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Welcome to Working Towards Our Purpose, a podcast that
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offers a different perspective on what a job can be. For everyone
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out there that's heard that voice in the back of their head asking for something
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more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,
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and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their own
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purpose. Together, we will learn, become inspired,
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and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.
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Joining me today on the podcast is Erica Cooney. Erica is a
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licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a certified
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integrative mental health professional. She's also a speaker,
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teacher, podcaster, Ricky master, and meditation facilitator,
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just to list some of the things that she does. She was also involved in
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a pretty serious accident with a Mack truck that sent her on her path to
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purpose. Erica, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Hi. Thank
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you for having me. I'm glad to be here. Excited that you're here. So, yeah,
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let's, let's just jump right into it. And can you tell us a little bit
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about your story and, you know, what's led you on your path?
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Yeah. I think you hit the main point right off the bat in
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my intro there, and a Mack dump truck is the reason why I'm
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here. So I'm gonna just start there. And then through our
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conversation, I'm sure other stuff will come up too, you know, because everyone's
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path is not, like, black and white. Right? There's so many moving
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pieces and parts. And so in 2014, when I was driving to
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work, I was hit by a Mack dump truck. It never saw me, and I
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had nowhere to go. And I'm blessed to be here. I am blessed to be
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alive. I had emergency surgery that day. I was in the hospital for
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a week, 3 month recovery, learning how to walk again because I almost lost
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my foot. And then over the next 14, 18 months, my life
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completely fell apart as I knew it, Whether it was being fired
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from my job, and I was never somebody to be fired, I was always promoted
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or a trainer or a manager or some sort of leadership position.
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Then a long term relationship ended, and that was all about
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toxicity and understanding, you know, what kind of relationships
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are really what I want and what kind of partner do I wanna be.
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And then because I was not functioning the way that I was functioning before
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the MacDumb truck, not to mention I was a therapist. And us therapists, we
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don't make a lot of money. I don't know if you guys know that. We
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barely make, like, $50,000, and I had a
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lot of school loans and a lot of debt. And so when that long term
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relationship ended, I really didn't have anywhere to go, so I went back home.
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And here I am in my mid thirties. I'm sitting in my
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bedroom in my parents' house. I got a bottle of wine, and I'm crying. I'm
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like doing that ugly cry. Like, what the heck am I missing here? How did
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I get here? How did I miss the signs? Right? And so
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my dog and I, we've been on this journey together, learning how to
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evolve, heal to where I am 8 years out now, 7 years
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out, and it's been the best thing that's ever happened in my
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life. Do I ever wanna go through that again? No. Thank you. I've had my
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fill of that, but I also am very grateful for the experience and everything that
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I've learned along this journey. So and here I am. Yeah.
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Wow. That's a that's a very, you know, traumatic story even, but
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seems like it it was the thing that kinda pushed you to to become the
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person that you are today. And I think so often that's kind of the case
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is there's some sort of, like, event similar with me. There was a an
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event that kinda woke me up to being you know, to look at your current
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life and then and try to make some changes to, to make it better. So
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I've heard you talk a lot about burnout and overwhelm in the past and
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how it can lead you to making decisions based out of fear. I was wondering
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if you could talk a little bit about how calming your mind is an important
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step when somebody is making a decision. Well, we have to
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understand, you know, if we go to the neuroscience part of the brain and when
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we're stressed out, the rational thinking that we have just goes right out the window.
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Our that part of our brain literally goes offline, and we're not able
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to access it. And when your nervous system is stressed out, you can call
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it fight, flight, or freeze. Right? It's there's so many different ways people describe
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it, and I'm just gonna say your nervous system is activated. You're going to do
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things out of protection rather than connection. Right? Our brain
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is no longer looking for ways to connect. Our brain is no longer
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in the aerial view of 50,000 feet above looking at everything. It
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is a very narrow view, and it's right in front of you. And how do
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you protect yourself right then and there? And if you stay in that
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state over prolonged periods of time, that becomes the chronic stress.
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Right? And then with the chronic stress turns into the burnout, and then your nervous
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system is beyond fried. And you become into this mode
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of instead of looking for everything from protection and you're in
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fight, flight, or freeze, then you go into this possum mode. Right? And you just
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have nothing left to give. And so if you are able to
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regulate your nervous system and regulate typically means with
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your body, And it's usually the last thing is your mind
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that comes online. So if you're physically active, if you're
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finding movement in your day, that is the best way
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for you to get your mind right. It's as cliche as it
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sounds. Exercise, movement, yoga,
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walking, like, move your body, dance it out sessions,
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like, just get it out, and that way your brain
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can calm down. And there's other things that go into this because, you
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know, I am an you can list a lot of titles of what I do
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at the beginning of this. Right? And the easiest way to sum it up is
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I'm an integrative mental health therapist. And what that means is
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you can call it holistic. You can call it integrative. I'd look at everything. Mind,
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body, spirit. So you also have to take into consideration your gut. What
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are you doing for food? How are you eating? How are you nourishing your body?
