what? What's for lunch?
Lanee Blaise [00:36:21]:
I love it. So basically we will just end with everybody out there. Imagine yourself starting to ask the good questions, thinking the good thoughts, redesigning all of the ways that you want to live this good life. Focusing on the things that make this a good life already.
Sandy Kovach [00:36:42]:
Thanks for taking the time with us. We would love to hear your takeaways as well. Hit us up at imagine yourselfpodcast.com or on social media. We're going to put all the contact information in the show notes as well as Christine's information.
Sandy Kovach [00:36:56]:
And if you haven't already, hit subscribe or follow to this podcast. We look forward to speaking to you again soon.