The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
Mindfulness and stress management for families raising kids with big goals, big feelings, and everything in between.
Hosted by mindfulness coach Lindsay Miller, The Stress Nanny is full of practical strategies for calming anxious kids, supporting high-achievers, and teaching emotional regulation in everyday moments. Each episode offers easy-to-use mindfulness practices, stress management tips, and confidence-building tools that empower kids (and parents!) to navigate challenges with ease. Whether you’re raising a child who struggles with big feelings, a high-performing student-athlete, or simply want a calmer home, The Stress Nanny will give you the resources and encouragement you need.
The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
Ep 182 Your Joy Is Not Optional: Finding Pleasure in Daily Life
We're often told to prioritize self-care, but what if simply meeting basic needs isn't enough? What if we deserve not just sustainability, but actual joy and pleasure in our daily lives? In this soul-nourishing conversation, intuitive guide Julie Hilson shares wisdom from her book "Life of Love: A Joyful Guide to Self and Sensuality" that will transform how you approach wellbeing.
Julie introduces the powerful concept of creating a "container for wellbeing" rather than waiting until we're depleted to address our needs. She suggests developing a personal checklist of activities that bring us joy and ground us – whether it's music, connecting with nature, or calling a friend – so we have resources ready when life gets challenging. As she beautifully puts it, "It's not reaching the bottom of your barrel and figuring out how to climb out. It's keeping your level at sustainability."
For parents especially, this conversation offers liberation from the cycle of endless giving without replenishment. While acknowledging that parenting has seasons requiring immense sacrifice, Julie reminds us that sustainable parenting requires boundaries and self-care. The most striking revelation? When we invest in our own joy and pleasure, we multiply what we can offer others. "Asking for help" becomes not a sign of weakness but a recognition of our humanity and needs.
Perhaps most transformative is Julie's perspective on stress itself. Rather than viewing it as an enemy, she suggests "making friends with stress" and using it constructively. By examining what triggers our stress responses, we can identify deeper patterns needing healing. Stress becomes not a burden but a messenger guiding us toward greater self-awareness. Julie also shares practical energy management techniques – from visualizing protective light to "shaking off" negativity – that help us navigate difficult moments with grace.
Ready to experience more magic and joy in your everyday life? Listen now, and discover how to find pleasure even amidst life's challenges. Connect with Julie at www.youneedapeptalk.com or find her book on Amazon.
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.
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Welcome to the Stress Nanny Podcast. I'm your host, lindsay Miller, and I'm so delighted that you're here today for my conversation with Julie Hilson. Julie is an intuitive with a master's in communication sciences, and she brings gifts for relating to the spiritual realm and helping us all connect with our divine wisdom and guidance. She is going to share a little bit about her book with us today Life of Love A Joyful Guide to Self and Sensuality and she's going to bring a healing and fun energy to this conversation. Just chatting with her before we started, I'm so excited for just the feel of this podcast. It's just going to be a fun one that's also very gentle and gracious. So, julie, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Oh, Lindsay, it's my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me and welcome everyone. I'm very excited to connect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're going to talk a little bit about life like living through the lens of kind of magic and joy, and how to do that in an also grounded way, right, because we can have the idea of that and it can sound really great, but then, like life hits and things get stressful and it's hard to kind of keep that mindset or keep that lens in the thick of all that we are navigating right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's the trick. It's easy to feel grounded and satisfied when things are going well. It's those hiccups that throw us upside down inside out and we're just like what and we're trying to find our true north.
Speaker 2:So I was so delighted to put my book together to help people connect to their light and their joy in a gentle way, instead of a way out of necessity, just to have it as a sounding board, as a platform. It's like your baseline, as a sounding board, as a platform. It's like your baseline. So, yeah, I have exercises to connect to the things that bring you pleasure, to bring you joy, so that when a moment hits you might be able to open the book or remember oh yeah, I like to self-soothe with music, gentle music, connecting to a nice cup of tea.