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Because a lot of our processed foods today cause our brain to get on
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fire, and that also causes our rational thinking to go offline. So
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if you were like me, I went for cheese fries and red wine. That was
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my go to mac and cheese. That's what I was eating all the time. I'm
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Italian, so there was a lot of pasta in my life and not a lot
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of veggies. I mean, I ate veggies, but not a lot to where I am
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today. And so understanding your gut and understanding the food you're
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implementing or eating, incorporating into your body is
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also major, major, major, major. I can't stress that enough. Let me say major
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one more time. Major component also to whether or not
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you're going to be able to think clearly when you're working
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and deciding what to do so you're not operating out of fear.
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So to follow that up, after your accident, is this something that kind
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of you were forced to look at as far as the mind, body, spirit sort
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of holistic health aspect? Because I'm thinking of it from, like, a perspective of
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somebody who, you know, like myself, was in, corporate 9 to 5
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and kind of felt stuck and overwhelmed and lost. And
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the first step, it sounds like you're saying, is you get these things
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right so then you can think more clearly and become able to make
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the decisions that, you know, benefit you. Right. In a
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roundabout way, that is what I did because there was no road map
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that I had when I was going through this. I did a lot of
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I fell flat on my face quite often, to be quite honest, and, you
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know, and that's what I do now. Now I provide the road map for others
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so you don't have to go through all the struggles that I particularly had to
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go through because I didn't have the information. Right? Everything I I do today is
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because I learned the hard way. And, you know, maybe that's because I am Italian.
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I got a hard head, you know, and it takes me a little while to
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learn things. But other times, it could just be I just didn't have the information.
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Right? And so the best thing that I can say
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is, you know, for my journey, how it happened was I
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was still working in an agency. I was working 80 hours a week because I
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also had a private practice. Right? And so I was going full steam
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ahead after that accident and after I got fired. And I got
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promoted to a director position. Right? I, like, went even bigger. So I didn't
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learn anything about sitting still for 3 months. I was like, no. I'm still gonna
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go out there and go get it because I have to hustle and grind. Right?
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And when I started to breathe, I took
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simple breathing. Like, I wasn't doing breath work. I wasn't doing meditation.
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I would just literally take 5 minutes out of my day and just
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breathe normally and notice where my breath fell. And that is what
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started to have me realize my body. And I started to
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realize those things have to change. Didn't happen overnight. And
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so through all of that, I went back to traditional talk therapy.
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Didn't work. Really didn't work for me, you know, where you just sit and you
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talk about your stressors all the time. And so I dove into the woo woo
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side of wellness, and that's when I started to learn about meditation. I learned about
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gut health, and I learned about community. And I learned
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about not making everything so pathological the way that we do in our mental health
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field as it is today. Mhmm. Definitely. Definitely. That's,
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you know, definitely lots of lots of lessons learned, it seems.
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So, yeah, you did you did mention the word hustle. I wanna touch on that
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a little bit. I know, it's kind of a buzzword these days, and some people
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look at it as, like, a positive thing and some people look at it as
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a negative thing. Do you think the word hustle is a good thing or a
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bad thing? So I think it depends on what you mean by the word
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hustle. If you mean hustle and ignore everything else,
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that's bad. But if you mean hard work, you get up and you show
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up every single day and you keep putting effort in and you keep going for
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it, that if you're saying that's hustle, then no. I don't
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think that's bad. My idea of hustle before was
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I ignored everything. I ignored me. I ignored what I needed. I ignored my sleep.
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I ignored my, like, what I was eating, and I ignored exercise.
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I ignored everything except the heart like, what I
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thought hard work was. Right? And productivity really is
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everything. The routines, the rituals, the, exercises
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that we do that allow us to do the doing sustainably.
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Right? So to me, I still hustle every day. It just looks
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different. And does that mean I am constantly working on my
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computer 247 the way I would have been, like, 5 years
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ago? I mean, 8 years ago, really. No. I'm not doing it that way.
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I'm making sure I have my morning routine, my evening routine so that
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when I am I have that block where I have to work hard,
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I'm going. Balls to the wall. I am going, and I am there.
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I am full steam ahead and catch up. Let's go.
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Mhmm. Yeah. No. I could definitely resonate with that. Even I think it's
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been almost a year and a half since I left my corporate job. Just the
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the trying to get out of the rituals, like you said, of feeling like
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you have to do something, I I still struggle with with that for sure. What
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what are some things that somebody can do to, like, overcome those, like,
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ingrained ways of thinking or being? That's a really good
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question. I think it's trial and error. I don't think there is a cookie
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cutter way because every person's different, and, you know, reasons
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why you think you have to do something stem from something inside of you.
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Right? Was that the way you were raised? Right? What is your self talk? Like,
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what's that little voice you hear inside your head? And f FYI, that little voice
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you hear inside your head, that negative Nelly is not your voice. It's somebody
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that was pretty influential in your growing up years
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talking, and it just sounds like you now. It's not really
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you. So if you can remember, if you do the exercising, you
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eat healthy, you calm that brain down, you start to hear your voice.
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Because when you hear that negative Nelly voice or the one that's like, you're not
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doing enough, you're not good enough, that's really your
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stress response. That's not who you are at your core.
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So full circle, get back to learning how to regulate your nervous system
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and you'll be able to start
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Yeah. I think that's I think that's great advice. So switching
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gears a little bit, you know, you you are, an entrepreneur. Do you consider
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yourself an entrepreneur? Yeah. Heck, yeah. I do. Great. So
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so what do you define as success for yourself? Because I know, like, you
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know, speaking of, like, other people's voices and other people's definitions of
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success, it can mean many different things, but like how do you define success
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for yourself? Success to me now means that
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I feel fulfilled, and I feel like I'm making a difference in this world.
