Speaker 1: You don't just wake up colorless. You don't just wake
Speaker 1: up losing your spark, feeling burnt out. It happens slowly
Speaker 1: and quietly. Hello guys, and welcome back to Stepping Up.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is going to be possibly a little bit
Speaker 1: confronting for many of you. This situation I'm about to
Speaker 1: go into and dive old you know, some more intimate
Speaker 1: things about myself, which is, you know, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: like I do that all the time. But it's something
Speaker 1: that I think you know, pretty much every person who's
Speaker 1: walked this planet has felt at one point or another,
Speaker 1: and it's something that can really creep up on us
Speaker 1: if we're not careful. And you will probably listen to
Speaker 1: this and could possibly be in this situation and not
Speaker 1: even realize it. You guys are also going to grab
Speaker 1: another free be in this episode, which is a free
Speaker 1: work book, and this is going to help you get
Speaker 1: your spark back, So make sure you check the Stow notes.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. I you know, six months ago,
Speaker 1: I got out about at home to start my day.
Speaker 1: I walk over to this full length mirror we have
Speaker 1: in our bedroom. It's leaning against the wall, and I
Speaker 1: started you know, doing my hair and putting on my makeup,
Speaker 1: and I put on the clothes and all the things
Speaker 1: I had to go to work that day. And I
Speaker 1: stared into the mirror and then what was staring back
Speaker 1: at me my reflection was a girl I just didn't
Speaker 1: even recognize anymore. It wasn't essentially you know, how I looked,
Speaker 1: which also was like you know, eyebags for days all
Speaker 1: the things. But you know, she wasn't crying, she wasn't
Speaker 1: falling apart, but she just looked flat. And I realized
Speaker 1: I didn't even recognize myself anymore. It was like someone
Speaker 1: had like turned down the saturation of my energy and
Speaker 1: my life and I didn't even realize. And the worst
Speaker 1: thing is when this happens, you don't just wake up colorless.
Speaker 1: You don't just wake up losing your spark, feeling burnt out.
Speaker 1: It happens slowly and quietly, while you're still functioning, while
Speaker 1: you're still doing school drop off and you know, getting
Speaker 1: the emails done and looking like a normal member of society.
Speaker 1: But it's almost like a hum in the background until
Speaker 1: one day you and you realize that you are just
Speaker 1: a shell of who you once were. You know, this
Speaker 1: episode isn't about to glow up. It's about how I
Speaker 1: realized I was burnt out and how I worked out
Speaker 1: how I got there, and how I slowly brought my
Speaker 1: color back, which you know, if you have never really
Speaker 1: experienced something like this before, of feeling just feeling not yourself,
Speaker 1: it is kind of overwhelming and you just kind of
Speaker 1: feel stuck and you don't know where to start to
Speaker 1: start feeling like you again. And sure, I know this
Speaker 1: topic can be a little bit depressing, it can be
Speaker 1: a bit of a towner, but it is an important
Speaker 1: one and I truly believe that there's so many of
Speaker 1: you out there listening who will realize that throughout this episode.
Speaker 1: You may have lost your spark a long time ago
Speaker 1: and you've just been living in survival mode. So right
Speaker 1: now we are going to break you out of that
Speaker 1: and give you some steps. And this is the story
Speaker 1: of how I found my spark again and got my
Speaker 1: color back, and it's not as complicated as we think.
Speaker 1: So if you're feeling a little bit gray right now,
Speaker 1: this episode is for you. And this is the unfiltered
Speaker 1: things I did to feel like Steph again. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's good for Society. But I'm back. But
Speaker 1: before we get into it, if you're not subscribed to
Speaker 1: the show, please go ahead and do that right now.
Speaker 1: It takes two seconds, and it will mean you never
Speaker 1: miss an episode, which trust me, you do not want
Speaker 1: to miss, because we are going to be cleaning up
Speaker 1: your mess mastering your MESSI life this season. And I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, it's so nice to see how
Speaker 1: many of you guys out there are enjoying the show.
Speaker 1: And I've been getting dms and just like the reviews
Speaker 1: and everything is so so beautiful and it means the
Speaker 1: world to me. And if you haven't already, please jump
Speaker 1: join our Facebook community and follow us on Instagram social
Speaker 1: media because I always will be dropping extra content and
Speaker 1: tips in there and Facebook the community is for you
Speaker 1: guys to take over the conversation and I can stop
Speaker 1: talking for a little bit, which is probably good. And
Speaker 1: if you found me over on Instagram and this is
Speaker 1: your first time here, hi, welcome, and I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the algorithm actually did its job for once.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't already followed me on Instagram, it's
Speaker 1: at steph Pace Underscore where I share Yeah, like behind
Speaker 1: the scenes of the things and the stories I tell
Speaker 1: you on here. I don't know if that's a good
Speaker 1: thing or a bad thing, but that's what happens. Now.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it now. First, how did I lose
Speaker 1: my spark? The thing is, when it comes to losing
Speaker 1: you know, feeling burnt out or feeling flat, or feeling stuck,
Speaker 1: whatever we want to call it, in order to find
Speaker 1: our spark again, we need to work out how we
Speaker 1: got here in the first place, kind of like a maze.