Speaker 2:You know just simple things that you can do for yourself that you might not think of in a moment of crisis, but if you can go back and tea, you know just simple things that you can do for yourself that you might not think of in a moment of crisis, but if you can go back and say, oh yeah, I do like to just call a friend and chat for five minutes. You know, and it's not in the moment of a crisis you don't think of these simple things that can ground you, that can bring you joy. You know, maybe it's smelling a flower, maybe go buy yourself some flowers and just look at them and the sacred geometry in those flowers is healing. And we forget the resources that are inside of us and around us when we're in overwhelm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was so beautifully put, thank you. I really appreciate what you were saying about gentle invitation before crisis hits, because I think it can be easy to kind of put off self-development or connecting with ourselves, finding the things that bring us joy and pleasure when life feels busy or, you know, we're like someday or at some point I'll have time to X, y, z, and then when we get to those moments where life is falling apart a little bit or throws us a curve ball and we have the need for deep rejuvenation if we haven't practiced those things, like you're saying, we're kind of flying blind through those moments, right, because we're like I don't actually know what helps me, I don't know what makes me feel joyful, I don't know what's pleasurable to me, I don't know, right. And so the invitation, while it might not seem pressing, depending on where you're at in life right now, really is important anytime, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, it's essential and it took me about 45 years to realize. You know, because we do, do, do and we're there for everyone else. And I have the imagery of when you have a newborn, like you have this list. They're crying, you burp them, or you check their diaper, you change their diaper. If they still cry, you try to give them a bottle. If they're still crying, they won't take the bottle. You burp them and if they're still crying, you swaddle them, and so we have this checklist of ways we take care of others, and so that kind of care can be applied to yourself as well.
Speaker 2:But we don't think of caring for ourselves, because we're always showing up for everyone else, and some people are really good at it and I admire them and I'm like you're my hero, but you know life gets a little crazy, and I'm like you're my hero, but you know life gets a little crazy. So just to have those things, that you know, that there's one essential oil that you just love, or maybe you've always wanted to have a garden and you don't have time to have a garden, but just buy yourself a few plants and take care of them and just have these things every day that you know is in your soul is something that's good for you, and just take that time. It's not reach bottom of your barrel and figure out how to climb out. It's keeping your level at a sustainability and, if you can look at it and have a lens for that, create a container for your well-being instead of just going to it when you're at a deficit. I mean you can look at it as your gas tank. You don't want to run it empty because then you're inviting all these other problems. You've got air in your line. You're going to have problems with your car. So just think about yourself, think of your resources, and we're all abundant.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this podcast, you have internet connection, you have a good cell phone. We have so much abundance around us. It's just taking the time to say what moves you, what makes you, and it's different. And that what came to me when you were talking before was, if you're not sure what it is, you might just reach for that first thing. A bottle of Chardonnay, a margarita, and that's not going to solve anything. A Xanax, that's just going to cover it up. And you're going through this for a reason. There's nothing that comes in your field, that isn't there to show you something. So if you go into victim or you go into a place where you're just trying to cover up your symptoms, then you're giving yourself. You're doing yourself a disservice. You're not listening to what you need and it's just going to come back in a more intense way, because that's the way the world works.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, if you ignore something, you're just going to get a bigger sign. It's going to find its way differently. Thanks for sharing that. I love the idea of having that checklist.
Speaker 1:I know, when I work with kids, one of the things that we do is we go through an emotional self-care checklist and we'll say, okay, when you're feeling this, what are the things that help? Right, when you're feeling this, what are the things that help? And for kids and I think it's true for adults also, but I primarily work with kids the trick is helping them identify each individual emotion in a way that informs the thing that would be most supportive, right. Like, if you're feeling lonely, what would be helpful? Would it be helpful to reach out to a friend to watch a movie with your mom? Would it be helpful to go on a bike ride and do something that brings you individual joy? And then maybe you're out and you see somebody else and you can play. Like, what is the thing that's most supportive for you with that emotional state? And I think for adults, I love the idea of having the checklist. If I'm feeling this, I know these three things can usually pull me out. Or if I'm feeling really spent, I know a good night's sleep will really be supportive and having the ability to identify and then offer those to ourselves, like you said, consistently is really important.