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And I'm not just doing what I think I need to be doing. I don't
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need to have the money. I don't need to have the fame. Success is
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impact when somebody says, what you said all those years
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ago is still with me today. I mean, I succeeded. If I planted a
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seed, I succeeded. That's very minute for me, but it's not
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minute because it means a lot to me. Mhmm. Definitely.
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That's that's wonderful. So would you have, any advice for
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somebody who is trying to pursue a passion or, you know, leave a job that
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they no longer care about? What what's something that you would tell them? This
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is usually where people are like, you should get a side hustle,
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start small, and then work your way out. I
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don't think that, you know, I didn't do it that way. I was
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somebody who I'm a firm believer. If you don't feel
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aligned, why are you staying to suffer? Mhmm. Why?
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And I I hear all the time before people come at me. I
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hear it quite often because I have responsibilities. I have children to take care
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of. I have this to take care of. Right? And I had I need health
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insurance. Well, the other piece to all of this is I needed health insurance
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because I have a lung disease. Right? I have a rare genetic lung disease
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that's not curable. And, you know, I've already had lung surgery when I
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was 17 to have part of my lung removed, and I get it. I
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understand medical trauma. I understand feeling like you need things. But what I
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can tell you is this, if you stay, when you feel that you have to
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stay, you make yourself small or you make yourself miserable, and then
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you don't feel happy. And then when you do go where you feel aligned
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and you feel empowered, you feel inspired,
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you take off like you wouldn't believe. And then
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you realize you don't need things the way that you thought you needed things
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before. Full disclosure, I went out without
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health insurance for 3 years.
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My doctors, when I tell them that now, they, like, flip out. Like,
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how did you like, why would you do that? You know? Like, I didn't even
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tell my family. Like, nobody knew. I kept it on the down low because I
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was like, I'm not letting anybody get in my way of doing what I want
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to do. So when you feel aligned, when you have a
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regulated nervous system, when you're taking care of you, you
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will be amazed at what you are capable of doing and
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things that you never thought were possible become completely possible.
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Because it's cliche as it sounds. If you have that dream,
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that means you have the capability of dreaming it. If you could even think it
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up, that means it's there. It's within your grasp. You may have to
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you know, like, it's like cooking. You may have to start from scratch, get all
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the ingredients together, then start to make it versus it handed it to you. Like,
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here you go. It's all cooked and ready to go. You may have to build
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it, but it's so possible. It is so possible.
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Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And, yeah, I mean, I
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I did start as, like, the side hustle thing, and I think one of the
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negative things, because I agree with you, you kinda sit stagnant with with
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the side thing because you can only put so much time to it. So you
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end up missing opportunities that you may have, you know, may have
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succeeded or may have benefited you in a certain way just because you're trying
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to balance everything. Whereas if you're a 100% in on something, you're you're not
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multitasking, you're not trying to do a 100 things at once, you're not overwhelmed, stressed,
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burnt out, all that stuff. So, so, yeah, I I would agree with you on
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that one. Mhmm. One thing, that you mentioned a little bit
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ago was community and and how important that is to yourself.
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And something that I've noticed recently is how important community can be, especially
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when you're working, you know, for yourself and you don't have, you know, people you're
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always talking to. How do you build community around yourself and and what does
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that look like? Putting yourself out there. You know, I'm going back into time
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and I'm thinking, you know, when I started my private practice as a
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therapist, you know, that gets lonely. But being an entrepreneur, I don't
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think it's very different in that respect, you know, because
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therapists who start their own private practice are entrepreneurs too. It's just different.
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It looks different peep they don't normally think of that, but they're entrepreneurs.
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When I started this, what I learned was join masterminds.
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It wasn't necessarily for what you were paying for. It was for the
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networking. It was for the people that you can get connected to. If you can't
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afford the mastermind, like, I'm gonna be straight up. I had low budget in the
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very beginning. I couldn't afford a like, all these masterminds. I did one
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mastermind and the connections I still have
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today was 4 years ago. I still have them today and they're all over the
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world. And, you know, you'll never know who you meet, and
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you never know where they're going to end up on their journey. So it's about
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networking. So if you can connect, not that you need to be like buddy buddy
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with everybody, but just get in front of people and just be
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yourself. And because as an entrepreneur, you're your own brand.
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Right? Your smile is your brand. Right? As cliche as that
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sounds. Right? So just get out there and network as best as you
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can. Go to free events. Go meet people because literally, you
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will never know who's going to be able to
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help you further along your journey or you can help somebody else further
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along in their journey, and you never know how long you'll know each other for.
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The possibilities are endless. Definitely. Definitely.
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Networking has certainly helped me a lot. And even as far as just, like, finding
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inspiration through people who are doing things that are, you know, aspirational
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or things that are you find really cool and interesting, like, it it helps in
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that regard too instead of just kinda being stuck in your head the whole time.
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So I I definitely support that. So what do you do to keep learning?
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Do you, are you a reader? Do you listen to podcasts, support groups? I know
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you mentioned, masterminds, but anything else? Well,
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because of I still have my license, and I always wanna
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keep up on current events because what I'm teaching is about mental health.