Speaker 1: We need to work out where we entered from in
Speaker 1: order to exit. And the thing is, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: I was burnt out because I was still getting the
Speaker 1: things done. You know, that's the trap, because burnout doesn't
Speaker 1: always look like what you think. It doesn't look like
Speaker 1: you not being able to move off the couch. And yes,
Speaker 1: there is definitely those cases, we know that, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the time that comes later, like the end,
Speaker 1: the hairy end of it, it can look like high
Speaker 1: functioning emptiness. It's just kind of like you are just
Speaker 1: going through the motions of your everyday life and your
Speaker 1: everyday routine and you're not actually present, like you know,
Speaker 1: It's like you know when you're driving, you're driving somewhere
Speaker 1: and then you know, you get in the car, you
Speaker 1: turn on the NISI and you start driving, and then
Speaker 1: the next minute you get to your destination. But you
Speaker 1: don't even remember driving there, Like you weren't even present,
Speaker 1: but your body was, and you managed to get you
Speaker 1: there safely, let's hope, but you weren't really there the
Speaker 1: whole time. Now, how sad would that be if that
Speaker 1: was your entire life. We don't want that. We want
Speaker 1: to be present. And the thing is when you are,
Speaker 1: when you've lost your color or lost your spark, that
Speaker 1: is exactly what you're doing. You're moving through your life
Speaker 1: on autopilot. You're just surviving. You're not actually taking in
Speaker 1: the surroundings. You're not looking out the window and looking
Speaker 1: at the trees or you know, obviously we need to
Speaker 1: focus on the road, but you're not paying attention to
Speaker 1: like the music on the radio, or maybe the people,
Speaker 1: like the kids in the back and they're telling you
Speaker 1: funny stories. You're just doing the things. Now. For me,
Speaker 1: here's what losing my spark look like. You know, I
Speaker 1: was exhausted and no amount of sleep could fix that.
Speaker 1: And as an insult miac. That's saying something. You know.
Speaker 1: I could rest so much and I still would wake
Speaker 1: up just feeling absolutely zonked, and I just like everything
Speaker 1: was a massive effort all the time. I also struggled
Speaker 1: to sleep at all and just get a normal amount
Speaker 1: of sleep, like being able to drift off without just
Speaker 1: feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds super dramatic, but I know you
Speaker 1: guys can relate to this, Like you just feel like
Speaker 1: life is heavy and you haven't been able to put
Speaker 1: down the backpack. And I always use this backpack analogy
Speaker 1: when it comes to life, and it's like we all
Speaker 1: have a backpack, and everyone's backpack has different contents. It
Speaker 1: could be past beliefs, it could be what happened on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: could be your to do list. It usually all these things,
Speaker 1: and it gets heavy. And the thing is, if we
Speaker 1: don't take the bag off, sometimes we get very, very tired,
Speaker 1: and then we start forgetting things. We get sad, we
Speaker 1: start dropping the balls in our life and like some balls,
Speaker 1: as I say, some are glass and they can't be dropped.
Speaker 1: Like you know your health and your kids, and you
Speaker 1: know the important things and then when you start dropping
Speaker 1: those things, that's when this just explodes for you in
Speaker 1: your life. And you know it can lead to depression
Speaker 1: and like burn out as we were saying, and it's
Speaker 1: just it can affect your job, it can affect everything
Speaker 1: in your life. So it's super important that we're aware
Speaker 1: of this. Another way it showed up for me was
Speaker 1: the things I used to love felt like nothingness. It
Speaker 1: was like a neutral feeling. So even like listening to
Speaker 1: my favorite songs, like I would not be dancing along.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever had the pleasure of driving in
Speaker 1: a car with me, you would know I do karaoke
Speaker 1: every single trip. But it was just nothingness, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't feel anything. And I think for me, like I
Speaker 1: think I would rather feel sad than nothing, because nothing
Speaker 1: just it's just so empty and it's quite scary. Another
Speaker 1: thing was I was constantly bracing myself. I was waiting
Speaker 1: for the next horrible thing to happen. And I know,
Speaker 1: if you have someone with anxiety like myself, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty pretty common occurrence. You do tend to brace yourself
Speaker 1: a lot. But it really was amplified. Small inconvenience felt
Speaker 1: huge for me. So you know when you're already angry
Speaker 1: and you're running around like you walk around the house
Speaker 1: and then you freaking top or your pants or your
Speaker 1: jump I gets caught on the door handle and you
Speaker 1: just lose your shit. That's what I mean. Like the
Speaker 1: little inconvenience is that normally wouldn't bother me, piss me off.