Speaker 1:And it does seem like when we talk about this here on the podcast quite a bit in terms of self-care and how there's baseline self-care we can do, right, like we can get enough sleep, we can make sure we're taking a shower, we can make sure we have clean clothes.
Speaker 1:I mean baseline self-care, which sometimes for moms, depending on the stage of life you're at like if you've got a baby spitting up all over you, having clean clothes, maybe sometimes feels like luxury, right? Self-care can be different depending on the stage of life. But one of the things I love about your work is that you take it a step further. It's not just take care of your basic needs, right, which I think, as moms, is sometimes how we think of it. Right, like, just make sure you're eating, you have a minute to get a glass of water before you run out the door, you grab a granola bar for yourself before you're taxing for the rest of the night. Right, like, make sure you just do basic stuff for yourself. But you're like no, no, no, no, let's take it to another level, let's take it to joy, let's take it to pleasure and let's build those things in, weave them into your day in a sustainable way, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the goal, and you're gonna hit hiccups. I mean, we were talking about my father-in-law passing unexpectedly and it's been hard for me to stay in joy this week and my husband just had surgery and so I have to take care of him. He can't carry stuff and so it's been a lot on me, so I have to take care of him. He can't carry stuff and so it's been a lot on me. And something that I learned through that was that it's okay to say you're done. When you're done, say I can't and it's all right, because that's respecting yourself and that helps those people around you respect you as well, because we all have our spot where we're just like I can't give anymore, I need some time and know that that's okay. You know, I mean we want to be superheroes, we want to be the rock for everyone and we want to have a life well lived.
Speaker 2:But sometimes things just get out of control and we just have to say, all right, I trust and I'm going to just work through this, and so that's something that's really strong in my field right now is that we can't control the craziness that comes in. We can just control how we react and if you're feeling like you're at that edge where you're needing support. It's perfectly fine to say that, and I think women, we don't think we're worthy. We think we have to show up and be that for everyone else. Well, you know, that's a major message I have is that it's you asking and it's asking the angels to come in and help you. It's asking your family reaching out to your neighbors. I mean, there's so much abundance around us. You just tie into it. Know that you're not alone. You're never alone.
Speaker 1:Love, that yeah Well, and it really does circle back right. I mean any investment we make in our own joy and our own pleasure and our own happiness and our own care, it only multiplies what we can then offer. And I'm not saying we care for ourselves with the intent to offer more right, and that's not the message I'm trying to proclaim here. But I think sometimes, like you said, we have this hesitancy about our role or what will be the most supportive for the people around us, and I think one of the most beautiful things about parenting in general is the ability to give ourselves the backseat sometimes to help someone else grow.
Speaker 1:I think there's so much beauty in that and also that can't be like our MO, right. Like there are times when you have a newborn and you're up in the night and things are a little crate. Like those are times when it's a really functional, that baby survives because you're willing to give up some sleep, right, or because you're willing to navigate a stretch where exhaustion is just how you feel most of the time. But we can't parent that way all the time, and so that, while parenting has seasons where that willingness to invest and give to the point of exhaustion can be helpful. It's also something we have to consciously shift out of into this sustainable self-care space, because that only multiplies our ability to offer beautiful care to others.
Speaker 2:Love that. I love that it's so relevant and the whole idea that you're serving from your heart and you're in that present moment and you know that you can only give that baby what it needs, and so that's how you're showing up and it's a beautiful thing. On motherhood, you can't put a price tag on that and just know that it's a temporary thing and that this baby well, the baby gives us so much too, so it's a wonderful thing. I know that I really gave everything to my two boys and they're amazing teenagers now and they're very compassionate and caring and I know that's because I did that for them.