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Right? And so for me, it's always doing my
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CEUs, my continuing education credits that I have to do just to maintain
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my license. I have that to do every year. But,
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I'm going to be honest. A lot of it is more within. It's my
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spiritual journey for me at the moment. Mhmm. And when I say
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spiritual journey, spirituality is all about the art of connection. Right? It's
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not what people always think it is. It's just how do you become the
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best you so you can connect. Where do you connect? How do you connect with
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you? How do you connect with mother nature? How do you connect with others? Right?
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And so for me right now, that's part of where I'm at on this journey.
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Now if you asked me 2 years ago, I was taking every
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freaking course I could think of to try to learn more about the nervous system,
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to learn more about trauma. And, you know, because even though
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I've been in the field for 15 years as a therapist, it's always
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evolving. You can always learn. And to be
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honest, I can't read the way I used to read ever since my grad program
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because in grad school, I read everything. Like, recommended,
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suggested, like, what I needed to read. And then after that, I got
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burnt up from reading, and I I'm not too good with reading. I can listen
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to podcasts. I can listen to people talk, but reading is not my
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jam anymore. Mhmm. I'm a little bit of the opposite where
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I never used to like reading, and now I kinda like love reading and try
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to read everything I can. So it's a it's a little bit of both, I
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guess. So you yeah. You you mentioned spirituality. Can I ask you a little
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bit about that? Absolutely. Recently, it's been something that, like, I've
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gotten really into as well. And there was one book that kinda, like, changed my
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mindset called The Self Esteem Prophecy about, like, what spirituality is because
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I think I've always, like, never really understood it. I think a lot of people
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don't really understand, like, what it is or what it's can be and that
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sort of thing. So can you talk a little bit about, like, what it is
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for you and how how you got involved in it and how you keep, nurturing
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your your spiritual journey? So it started
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when back after that Mac dump truck and everything was falling apart,
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somebody said, are you breathing? And I'm like, yeah. I'm breathing. I'm alive. What
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do you mean am I breathing? I'm like, no. Are you really breathing? Right? And
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so I started to notice my breath. Right? And then
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when I was doing that, I was talking with my mom about that one day,
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and we were out to breakfast. And she said, well, I got invited to
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go to this meditation class. Do you wanna come with me? Now if you understood
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my family, that is like I've almost fell off the chair because, like, my mom's
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not someone to meditate. We I'm a blue collar family girl. Like, we don't believe
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in that kind of thing. And I was like, what? And she was like,
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come meditate with me. And I was like, alright. I'll try it. I went
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the environment that I was in was so
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warm and inviting, and I felt at ease there. I can't
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say calm, but I felt at ease. And then sitting there
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was horrible. I couldn't sit still for an hour. Like, it
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was, like, swirl moments every which way. However
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Mhmm. I knew I wanted to feel that feeling again of being in that environment.
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So I started to go back. They had drop in meditation classes for $5. And
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I was like, I can afford that. Why not? Let's do this. And
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through that healing center, they offered some other
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stuff. Right? And I learned a little bit I I dabbled in
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spirituality, like, really the deep woo woo side. Like, I tapped in my
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intuition and see if I could really trust my intuition,
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And that's what started it. Where I am today is more now, like,
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I do yoga, and I'll spend time outside. You know?
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No electronics and meditation and just
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connecting, right, and going slower.
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So it's every way that I can connect
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to the I'm gonna call it the pace of life
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because the way society lives is not the pace of life. We were
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taught to think that, but that's not what really pace of life is.
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So I I am a lot more
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I don't take it for granted. I think that's the best way to say. So
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I don't know if that really answered your question, but that's where I'm at
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today. Yeah. No. Thanks thanks for that. One last
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question. I I wanna give you a chance to, say what are the things that
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you're working on next and and how if, you know, if people resonate with this,
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how can they support you and what you do? So today, I
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am an integrated mental health expert, a keynote speaker, and I'm a
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social media creator. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook,
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LinkedIn, Twitter, all at Erica Cooney. And not to
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mention, I have a couple of big keynotes coming up. The one that I'm really
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there's 2 that I'm really stoked about. One of them is in October,
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and that is the Integrated Mental Health Summit. I'm a keynote speaker about
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thriving after trauma and PTSD. And then in
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January, I'll be a keynote speaker again at Sirius
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Business Conference. It's their 25th anniversary, and Brene
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Brown, Mel Robbins. I mean, some really big names have been on
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that stage prior. So I'm really stoked that I was invited this year
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to be there, and I'll be talking again all about the different ways that you
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can naturally improve your mental health and thrive consciously.
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Wow. That's awesome. Those are some sound like some good opportunities, and we'll, include the
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links and and everything in the show notes, so people can check that
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out. One other thing I forgot to mention was,
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I have on my website, erica cooney.com, there's also this
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thrive consciously group course coming up, or you can do
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individual coaching with me as well. So these are all different ways. If
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anything has resonated, come on. Join the community. Great. Great.
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Thanks. So yeah. So thank thank you for being on the podcast today, and thank
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you for, sharing all your experiences with us. And, I wish you the best in
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the future. Thank you, Gino. I'm glad to be here.