Speaker 1: I was not a happy person and I felt detached
Speaker 1: for my own life. Like I said with the car analogy,
Speaker 1: you're driving somewhere and you just get there and you
Speaker 1: don't know how. I was disassociating for literally months at
Speaker 1: a time, and that's just so sad. I was just
Speaker 1: not there. I was there, but I wasn't there. And
Speaker 1: I know a lot of mothers can understand this. You know,
Speaker 1: the end of the day and you're with your kids,
Speaker 1: but you're not emotionally there. You're thinking about, Oh, I've
Speaker 1: got to get this done today. I go to do
Speaker 1: the washing, I gotta get this emailed sent off, I
Speaker 1: need to make dinner. You're not actually present. And if
Speaker 1: we're like that all the time, that's when again we
Speaker 1: end up going to burnout, losing my sparkman also look like,
Speaker 1: you know, being productive still, but I didn't get the
Speaker 1: satisfaction when I completed a time, which meant even when
Speaker 1: I ticked things off the to do list, I felt nothing.
Speaker 1: It was zero satisfaction from anything. And then of course
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize myself anymore, you know, wearing for example,
Speaker 1: like when I used to go at the gym, I
Speaker 1: used to love putting on a little kid said, and
Speaker 1: you know, making myself feel good because always felt like
Speaker 1: I would work out better, and when I was feeling flat,
Speaker 1: I would just chuck on anything and just go. And
Speaker 1: you know, the songs I used to play all the
Speaker 1: time in the car, like and at home. Big one
Speaker 1: for me was when I do housework, I usually play songs.
Speaker 1: And then when I stopped doing that, even Ryan was like, you, okay,
Speaker 1: Like just the little things that you do that your
Speaker 1: loved ones know about, you stop doing them, and that's
Speaker 1: when you know there's something wrong. And that leads me
Speaker 1: to the saddest part of this of what me losing
Speaker 1: my spark looked like was I couldn't remember the last
Speaker 1: time I truly laughed, like actually laughed, not like someone
Speaker 1: tells a really bad joke. Hint hint, Ryan, and you
Speaker 1: fake laugh, like actually barey laughed at something silly. So
Speaker 1: now you know what me losing my spark look like.
Speaker 1: I want you to ask yourself. Do I feel tired
Speaker 1: even after I sleep? Does joy feel muted for me?
Speaker 1: The things that you laugh, even you know, doing silly
Speaker 1: things like does it just feel a bit like it
Speaker 1: just doesn't hit the same way anymore? Am I constantly
Speaker 1: in the next problem mode? You're always onto the next thing?
Speaker 1: Which a lot of us already do that. But if
Speaker 1: you're always on the next problem mode, again, we're disassociating.
Speaker 1: We're not present. Do I already wake up tense? So
Speaker 1: you wake up and you're bracing for the thing, because
Speaker 1: the thing is when you wake up you should technically
Speaker 1: be quite relaxed, not like, let's go And does everything
Speaker 1: feel slightly heavier than it should? Again small conveniences, just
Speaker 1: like all the things you normally can function with, just
Speaker 1: feels a lot harder. And have you laughed recently or
Speaker 1: had any fun? Because, as we know, as adults, we
Speaker 1: stop having fun, we stop doing the things for the
Speaker 1: sake of it. We only do things for a certain outcome,
Speaker 1: for having a cleaner house, making money, getting fitter, just
Speaker 1: boring shit like we don't just have fun, and this
Speaker 1: is where hobbies come in and you know, finding your
Speaker 1: yellow which I will talk about a bit later. Now,
Speaker 1: if you answered yes to any of those or even
Speaker 1: a few, you're not lazy and you're not dramatic. You're
Speaker 1: probably burnt out or you've lost your spark and burnout
Speaker 1: and things like this is just a nervous system that's
Speaker 1: on high alert for too long. It's time to take
Speaker 1: a breath and take the backpack off and get out
Speaker 1: of the car. So this leads us to the question
Speaker 1: of how did I get here? You know the maze analogy?
Speaker 1: You know, I love an analogy. I got stop doing these,
Speaker 1: but anyway, the Mayz's analogy, how do we get in here?