Speaker 2:And so all this suffering and self-deprivation when they're babies, when they're colicky, when you got to take them, put them in the hot shower and take them out in the cold winter air to clear their lungs, and you're making sure that they're alive every 10 minutes, you know it all pays off. It really does, because you're coming from your heart and your heart will tell you when you need to call someone in and just give yourself that permission to call someone in or to ask what needs to be seen. Don't let yourself get to the place where you're resentful. I mean, there's a fine line and I think that it's like that kind of depression or postpartum it may not get recognized as much as it should, and so just know that that's a thing and it's okay. And everything's there to show you Maybe someone else in your life needs to feel wanted and you're giving that gift to help you. And this being in your life, being a parent, it shows you so much about yourself.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's so true. I love that, though, you know, because you're right even in those seasons when it's taxing, especially in those seasons when it's taxing, rallying your support, finding our villages and making sure that we're asking I love the way you phrased that asking to see where we can bring help in, or asking to see where there is opportunity for us to lean into the support instead of feeling like we have to go it alone.
Speaker 2:Right and look at. Maybe it's a trust thing. Maybe you don't believe someone else could care for them the same way you do, and you know what. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that child sees that you're really good at taking care of them and then they appreciate you more. Everything happens for a reason. You 'd never endanger your child. You have your intuition that's going to tell you if somebody is not doing what you expect or something that could be detrimental. I'm not saying just leave your kid with anybody. Use your intuition.
Speaker 2:And you know, I know that sometimes my in-laws would give my kids way too much candy and I'd get them and they'd be high strung. I'd be like, guys, what did you eat all weekend? And it was a learning experience. I was like, well, you know pizza and then having chocolate bars. You know we don't really eat like that. So maybe you need to tell grandma and grandpa how you take care of your body a little better. You know, I always used it as a learning experience. But part of me is like, why did they just do this? And that's their role, their grandparents. But anything's a learning. The kids know when they don't feel great and you can just illuminate that for them a little bit and maybe it helps the whole family be more healthy. I don't know, there's always something you can get from it Something you can take from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that, as we're talking, we're kind of making the assumption that we recognize when we're getting to that point where we have more stress than we can manage, and I think sometimes for people that can be tricky to recognize. So what are some of the ways you help people identify stress before it gets to the tipping point, like before we're kind of at our wits end?
Speaker 2:Hmm, well, I think the biggest thing is taking a deep breath, like to remind yourself to breathe, and if that breath feels extra refreshing, that means you haven't been breathing well and we forget. And just that simple thing of pushing your shoulders up and back or forward and back, up and down, just that kind of thing. You can feel the tension and just be present with your body, how it's moving, what your voice sounds like. Your voice sounds different when you're stressed, and that's another thing. Music Music can change your outlook.
Speaker 2:And when you're stressed, if you can play nice music while you're doing the laundry or getting ready for dinner, that someone coming into the house hearing soothing music can change their dynamic as they're entering your space. So that consciousness of this is your space, this is your house and anything that comes into your space needs to be of love and light and then invite anything that's not serving that to leave. This is not what I'm down for and please find a higher good. And so having that idea that your space is sacred, and even having when the kids are little, this isn't appropriate, but have some kind of value statement for your household. You know, if there's a conflict, how do we go about resolving a conflict and I know that I used to get snippy and I didn't like it and I decided I didn't want to be snippy. So I came up with a plan for myself to not be snippy.
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm feeling stressed? Because if you're feeling stressed you're snippy, you're short-tempered, you're judging yourself. You can catch yourself if you sit back and maybe just look at your situation from up above. If you were in a theater and you're watching the play of your day. Try to find that and you can really catch yourself before you get to a high stress. Stress is normal. It helps us get stuff done right. Stress isn't bad. It's just not letting it rule you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, optimizing it to the point that you're able and then minimizing it when you can Talk to me a little bit more about how your personal state affects stress? So, like you just said, if we're feeling super high strung and something stressful comes our way, it just kind of sends us right, whereas if we're feeling kind of mellow or having an okay day and something stressful comes, we can kind of discharge the stress around it with relative ease. How do you help people, kind of, like you said, take that big picture view of what's going on and identify their state, their common state?