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Welcome to Working Towards Our Purpose, a podcast that
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offers a different perspective on what a job can be. For everyone
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out there that's heard that voice in the back of their head asking for something
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00:00:16,430 --> 00:00:20,050
more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,
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00:00:20,190 --> 00:00:24,029
and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their own
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purpose. Together, we will learn, become inspired,
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and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.
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Joining me today on the podcast is Erica Cooney. Erica is a
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licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a certified
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integrative mental health professional. She's also a speaker,
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teacher, podcaster, Ricky master, and meditation facilitator,
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just to list some of the things that she does. She was also involved in
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a pretty serious accident with a Mack truck that sent her on her path to
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purpose. Erica, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Hi. Thank
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you for having me. I'm glad to be here. Excited that you're here. So, yeah,
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let's, let's just jump right into it. And can you tell us a little bit
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about your story and, you know, what's led you on your path?
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Yeah. I think you hit the main point right off the bat in
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my intro there, and a Mack dump truck is the reason why I'm
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here. So I'm gonna just start there. And then through our
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conversation, I'm sure other stuff will come up too, you know, because everyone's
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path is not, like, black and white. Right? There's so many moving
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pieces and parts. And so in 2014, when I was driving to
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work, I was hit by a Mack dump truck. It never saw me, and I
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had nowhere to go. And I'm blessed to be here. I am blessed to be
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alive. I had emergency surgery that day. I was in the hospital for
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a week, 3 month recovery, learning how to walk again because I almost lost
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my foot. And then over the next 14, 18 months, my life
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completely fell apart as I knew it, Whether it was being fired
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from my job, and I was never somebody to be fired, I was always promoted
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or a trainer or a manager or some sort of leadership position.
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Then a long term relationship ended, and that was all about
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toxicity and understanding, you know, what kind of relationships
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are really what I want and what kind of partner do I wanna be.
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And then because I was not functioning the way that I was functioning before
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the MacDumb truck, not to mention I was a therapist. And us therapists, we
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don't make a lot of money. I don't know if you guys know that. We
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barely make, like, $50,000, and I had a
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lot of school loans and a lot of debt. And so when that long term
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relationship ended, I really didn't have anywhere to go, so I went back home.
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And here I am in my mid thirties. I'm sitting in my
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bedroom in my parents' house. I got a bottle of wine, and I'm crying. I'm
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like doing that ugly cry. Like, what the heck am I missing here? How did
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I get here? How did I miss the signs? Right? And so
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my dog and I, we've been on this journey together, learning how to
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evolve, heal to where I am 8 years out now, 7 years
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out, and it's been the best thing that's ever happened in my
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life. Do I ever wanna go through that again? No. Thank you. I've had my
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fill of that, but I also am very grateful for the experience and everything that
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I've learned along this journey. So and here I am. Yeah.
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Wow. That's a that's a very, you know, traumatic story even, but
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seems like it it was the thing that kinda pushed you to to become the
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person that you are today. And I think so often that's kind of the case
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is there's some sort of, like, event similar with me. There was a an
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event that kinda woke me up to being you know, to look at your current
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life and then and try to make some changes to, to make it better. So
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I've heard you talk a lot about burnout and overwhelm in the past and
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how it can lead you to making decisions based out of fear. I was wondering
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if you could talk a little bit about how calming your mind is an important
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step when somebody is making a decision. Well, we have to
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understand, you know, if we go to the neuroscience part of the brain and when
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we're stressed out, the rational thinking that we have just goes right out the window.
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Our that part of our brain literally goes offline, and we're not able
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to access it. And when your nervous system is stressed out, you can call
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it fight, flight, or freeze. Right? It's there's so many different ways people describe
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it, and I'm just gonna say your nervous system is activated. You're going to do
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things out of protection rather than connection. Right? Our brain
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is no longer looking for ways to connect. Our brain is no longer
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in the aerial view of 50,000 feet above looking at everything. It
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is a very narrow view, and it's right in front of you. And how do
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you protect yourself right then and there? And if you stay in that
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state over prolonged periods of time, that becomes the chronic stress.
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Right? And then with the chronic stress turns into the burnout, and then your nervous
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system is beyond fried. And you become into this mode
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of instead of looking for everything from protection and you're in
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fight, flight, or freeze, then you go into this possum mode. Right? And you just
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have nothing left to give. And so if you are able to
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regulate your nervous system and regulate typically means with
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your body, And it's usually the last thing is your mind
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that comes online. So if you're physically active, if you're
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finding movement in your day, that is the best way
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for you to get your mind right. It's as cliche as it
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sounds. Exercise, movement, yoga,
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walking, like, move your body, dance it out sessions,
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like, just get it out, and that way your brain
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can calm down. And there's other things that go into this because, you
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know, I am an you can list a lot of titles of what I do
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at the beginning of this. Right? And the easiest way to sum it up is
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I'm an integrative mental health therapist. And what that means is
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you can call it holistic. You can call it integrative. I'd look at everything. Mind,
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body, spirit. So you also have to take into consideration your gut. What
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are you doing for food? How are you eating? How are you nourishing your body?