Speaker 1: We need to get the hell out of here because
Speaker 1: there's not fun time. Now this can be a little
Speaker 1: bit uncomfortable because you have to kind of really look
Speaker 1: at your life and what you've been doing and see
Speaker 1: what's been good and not so good. Like, we don't
Speaker 1: just get here overnight. As I said, you know, and
Speaker 1: you might hate me for saying this, but getting to
Speaker 1: burn out and losing your spark is something that you
Speaker 1: actually co so like we participate in this, and for
Speaker 1: me personally, I realized I got here because I normalized urgency.
Speaker 1: You know, I glorified being busy, which is so easy
Speaker 1: to fall into. Like we just grew up seeing like
Speaker 1: you have to do more to be successful, You have
Speaker 1: to do more to be appreciated, to be valued, to
Speaker 1: be enough. You know, I became the capable one. I
Speaker 1: never would ask for help, and that's always been a
Speaker 1: big one for me, is people please, are things we're
Speaker 1: not gonna ask for help. You're like, but you would
Speaker 1: do anything for anyone else, even when you're already you're
Speaker 1: already tanked and you've got so much to do, but
Speaker 1: you'll do anything for anyone else, but you will not
Speaker 1: just ask for help. I stopped doing things that didn't
Speaker 1: have an outcome, as I just mentioned, as adults, we
Speaker 1: only do things for a certain outcome. I stopped doing
Speaker 1: the things just for fun, the silly stuff, and even
Speaker 1: down to I turned every hobby into a strategy, like
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's an ADHD thing, But even when
Speaker 1: i'd get into things like I remember when I was
Speaker 1: overhauling my business, I got heaps into notion. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys have heard a notion. It's basically
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Trello or asagna. It's like a
Speaker 1: project organizer, but it can like organize everything, and it's
Speaker 1: really good for like teams, but also if you prefer
Speaker 1: to do things digitally digital I can't even say if
Speaker 1: you prefer to do things on the computer. So I
Speaker 1: got really into that, and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can make this into a really cool business, like
Speaker 1: like Steph is chill and I never And another thing
Speaker 1: is I never fully exhaled. I never just took a second,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's like, you know, I always talk
Speaker 1: about the traveling goal post. I did a post them
Speaker 1: this a couple months ago, and it was like, for me,
Speaker 1: I'm always chasing the next thing, and even if I
Speaker 1: reach your goal, I won't even celebrate that. I won't
Speaker 1: even sit in it long enough to be like I
Speaker 1: did this, I did this. I'm looking for the next one,
Speaker 1: the next one, the next one. And the thing is
Speaker 1: I'm the one moving the goalpost. No one else is.
Speaker 1: And if you're constantly doing that, of course you're going
Speaker 1: to get to a point of burnout and you're never
Speaker 1: gonna get satisfaction. You can't if you can't even reflect
Speaker 1: and be like I did this thing because you're looking
Speaker 1: at the next STARp, like the next goal, the next goal.
Speaker 1: There's no fulfillment in that. Because here's the thing. The
Speaker 1: one question I asked myself that hit the hardest was
Speaker 1: what quietly disappeared while I was busy succeeding or thinking
Speaker 1: that I needed to do the things to be successful.
Speaker 1: Because success looks different for everyone. To you. It could
Speaker 1: be you know, being that really hands on mom who
Speaker 1: does puts in food for all the baked sales and
Speaker 1: is it all the canteen and all the things like that,
Speaker 1: Or it could be you're someone who maybe wants to
Speaker 1: get a promotion or anything. Everyone's so different. But when
Speaker 1: you make your titles and your goals who you are
Speaker 1: and base your worth of that, that's the problem here,
Speaker 1: Because He's the truth. You can build a beautiful life
Speaker 1: and still slowly disappear inside of it. And you know,
Speaker 1: for me, what fate was play color, music, effort, movement
Speaker 1: for fun and just fun. Just because I didn't just
Speaker 1: lose my spark or color, I deprioritized it. I did
Speaker 1: not put that at the top of my to do
Speaker 1: list for a very long time, and that's all me.