Speaker 2:That's a great question because it all leads back to you have a choice to respond, and I think when you react and you forget that you have a choice to respond, then you can get in a cycle of victimhood. And so that's a tricky cycle, I know from experience. I'm right there with you. When the situation arises, you can say, ok, is this positive, negative or neutral? And look at it as a math equation. So if it's negative, then you can say, wow, this doesn't resonate with me, I don't want to accept this, and you don't have to own it. Or you could say, okay, here's my options.
Speaker 2:But being brought into the energy of the negativity, of whatever it is, isn't going to help disperse the energy. For some reason, the energy came to you and you can think of yourself as a powerful being and you can say you know what? I'm putting a pink bubble around me and this isn't going to affect me, and I'm going to ask for this to be transmuted for a higher good, and it works. I mean, when you come from your heart and you ask for this, this pink bubble of light, to diffuse this, whatever it is, it changes things and we all have the power to do it. It's the difference between diving in and adding to the negativity and saying gosh, you know, that's just a crappy thing and I'm choosing not to let it affect me. And it comes from not judging. It's just saying there it is, you see it, but you don't have to participate.
Speaker 2:And you're not condoning the behavior or the situation, you're not saying it's okay. You're just stating that's not your thing. It probably showed up so someone could work through it. But you can decide if that's something you want to wrestle with or if it's something you just want to say hey, you know, it's not for me right now, I'm not going to enter it. You don't have to enter every drama. It's the same way as when you open up Facebook.
Speaker 2:If somebody has a negative comment, you can add more negativity to it, or you can send it light and love and wish for the highest outcome. You see now people can feed in and just one post can make a big ripple effect in the whole world. We've all heard about the butterfly effect. A butterfly's wings can affect the weather, so our thoughts are very powerful too. So the conscious. I'm not going to add to the drama. I'm not going to add to the negativity. I'm going to find something that can bring light to the situation or some compassion, for whatever it is, anything negative is there to show us compassion. It's just us choosing to see it.
Speaker 1:In that way. That's such an interesting perspective. It makes me think about the conversations that I have with parents around diffusing high intensity emotion. So in a lot of settings we might have a kid who's having a meltdown or something's going on and we see there's just this emotion kind of flying off of them, right. I mean just a lot of emotion.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we think that by asking questions about it or kind of honoring it and creating space for it, that we will make it bigger. But the idea is that as a parent, you could help your child regulate by acknowledging what it is like, leaving space for the emotion and bringing as much presence as you can to the moment, to where you can let the emotion kind of sift out right then, instead of building up and getting bigger and then exploding at some future time. And the way you just described that reminded me of that idea that with some intention, we have the capacity to diffuse instead of exacerbate, Right, and I mean we're all human so we're going to probably do a mix of both. But it seems like there are definite opportunities for being in a place where we can diffuse to the extent possible without stirring it even more.
Speaker 2:And it's that belief that your child is strong enough to run through it. I mean, I think a lot of people just want to help their kids be happy and everyone wants their kids to be happy. But we need to acknowledge you fall and skin your knee. Man, that was a rough fall. Is your knee okay? You know, and it's not like you're okay, you're okay, you know. Brush it off and just make space for that. Oh, man, that was a rough fall, are you okay? And if they're still upset, are you frustrated? Your ice cream cone fell down. There's layers to frustration and tears and just being in that space with them, from coming from a loving calmness, can really help that child know, number one, how to self-soothe and number two, that they can get through it, because it's a blessing of a skin knee.