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Because a lot of our processed foods today cause our brain to get on
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fire, and that also causes our rational thinking to go offline. So
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if you were like me, I went for cheese fries and red wine. That was
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my go to mac and cheese. That's what I was eating all the time. I'm
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Italian, so there was a lot of pasta in my life and not a lot
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of veggies. I mean, I ate veggies, but not a lot to where I am
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today. And so understanding your gut and understanding the food you're
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implementing or eating, incorporating into your body is
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also major, major, major, major. I can't stress that enough. Let me say major
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one more time. Major component also to whether or not
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you're going to be able to think clearly when you're working
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and deciding what to do so you're not operating out of fear.
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So to follow that up, after your accident, is this something that kind
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of you were forced to look at as far as the mind, body, spirit sort
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of holistic health aspect? Because I'm thinking of it from, like, a perspective of
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somebody who, you know, like myself, was in, corporate 9 to 5
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and kind of felt stuck and overwhelmed and lost. And
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the first step, it sounds like you're saying, is you get these things
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right so then you can think more clearly and become able to make
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the decisions that, you know, benefit you. Right. In a
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roundabout way, that is what I did because there was no road map
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that I had when I was going through this. I did a lot of
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I fell flat on my face quite often, to be quite honest, and, you
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know, and that's what I do now. Now I provide the road map for others
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so you don't have to go through all the struggles that I particularly had to
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go through because I didn't have the information. Right? Everything I I do today is
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because I learned the hard way. And, you know, maybe that's because I am Italian.
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I got a hard head, you know, and it takes me a little while to
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learn things. But other times, it could just be I just didn't have the information.
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Right? And so the best thing that I can say
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is, you know, for my journey, how it happened was I
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was still working in an agency. I was working 80 hours a week because I
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also had a private practice. Right? And so I was going full steam
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ahead after that accident and after I got fired. And I got
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promoted to a director position. Right? I, like, went even bigger. So I didn't
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learn anything about sitting still for 3 months. I was like, no. I'm still gonna
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go out there and go get it because I have to hustle and grind. Right?
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And when I started to breathe, I took
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simple breathing. Like, I wasn't doing breath work. I wasn't doing meditation.
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I would just literally take 5 minutes out of my day and just
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breathe normally and notice where my breath fell. And that is what
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started to have me realize my body. And I started to
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realize those things have to change. Didn't happen overnight. And
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so through all of that, I went back to traditional talk therapy.
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Didn't work. Really didn't work for me, you know, where you just sit and you
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talk about your stressors all the time. And so I dove into the woo woo
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side of wellness, and that's when I started to learn about meditation. I learned about
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gut health, and I learned about community. And I learned
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about not making everything so pathological the way that we do in our mental health
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field as it is today. Mhmm. Definitely. Definitely. That's,
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you know, definitely lots of lots of lessons learned, it seems.
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So, yeah, you did you did mention the word hustle. I wanna touch on that
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a little bit. I know, it's kind of a buzzword these days, and some people
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look at it as, like, a positive thing and some people look at it as
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a negative thing. Do you think the word hustle is a good thing or a
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bad thing? So I think it depends on what you mean by the word
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hustle. If you mean hustle and ignore everything else,
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that's bad. But if you mean hard work, you get up and you show
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up every single day and you keep putting effort in and you keep going for
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it, that if you're saying that's hustle, then no. I don't
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think that's bad. My idea of hustle before was
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I ignored everything. I ignored me. I ignored what I needed. I ignored my sleep.
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I ignored my, like, what I was eating, and I ignored exercise.
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I ignored everything except the heart like, what I
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thought hard work was. Right? And productivity really is
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everything. The routines, the rituals, the, exercises
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that we do that allow us to do the doing sustainably.
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Right? So to me, I still hustle every day. It just looks
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different. And does that mean I am constantly working on my
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computer 247 the way I would have been, like, 5 years
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ago? I mean, 8 years ago, really. No. I'm not doing it that way.
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I'm making sure I have my morning routine, my evening routine so that
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when I am I have that block where I have to work hard,
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I'm going. Balls to the wall. I am going, and I am there.
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I am full steam ahead and catch up. Let's go.
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Mhmm. Yeah. No. I could definitely resonate with that. Even I think it's
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been almost a year and a half since I left my corporate job. Just the
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the trying to get out of the rituals, like you said, of feeling like
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you have to do something, I I still struggle with with that for sure. What
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what are some things that somebody can do to, like, overcome those, like,
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ingrained ways of thinking or being? That's a really good
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question. I think it's trial and error. I don't think there is a cookie
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cutter way because every person's different, and, you know, reasons
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why you think you have to do something stem from something inside of you.
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Right? Was that the way you were raised? Right? What is your self talk? Like,
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what's that little voice you hear inside your head? And f FYI, that little voice
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you hear inside your head, that negative Nelly is not your voice. It's somebody
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that was pretty influential in your growing up years
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talking, and it just sounds like you now. It's not really
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you. So if you can remember, if you do the exercising, you
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eat healthy, you calm that brain down, you start to hear your voice.
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Because when you hear that negative Nelly voice or the one that's like, you're not
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doing enough, you're not good enough, that's really your
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stress response. That's not who you are at your core.