Speaker 1: But it's also actually a good thing because what you
Speaker 1: don't focus on you can choose again, you can go
Speaker 1: back to it. And this is where we're going to
Speaker 1: do a routine review. So in order to find our spark,
Speaker 1: we need to dissect our routine and day to day
Speaker 1: life over the last few months or however long. You
Speaker 1: feel like you've been driving an autopilot because without the awareness,
Speaker 1: it's like trying to build an IQ of furniture piece
Speaker 1: without the instructions, like Ryan Pacee tries to do, and
Speaker 1: I end up standing there with twenty screws and the
Speaker 1: table's been put together, and I'm like, is this thing
Speaker 1: going to fall apart? Like me and my soul? And
Speaker 1: don't worry. I made you a free workbook for this step,
Speaker 1: which is linked in the show notes. Write down your
Speaker 1: daily routine in raw and very very honest detail. Now, look,
Speaker 1: you don't have to show this to anybody, so you
Speaker 1: don't have to tell anyone that you eat twelves for breakfast,
Speaker 1: not speaking from experience or anything like that. So the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, and the ugly. So if you wake up
Speaker 1: to your kids screaming in your face every morning, and
Speaker 1: then you scroll on TikTok for about three hours. You
Speaker 1: got to write it down. Now. Step two, I need
Speaker 1: you to grab two highlighters, and we're going to categorize
Speaker 1: the parts of your routine that are either creating a
Speaker 1: positive or negative ripple effect to your life. So this
Speaker 1: is really going to help you pinpoint how and why
Speaker 1: you're currently feeling like shit. So if you see your
Speaker 1: days filled with just tasks and there's no breaks, there's
Speaker 1: no resets, there's no like getting outside and touching grass,
Speaker 1: that's kind of important apparently, And or maybe you're doing
Speaker 1: the things you're not eating enough, or you're not eating
Speaker 1: like any protein. Like we got to like look at
Speaker 1: these things. We want to look at, you know, the
Speaker 1: very basic things of being a human to make us
Speaker 1: feel good, which is your food, movement, sleep, rest, those
Speaker 1: types of things. So let's just pretend your positive ripple
Speaker 1: effects is a blue highlighter and then negative is a red.
Speaker 1: If your routine is filled with red, it's pretty obvious
Speaker 1: that we need to change some things, you know. So
Speaker 1: the majority of your routine is just not looking after
Speaker 1: yourself and it's just red. We need to insert some
Speaker 1: blue in there too, what steps I actually took to
Speaker 1: get my spark back. Let's go. First thing is I
Speaker 1: stopped pretending I was fine. We don't need to be
Speaker 1: martyrs here. And I know a lot of people like
Speaker 1: you know, when people it could be your best friend,
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, you going, and we're like, oh yeah, good, thanks,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, I'm actually quietly dying inside. But anyway, like,
Speaker 1: we need to just be honest with ourselves and even
Speaker 1: other people, which I'll get into later, but when you
Speaker 1: stop pretending you're okay and admitting it to yourself that
Speaker 1: you're burnt out, disconnected, running on empty, that's the second
Speaker 1: you stop pretending and you can actually take action. Because
Speaker 1: awareness is so important. If you don't have awareness, you're
Speaker 1: not going to do the steps. And I'm sure we
Speaker 1: know people in our life that you can see their
Speaker 1: self sabotaging themselves and they do not have the awareness
Speaker 1: to stop it. So that is so so important. And
Speaker 1: this brings me to step number two. I found my
Speaker 1: moments of yellow. Now you might have seen the trend
Speaker 1: going around is who is your yellow person? And the
Speaker 1: whole idea is your yellow person is the one person
Speaker 1: that feels like sunshine, the one that makes your nervous
Speaker 1: system relax, you unclench, you feel safe around them. They
Speaker 1: make you laugh, the one that makes you feel warm
Speaker 1: and safe. And online everyone's posting their partner, their dog,
Speaker 1: their kids, which is so so beautiful, and I love
Speaker 1: that because we all need yellow people in our lives.
Speaker 1: But here's what I realized when I was standing in
Speaker 1: front of my mirror that day, when I saw this
Speaker 1: girl I didn't even recognize staring back at me. Is
Speaker 1: I had so many beautiful yellow people in my life,
Speaker 1: people that felt like sunshine. I had so many beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful humans surrounding me, and I still felt gray, which
Speaker 1: meant something quite uncomfortable. Is it meant I couldn't outsource
Speaker 1: my spark or my happiness. I couldn't rely on someone
Speaker 1: else to bring back my color. I had to become
Speaker 1: a little bit of yellow for myself. I just become
Speaker 1: my own yellow person. And then that got me thinking,
Speaker 1: what if yellow isn't just a person? What if it's
Speaker 1: a moment, What if it's something that you create. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you guys have heard of glimmers, also a trend
Speaker 1: online saying to look for the glimmers in your life,
Speaker 1: which is little sparks of joy. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I started asking myself, what are my yellow moments?
Speaker 1: What are the glimmers that I can create in my
Speaker 1: life that can make me feel good. They don't have
Speaker 1: to be big events or life changes. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like I need to go run two k's
Speaker 1: every day. That's also not a glimmer for me in general,
Speaker 1: let's be honest. But for me, it's something like browsing
Speaker 1: books in a bookstore with no intention of buying one.