Speaker 2:That book changed my parenting that. I don't know if you've ever read it. The Blessings of a Skin Knee it's the whole idea that things are going to happen to your kids and you just witness. You witness, you're there for them. You don't try to fix everything and it gives them so much self-confidence and if something bad happens at school or they get in a fight with a friend, it's not someone else's fault. You know what I mean. It's not. You don't blame, you don't criticize. You just say, oh man, how could we have been shown up differently or what could we have done.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you can, sometimes you just say, well, that just stinks, but we're strong and we're good people and we're going to make the best choices. We're going to do the best we can. And you know, nobody's perfect. You know there's such lack of accountability in some situations where everyone just wants to place a blame and be a scapegoat. But no, that's not going to elevate our children. They need to understand that it's OK to make a mistake, it's OK to be the person who owns the problem. And once you own it, it's like, oh, it's freeing, right. Like you can say, yeah, I own it and I'm really sorry. And what can I do to make it up to you? You mean so much to me. I want to make this up to you. I never want you to feel like this again. It is so much more empowering than well. You looked at me funny and I was hungry. You know what I mean. Own it. Own it and be free. We don't need to hold on to all this and be right all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fight to be right or the fight to not feel whatever we're feeling in the moment can create bigger, bigger struggles than just making our way through For sure. Talk to me about how you see abundance and stress related Like how do they fit?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that we try to hold on to things. And so when we are given a blessing or we have something that is very pleasing to us whether it's a relationship or a material item then we can try to hold on to that so tightly that it blocks the joy that it's associated with having. So it can really add to stress because you're working hard to maintain what you had. But the whole idea is abundance comes and goes. It's a flow. So you're going to get abundance and then you're going to have where you feed into abundance and it's all that trust. Keeping that flow open. You'll have what you need. You'll have what's yours to flourish with and not try to hold on to it.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's the same with our kids. We have to let them go. They have to go to school or they have to have coaches or weekends with their grandparents and we're going to miss them. But that relationship it'll get stronger as it's tested and there's just a lot of letting go and receiving in abundance. And so if you can just have the mindset that you trust and you're abundant being and you're going to be open to it and you're never really losing anything, you never really own anything either, it's just coming and going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. It's in the flow and as long as you're somewhere in the flow of it, whether you're receiving or giving that, you can trust that it's going to work its way around to you. Again, I remember a while back it's been years and years but I was helping my sister. We were working on the startup that she had and I was helping her with it for a while and I remember there was so much we didn't know and all these different factors that were at play, and I had at the time a quote on my desk and my fridge that was like I'll have what I need when I need it. And it was something that had been true for me in a variety of situations.
Speaker 1:A lot of my listeners know I did in vitro to get my daughter and so that process had so many twists and turns and parts that felt overwhelming and just all the things. And so through that time I realized like, okay, that next step will show me, the next step will show me the next. You know it's not always going to be clear at the outset, but I'll have what I need when I need it, whether it's a person or the knowledge or an opportunity and experience. And so in that time with the business, I was like we'll have what we need when we need it. And she was like, well then, that's a great thought. And I was like, but no, no, it's true, it's not just the thought. But she was like that's a great saying, but we will. You know, I think that can be how we live, but there are moments when it certainly maybe doesn't feel that way, and having faith and trust that that's the case can be trickier at some times than others.
Speaker 2:It's so true. It's so true, but it's the best way to get out of your own way is to serve and give. And all of a sudden things open up and you just say I'm ready to see, I'm ready to see what I need and what can be there, and sometimes it's not anything you could imagine. You just say ask for the highest good, and then you're just blown away because you can't even imagine what the highest good is. You're just open to it. So that's been an amazing force of magic in my life to do that and get out of my way. Life is crazy cool if you can get in that flow and just know you're abundant.
Speaker 2:I always think of that little picture. It's a meme that went around with a little girl holding a tiny teddy bear and Jesus is in front of her and behind his back he has a huge teddy bear. And the saying was sometimes you just have to let it go and something better is coming your way. And it's so true for so many things in life and in relationships. And there's always something around the corner and you'll have the clarity when you need the clarity. It'll show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk to us about making friends with stress. You mentioned it a little bit earlier and I'm a proponent on this show of using it to our advantage, right, and like when I work with kids, especially athletes, we'll talk about optimizing stress or we'll talk about how it's actually serving you in these certain moments, but I love your phrase of making friends with it, so talk to us about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's there, it's part of your energy, it's part of your field, so you can choose to use it the way you want. You can let it stay in your head and give you a pounding headache, or you can get an awesome workout. I know that when I work out, if I'm angry about something or if I have stress, that's a really good workout and think of it as an emotional detox, you know. So use that stress to get a better workout and know that the stress is, it needs to run through. You can't hold on to it. It's all about that flow again to it. It's all about that flow again.