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So full circle, get back to learning how to regulate your nervous system
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and you'll be able to start
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Yeah. I think that's I think that's great advice. So switching
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gears a little bit, you know, you you are, an entrepreneur. Do you consider
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yourself an entrepreneur? Yeah. Heck, yeah. I do. Great. So
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so what do you define as success for yourself? Because I know, like, you
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know, speaking of, like, other people's voices and other people's definitions of
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success, it can mean many different things, but like how do you define success
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for yourself? Success to me now means that
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I feel fulfilled, and I feel like I'm making a difference in this world.
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And I'm not just doing what I think I need to be doing. I don't
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need to have the money. I don't need to have the fame. Success is
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impact when somebody says, what you said all those years
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ago is still with me today. I mean, I succeeded. If I planted a
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seed, I succeeded. That's very minute for me, but it's not
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minute because it means a lot to me. Mhmm. Definitely.
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That's that's wonderful. So would you have, any advice for
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somebody who is trying to pursue a passion or, you know, leave a job that
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they no longer care about? What what's something that you would tell them? This
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is usually where people are like, you should get a side hustle,
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start small, and then work your way out. I
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don't think that, you know, I didn't do it that way. I was
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somebody who I'm a firm believer. If you don't feel
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aligned, why are you staying to suffer? Mhmm. Why?
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And I I hear all the time before people come at me. I
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hear it quite often because I have responsibilities. I have children to take care
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of. I have this to take care of. Right? And I had I need health
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insurance. Well, the other piece to all of this is I needed health insurance
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because I have a lung disease. Right? I have a rare genetic lung disease
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that's not curable. And, you know, I've already had lung surgery when I
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was 17 to have part of my lung removed, and I get it. I
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understand medical trauma. I understand feeling like you need things. But what I
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can tell you is this, if you stay, when you feel that you have to
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stay, you make yourself small or you make yourself miserable, and then
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you don't feel happy. And then when you do go where you feel aligned
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and you feel empowered, you feel inspired,
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you take off like you wouldn't believe. And then
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you realize you don't need things the way that you thought you needed things
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before. Full disclosure, I went out without
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health insurance for 3 years.
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My doctors, when I tell them that now, they, like, flip out. Like,
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how did you like, why would you do that? You know? Like, I didn't even
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tell my family. Like, nobody knew. I kept it on the down low because I
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was like, I'm not letting anybody get in my way of doing what I want
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to do. So when you feel aligned, when you have a
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regulated nervous system, when you're taking care of you, you
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will be amazed at what you are capable of doing and
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things that you never thought were possible become completely possible.
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Because it's cliche as it sounds. If you have that dream,
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that means you have the capability of dreaming it. If you could even think it
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up, that means it's there. It's within your grasp. You may have to
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you know, like, it's like cooking. You may have to start from scratch, get all
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the ingredients together, then start to make it versus it handed it to you. Like,
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here you go. It's all cooked and ready to go. You may have to build
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it, but it's so possible. It is so possible.
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Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And, yeah, I mean, I
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I did start as, like, the side hustle thing, and I think one of the
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negative things, because I agree with you, you kinda sit stagnant with with
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the side thing because you can only put so much time to it. So you
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end up missing opportunities that you may have, you know, may have
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succeeded or may have benefited you in a certain way just because you're trying
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to balance everything. Whereas if you're a 100% in on something, you're you're not
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multitasking, you're not trying to do a 100 things at once, you're not overwhelmed, stressed,
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burnt out, all that stuff. So, so, yeah, I I would agree with you on
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that one. Mhmm. One thing, that you mentioned a little bit
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ago was community and and how important that is to yourself.
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And something that I've noticed recently is how important community can be, especially
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when you're working, you know, for yourself and you don't have, you know, people you're
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always talking to. How do you build community around yourself and and what does
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that look like? Putting yourself out there. You know, I'm going back into time
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and I'm thinking, you know, when I started my private practice as a
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therapist, you know, that gets lonely. But being an entrepreneur, I don't
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think it's very different in that respect, you know, because
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therapists who start their own private practice are entrepreneurs too. It's just different.
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It looks different peep they don't normally think of that, but they're entrepreneurs.
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When I started this, what I learned was join masterminds.
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It wasn't necessarily for what you were paying for. It was for the
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networking. It was for the people that you can get connected to. If you can't
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afford the mastermind, like, I'm gonna be straight up. I had low budget in the
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very beginning. I couldn't afford a like, all these masterminds. I did one
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mastermind and the connections I still have
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today was 4 years ago. I still have them today and they're all over the
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world. And, you know, you'll never know who you meet, and
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you never know where they're going to end up on their journey. So it's about
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networking. So if you can connect, not that you need to be like buddy buddy
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with everybody, but just get in front of people and just be
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yourself. And because as an entrepreneur, you're your own brand.
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Right? Your smile is your brand. Right? As cliche as that
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sounds. Right? So just get out there and network as best as you
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can. Go to free events. Go meet people because literally, you
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will never know who's going to be able to
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help you further along your journey or you can help somebody else further
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along in their journey, and you never know how long you'll know each other for.
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The possibilities are endless. Definitely. Definitely.
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Networking has certainly helped me a lot. And even as far as just, like, finding
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inspiration through people who are doing things that are, you know, aspirational
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or things that are you find really cool and interesting, like, it it helps in
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that regard too instead of just kinda being stuck in your head the whole time.
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So I I definitely support that. So what do you do to keep learning?