Speaker 1: It could be, you know, loud music in the kitchen
Speaker 1: while I cook. It could be you know, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: staying home for the day but I do my hair
Speaker 1: for no reason because it makes me feel good, Or
Speaker 1: going for a walk with nothing in my ears except
Speaker 1: stepping up I'm choking, and just being, you know, actually
Speaker 1: present in my own life for one time. Just moments
Speaker 1: that you have that don't have an outcoming. You don't
Speaker 1: need to achieve anything but glimmers just to light up
Speaker 1: your day. Because here's a shift. Your yellow person makes
Speaker 1: you feel safe, but your yellow moments make you feel alive.
Speaker 1: And that's why we've lost us spuck, because we have
Speaker 1: not felt alive for so bloody long. It's time to
Speaker 1: wake up again. And we can't always rely on others
Speaker 1: to inject joy into our lives and day to day lives.
Speaker 1: We have to create it for ourselves. Now. The second
Speaker 1: thing I did is I stopped bracing all day. Now,
Speaker 1: right now, right this second, I want you to take
Speaker 1: a deep breath. I want you to unclench your jaw
Speaker 1: and drop your shoulders. I bet you so many of
Speaker 1: you just then did not even realize you were doing
Speaker 1: those things. You know, we all know the feeling that
Speaker 1: we're constantly clenching, waiting for the next bad thing to happen,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, but you know, we're just stuck
Speaker 1: in this fight or flight mode and that's not good
Speaker 1: for us long term. That's actually meant to get us
Speaker 1: out of trouble, especially when we're cave men and we
Speaker 1: had to run from like sabertooth tigers. But now we
Speaker 1: don't have that. We just have like to book doctor's
Speaker 1: appointments and they feel basically like the same thing. So
Speaker 1: one thing I did for this because it's not easy
Speaker 1: to relax and unclench all the time, But I did
Speaker 1: this by setting reminders on my phone. Now, please change
Speaker 1: your arm tone to something relaxing like music, not just
Speaker 1: the normal way of bed breap, because that's not going
Speaker 1: to help the case at all. But I would do
Speaker 1: this four times a day, and when every time it
Speaker 1: went off, no matter what I was doing. I could
Speaker 1: be working, i could be cleaning, I could be doing anything,
Speaker 1: I would just check in with my body. Uncleanch my drawer,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, drop my shoulders. And then it
Speaker 1: started becoming more of a habit. So when I started
Speaker 1: really tensing up, I would notice it a lot quicker,
Speaker 1: and you can think it changes like it really really
Speaker 1: does help your nervous system if you can try to
Speaker 1: check in with your body more regularly. I also did this,
Speaker 1: why trying to when I could take micro moments throughout
Speaker 1: the day to just again get out of my head
Speaker 1: and into my body. Because I'm a thinker. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: don't like like it. Let's be honest, I do some
Speaker 1: dumb shit, but I'm always in my head. A majority
Speaker 1: of us are in our head. So the best way
Speaker 1: to get out of our head and into our body
Speaker 1: is by taking notice of what is around us. So let's,
Speaker 1: for example, pretend we're washing up the dishes. I want
Speaker 1: you to feel the warmth of the water on your hands.
Speaker 1: I want you to hear what it sounds like as
Speaker 1: the water hits the dishes. I want you to smell,
Speaker 1: and you can. Maybe you smell something not so pleasant,
Speaker 1: but at least you're present in your life. So just
Speaker 1: taking notice of your surroundings. It could be your kids
Speaker 1: laughing in the background, or maybe they're punching on but
Speaker 1: you know, we can't be perfect here. Now, there's this
Speaker 1: really good grounding exercise, which I'm sure you guys have
Speaker 1: heard of, and this is something I taught my kids.
Speaker 1: So say, usually they do tell you to do this
Speaker 1: when you're having like an anxiety attack or something, but
Speaker 1: basically it's good to do whenever you can. So when
Speaker 1: you're doing one of these things like washing the dishes,
Speaker 1: and you want to focus on being present and you're
Speaker 1: not too sure how to do that, just name five
Speaker 1: things you can see, four things you can hear, three
Speaker 1: things you can feel, and two things you can smell,
Speaker 1: Because honestly, that is the quickest way to get out
Speaker 1: of your head into your body again. And for me also,
Speaker 1: you know how like at the start of a new year.
Speaker 1: Everyone kind of likes to have a word or a
Speaker 1: mantra to live by. My mantra for me when life
Speaker 1: feels like a pressure cooker is I'm not saving lives.
Speaker 1: And this helped me so much in my business. When
Speaker 1: you work in marketing and online, everything feels like you're
Speaker 1: saving lives, but we are not. And I say this
Speaker 1: to the team a lot when something happens that goes wrong.