Speaker 2:So there's a reason you're feeling compelled and pressured, and so if you can find the ball, you know, find the locus of where the stress is coming from. Are you feeling alone and being alone and isolated? That's like a childhood wound, right. So if the stress is coming from feelings of abandonment, then make friends with it, because that's a work step. That's a key point that you need to look at. You need to dive into that a little bit. Is it because you feel inadequate or that you have to show up to be worthy? I mean that stress can give you a lot of information. And once you deal with that underlining childhood wound or whatever it is, that locus of where it came from, once you deal with that, then you're done.
Speaker 2:You get your next challenge. None of us like to stay at the same level, right? We all grew up playing video games or, you know, getting graded. So we don't want to stay at that same place. We want to do better, we want to show up better, and no one wants to have that groundhog day where you're dealing with the same thing with different people every day. You know so you're worth it. Use the stress. Use the stress to figure out what your soul is trying to say. The answers are in you. You just have to get quiet and try to sort through it. Or ask a friend, somebody else who's in your life. They can give you insight and you can decide to agree or disagree, but you leave breadcrumbs for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were saying success leaves clues, and I think life, you know, abundance, all those things they leave clues, right, and if you follow the breadcrumbs, like you said, we can find different pieces of ourselves that maybe we jettisoned at some point, or different ideas that will serve us if we allow them to become beliefs that we hold and acknowledge regularly. So I love the way you phrase that. What is one of the ways you do that, like in terms of returning to your center, returning to your heart? Is there a technique that you use, besides deep breathing, like we talked about, to help you come back to that realization and come back to that awareness that you're cared for, you're held, you can make it through.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't say it's like something I do on a regular basis, but I'll rotate through things. I'm walking my dog, I will connect to the birds around me and the birds give me healing messages, their songs, they'll fly by me and I'll just acknowledge that they're there to help me and to calm me. Also, just quick meditations of being in the center and being supported by my guides and I'll picture myself in the center and the beings around me supporting me and with that pink bubble of light, and then the yellow effervescence coming from in my heart and a flower in my heart, with this yellow effervescence coming out and just infusing my aura, cleansing. I ask for things to be removed that have stuck to me, because you don't realize that when you drive in your car you're going through different energies and things can just get stuck on you. So you just ask for that transmission, that transmutation of anything that doesn't serve you to be released. And when you practice doing it and visualizing it, it sounds crazy but I can feel it lift off and the heaviness goes.
Speaker 2:You know, yoga is really great If you can do some yoga poses and vinyasas, sun salutation with the intention of clearing your chakras, with the intention of grounding. Anything you do, if you have the intention that it's going to help and support you, you're going to get there. So that's my message Just play with it. Be curious about what you need. You know I use music. I'll use music all the time I'll put on Spotify. I'll ask for heart-based music. Hertz of 428 you know, it's so awesome, so awesome.
Speaker 2:I have crystal bowls. I'll hit and I'll listen to my crystal bowls. I just I get curious and there's certain things that I just love my essential oils so I've just come up with things that are around me all the time, like I have my crystal right here, right, and so this is healing when I look and hold this crystal. So I've just learned to have things around me at all times that raise my vibration. And it's not that anyone told me to, I just listened and I just followed what my heart wanted. And so, even like being sad about my father-in-law passing, I'm self-soothing, I'm sad, but then I'm raising my energy up constantly because I know my higher good needs it. So you know that's a rambled answer, but it's different for everybody. So maybe something I said you haven't tried, or you know it just with the intention and openness that we're everything's here to support us, just have to get, you have to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you gave us a list, because I think that is really supportive of people doing an exploration and figuring out what works for them. It reminded me you've talked about car and this morning I was driving and there's a train track by my house and I pull out and make a left turn. So I had pulled out and made a left turn because the train was coming, so the bars were down, you know, there were these red lights flashing and so no one was going anywhere and the guy that was coming on the road was going kind of fast but I'm like, well, he's going to have to slow down anyway for this train, right? So I pull out and make this left turn, and there was plenty of space between us, but he had to slow down because he was going over the speed limit on that road anyway.