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Do you, are you a reader? Do you listen to podcasts, support groups? I know
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you mentioned, masterminds, but anything else? Well,
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because of I still have my license, and I always wanna
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keep up on current events because what I'm teaching is about mental health.
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Right? And so for me, it's always doing my
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CEUs, my continuing education credits that I have to do just to maintain
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my license. I have that to do every year. But,
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I'm going to be honest. A lot of it is more within. It's my
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spiritual journey for me at the moment. Mhmm. And when I say
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spiritual journey, spirituality is all about the art of connection. Right? It's
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not what people always think it is. It's just how do you become the
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best you so you can connect. Where do you connect? How do you connect with
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you? How do you connect with mother nature? How do you connect with others? Right?
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And so for me right now, that's part of where I'm at on this journey.
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Now if you asked me 2 years ago, I was taking every
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freaking course I could think of to try to learn more about the nervous system,
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to learn more about trauma. And, you know, because even though
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I've been in the field for 15 years as a therapist, it's always
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evolving. You can always learn. And to be
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honest, I can't read the way I used to read ever since my grad program
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because in grad school, I read everything. Like, recommended,
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suggested, like, what I needed to read. And then after that, I got
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burnt up from reading, and I I'm not too good with reading. I can listen
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to podcasts. I can listen to people talk, but reading is not my
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jam anymore. Mhmm. I'm a little bit of the opposite where
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I never used to like reading, and now I kinda like love reading and try
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to read everything I can. So it's a it's a little bit of both, I
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guess. So you yeah. You you mentioned spirituality. Can I ask you a little
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bit about that? Absolutely. Recently, it's been something that, like, I've
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gotten really into as well. And there was one book that kinda, like, changed my
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mindset called The Self Esteem Prophecy about, like, what spirituality is because
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I think I've always, like, never really understood it. I think a lot of people
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don't really understand, like, what it is or what it's can be and that
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sort of thing. So can you talk a little bit about, like, what it is
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for you and how how you got involved in it and how you keep, nurturing
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your your spiritual journey? So it started
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when back after that Mac dump truck and everything was falling apart,
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somebody said, are you breathing? And I'm like, yeah. I'm breathing. I'm alive. What
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do you mean am I breathing? I'm like, no. Are you really breathing? Right? And
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so I started to notice my breath. Right? And then
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when I was doing that, I was talking with my mom about that one day,
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and we were out to breakfast. And she said, well, I got invited to
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go to this meditation class. Do you wanna come with me? Now if you understood
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my family, that is like I've almost fell off the chair because, like, my mom's
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not someone to meditate. We I'm a blue collar family girl. Like, we don't believe
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in that kind of thing. And I was like, what? And she was like,
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come meditate with me. And I was like, alright. I'll try it. I went
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the environment that I was in was so
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warm and inviting, and I felt at ease there. I can't
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say calm, but I felt at ease. And then sitting there
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was horrible. I couldn't sit still for an hour. Like, it
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was, like, swirl moments every which way. However
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Mhmm. I knew I wanted to feel that feeling again of being in that environment.
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So I started to go back. They had drop in meditation classes for $5. And
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I was like, I can afford that. Why not? Let's do this. And
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through that healing center, they offered some other
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stuff. Right? And I learned a little bit I I dabbled in
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spirituality, like, really the deep woo woo side. Like, I tapped in my
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intuition and see if I could really trust my intuition,
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And that's what started it. Where I am today is more now, like,
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I do yoga, and I'll spend time outside. You know?
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No electronics and meditation and just
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connecting, right, and going slower.
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So it's every way that I can connect
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to the I'm gonna call it the pace of life
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because the way society lives is not the pace of life. We were
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taught to think that, but that's not what really pace of life is.
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So I I am a lot more
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I don't take it for granted. I think that's the best way to say. So
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I don't know if that really answered your question, but that's where I'm at
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today. Yeah. No. Thanks thanks for that. One last
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question. I I wanna give you a chance to, say what are the things that
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you're working on next and and how if, you know, if people resonate with this,
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how can they support you and what you do? So today, I
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am an integrated mental health expert, a keynote speaker, and I'm a
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social media creator. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook,
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LinkedIn, Twitter, all at Erica Cooney. And not to
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mention, I have a couple of big keynotes coming up. The one that I'm really
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there's 2 that I'm really stoked about. One of them is in October,
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and that is the Integrated Mental Health Summit. I'm a keynote speaker about
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thriving after trauma and PTSD. And then in
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January, I'll be a keynote speaker again at Sirius
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Business Conference. It's their 25th anniversary, and Brene
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Brown, Mel Robbins. I mean, some really big names have been on
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that stage prior. So I'm really stoked that I was invited this year
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to be there, and I'll be talking again all about the different ways that you
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can naturally improve your mental health and thrive consciously.
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Wow. That's awesome. Those are some sound like some good opportunities, and we'll, include the
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links and and everything in the show notes, so people can check that
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out. One other thing I forgot to mention was,
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I have on my website, erica cooney.com, there's also this
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thrive consciously group course coming up, or you can do
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individual coaching with me as well. So these are all different ways. If
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anything has resonated, come on. Join the community. Great. Great.
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Thanks. So yeah. So thank thank you for being on the podcast today, and thank
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you for, sharing all your experiences with us. And, I wish you the best in
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the future. Thank you, Gino. I'm glad to be here.