Speaker 1: We're not saving lives. You know, some of you might
Speaker 1: be maybe for you're doctors, but otherwise we're not. And
Speaker 1: another big one I love, and this is more related
Speaker 1: to like technology and especially emails and things, is their
Speaker 1: urgency is not my emergency. I know it feels like it.
Speaker 1: Our body thinks we are being chased by a sabertooth tiger,
Speaker 1: but no, it's just Margaret emailing us about an account. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're good. The next thing I did, and this is
Speaker 1: not a vanity thing, but as I stopped dressing for survival,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned when I lost my spark, I stopped
Speaker 1: putting an effort into my parents, and we're not We're
Speaker 1: not trying to be materialistic. We're not trying to be
Speaker 1: like you know, have you know Vanity or anything like that.
Speaker 1: We're not doing it for Instagram. But you don't understand
Speaker 1: how much it affects you when you stop taking pride
Speaker 1: in your appearance. And it's not to like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not to please everyone else or try and get attention.
Speaker 1: It's just for you. Like I know this. So many
Speaker 1: women in my life. We're in our thirties, and the
Speaker 1: amount of times I hear them say I am dressing
Speaker 1: up for me is amazing. I love it so much.
Speaker 1: And again for me with the gym, I bought these
Speaker 1: matching cute sets. Now I like wearing them to the gym,
Speaker 1: and I do it for myself. I don't do it
Speaker 1: for anyone else. I don't give a shit what people think.
Speaker 1: I wanna wear the cute sets. And I used to
Speaker 1: always only wear black to the gym, and now I
Speaker 1: wear colors every day and I love it. So I
Speaker 1: started to physically bring my color back by caring about
Speaker 1: how I showed up again and not for Vanity, not
Speaker 1: for anyone else, but for me close color style effort,
Speaker 1: and I realized I missed the girl who cared, so
Speaker 1: I started dressing like her again. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of science to this. This is not
Speaker 1: just Steph talking shmack. There's a concept in psychology called
Speaker 1: in clothed cognition, and it means that what we actually
Speaker 1: wear influences how we think, feel, and behave, and not
Speaker 1: just how others see us. So psychologists actually found that
Speaker 1: people wearing symbolic clothing like a lab coat associated with doctors,
Speaker 1: performed differently on attention tasks than people not wearing it,
Speaker 1: simply because they had the lab coat on. So that
Speaker 1: tells us something very powerful. It is clothes don't just
Speaker 1: cover our bodies. They interact with our psychology and we
Speaker 1: can embody the clothes that we wear. There has been
Speaker 1: so many studies done, and apparently this thing called fashion psychology,
Speaker 1: which I had no idea even existed, but they show
Speaker 1: our clothing choices affect our mood and our confidence and
Speaker 1: how we see ourselves and also how we interact with
Speaker 1: the world. Like I'm sure you remember a time back
Speaker 1: in the day when we used to go out and
Speaker 1: do things and you bought a new dress and you
Speaker 1: popped it on, and your makeup just looked really good
Speaker 1: that day, and you went out that night and you
Speaker 1: just felt so confident, but then there's times where you
Speaker 1: know your makeup sucks and for some reason it's not
Speaker 1: working and you have nothing to wear and you're just
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. It's because it's psychology. It's not
Speaker 1: just because we're vain humans. These studies also show it's
Speaker 1: actually a mood enhandser, and it makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: It's like when we buy a new outfit that just
Speaker 1: fits its so perfectly, we feel like we can take
Speaker 1: on anything. And that's because our brain's like, let's do
Speaker 1: this thing. And I'm sure you've even seen that. There's
Speaker 1: a thing called dopamine dressing, and it's like a stole
Speaker 1: in our culture at the moment, and it describes dressing
Speaker 1: in a way that boosts our moods, so people might
Speaker 1: wear like fun things like Lauren, who works for me,
Speaker 1: Steffe's planner. She's our marketing manager. I love what she
Speaker 1: wants to work every day. She always has something like
Speaker 1: with cats on it. It's always bright and colorful, and
Speaker 1: even when I see her, it makes my day feel better.
Speaker 1: So not only is it making her feel good, it's
Speaker 1: making me feel good. And I'm not saying let's go
Speaker 1: out and buy a whole new bloody wardrobe. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: choose one thing maybe past you always did. It could
Speaker 1: be a certain lip gloss, maybe a perfume, even maybe
Speaker 1: a certain top or a color that you wore, and
Speaker 1: just start with that one thing. Because so the thing is,
Speaker 1: when you've lost your spark I get, you can feel
Speaker 1: so down. It can be really really hard. But if
Speaker 1: you can just pick one thing that the girl who
Speaker 1: had color used to do, do that to start with that,
Speaker 1: and you'll be surprised because as soon as you do that,
Speaker 1: like close signal identity to your nervous system. So sometimes
Speaker 1: you can dress your way back into yourself, which is wild.