Speaker 2:He felt like you cut him off. He felt like I cut him off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like a block ahead of him but he caught up to me pretty quick because he was going pretty quick. Anyway, he thought I cut him off. Yeah, so he zooms around me in the median to get in front of me at the train stop. I mean, it's like less than a block. Like he zoomed around me to get in front of me at the media and then he's gesticulating, he's like flipping me off. He was just like so upset and at first I was just kind of like okay, and then when he kept after it I was like you know, I just kind of pointed like the light is red, you and I were just waiting for the train. You weren't going to go anywhere, you know.
Speaker 1:But it was funny because that energy it stuck with me. Like you said, he drove past me with his big energy and I was feeling agitated about it and usually I'm just like whatever. But on the way home I was like okay, I don't want this following me around, like I don't need this guy's stuff with me all day. So I had taken my dogs, for you know, I take my dogs for a walk and I'm always like so I love it when, after they meet up with another dog and are barking. They shake it off, right, they'll do that.
Speaker 1:And so in the car I must've looked so crazy, but I was sitting in my car just shaking, shaking my hands, you know, like kind of wiggling my torso. I'm shaking this guy's energy. I don't want it. This is not for me. I share that. Just to say I'd never really done that before. I'd thought about it and I'd done some shaking in yoga, you know, but I was like I need something. I'm sitting in my car, what can I use right now? And after I shook off this guy's intensity, like I mean whoever has to be around him for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you can feel his heart was just like pounding and he's so furious and it's like witnessing this child having a fit right Like what does he need to work through? I have such compassion because you know those people are just off the hook, like exactly Everyone around them has to diffuse that all day. And, yeah, that shaking you totally, you totally transmuted it.
Speaker 1:But I love that. Yeah, thank you. Hopefully I'm done with that energy, but I love the way that you describe these different scenarios or different opportunities, because I think, too, we can sometimes have an idea that, like, this is our thing or this is what works and I know, especially with kids around mindfulness, like a strategy or technique will work for a little while and then another situation will come where maybe it doesn't work as well, and so not being discouraged in those moments. But, like you said, you shared all these different techniques or ideas, like pick one, pick one with the belief that it's going to be helpful, and then, if it's not, you know, go to another one or give yourself the space to just believe there's a way to move through, leaving you more whole or more supported or more held by whatever power is that you want to be held by? Like believe that first, and then maybe the thing isn't as important as the belief that you can move through.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. But these things can support you and be there for you. Yeah, because we always want to live like in the spiritual bliss, but we've got to deal with this quagmire of our 3D. I mean, it's just around us all the time, so it's just breadcrumbs again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take the pieces that can help you. Well, julie, this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Oh it was. It was a joy to my heart to share and I just hope that everybody just has such a great day and just know that we don't have to be serious. Sometimes you can laugh at yourself and that diffuses any kind of stress too, that laughter.
Speaker 1:That's so true, so true. Talk to us about where we can find your work. Where can listeners find out more about your book?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on Amazon Life of Love, the Joyful Guide to Self-Incentuality, and also my website, wwwyounetopeptalkcom, has all my stuff on there. I started that when I had little little kids. I thought, when I was going to have this community, we could all just, you know, vent and share and help each other. And that never really took off, but I still kept the name and you know, a lot of the stuff I do is a pep talk. So I love how I created this platform and and it's served in different ways throughout. That website is like 15 years old, honestly, so it's it's been my little baby. So, yeah, you're welcome to come explore, comment on any of my podcasts. I have a comment box so you know if something wants to live through you, you can comment or just be part of the community and you can reach me there. And I'm on social Instagram Jay Hilson yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you Well, thank you again for being here. Thanks for having me. All the best, Thank you.