Speaker 1: But one thing I did that really helped me work
Speaker 1: through my postntal depression to get myself feeling better was
Speaker 1: I would wash my face. I would just put on
Speaker 1: a comfy little matching track you set I got from Kmart,
Speaker 1: put on a better lip gloss, and I'd put brush
Speaker 1: my hair and put in a ponytail, and it would
Speaker 1: make me feel so much better. The next thing I
Speaker 1: did is I stripped my days back to basics. You know,
Speaker 1: we all get caught up in the hustle culture of
Speaker 1: doing more and being more, which I can one hundred
Speaker 1: percent be like. But when we're like this, we really
Speaker 1: do need to go back to basics because our nervous
Speaker 1: system is already in overdrive. So if we could just
Speaker 1: strip it back to the essentials. So for me, especially
Speaker 1: with work, especially when you work in social media, you
Speaker 1: can feel like, oh my god, I need to post
Speaker 1: every single day, I need to do this, that and
Speaker 1: the other. But I was like, no, you know what,
Speaker 1: if I can do two to three posts this week,
Speaker 1: that's enough for me. If I can check my emails
Speaker 1: even once at the end of the day for ten minutes,
Speaker 1: just for the urgent ones, that's enough for me. As
Speaker 1: long as my kids are fed, even if it is
Speaker 1: for a couple nights. Maybe it's you know, you have
Speaker 1: bloody uber eats one night, Like, it's enough as long
Speaker 1: as you're being fed. Just strip it back to the basics.
Speaker 1: And when I even say this, I also mean the
Speaker 1: things that are important, like you don't have to go
Speaker 1: and go straight back to the gym. But if you've
Speaker 1: gone from being stuck in your house and not touching
Speaker 1: grass and your nervous system is still a bit cooked.
Speaker 1: Sometimes for some people, going straight back to where they
Speaker 1: were before. It's too much, so that's why we have
Speaker 1: that bridge in the middle. It can look like going
Speaker 1: for a five minute walk each day. It can look
Speaker 1: like just making sure you drink some water because apparently
Speaker 1: I heard it's really good for you, this water thing,
Speaker 1: so maybe we should try that. So we just want
Speaker 1: to bridge the gap between colorful you and the empty
Speaker 1: shell version of you. The next thing I did is
Speaker 1: I returned to my anchors. So what I mean by
Speaker 1: this is past. Steph had always had the same routine
Speaker 1: of again going to the gym, and that for me,
Speaker 1: which is a long story which I will do another
Speaker 1: podcast on. You know, I started the gym as more
Speaker 1: of a vanity thing, like most of us do. We
Speaker 1: want to look hot. But then after a while I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this really helps my anxiety
Speaker 1: and it makes me such a patient mother. Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: not super patient, but better than before. So for me
Speaker 1: it became about my mental health, and no matter what
Speaker 1: was going on in my life, I would still go
Speaker 1: to the gym, even if it was, you know, at
Speaker 1: home with some waits. I would always do some type
Speaker 1: of movement because it was I needed it so badly
Speaker 1: for my anxiety. But when I lost my spark, I
Speaker 1: stopped going for about a year, which was like last
Speaker 1: year I did. And so for me, the gym was
Speaker 1: always my consistent no matter what was going on in
Speaker 1: my life. Even you know, when Dad was sick and
Speaker 1: I lost Dad and Nan, I still went to the gym.
Speaker 1: Like obviously, once they passed, I had a couple weeks off,
Speaker 1: but I always went, always went, And you know, there's
Speaker 1: one routine for me. It just stayed steady with every
Speaker 1: version of Steff of what she was going through, because
Speaker 1: movement reconnects me with myself in ways that nothing else can.
Speaker 1: And I do hope one day you guys can find
Speaker 1: that too, because it's a human need, it really is.
Speaker 1: But you know, for me, when I felt ready at first,
Speaker 1: I just started, you know, going for walks, and I
Speaker 1: didn't go straight back to the gym, like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: I like would work out at home just for ten
Speaker 1: minutes in my pajamas. I literally would do it in
Speaker 1: my pajamas. And I was still so proud of myself
Speaker 1: because I'm like, look, I still showed up. I still
Speaker 1: did the thing. And then but once I finally got
Speaker 1: back to the gym, soon as I stepped foot in
Speaker 1: that building, I felt like I was transported back to
Speaker 1: who I was before. You know, it's like you know
Speaker 1: when you maybe go to a place and you used
Speaker 1: to go there as a kid, you go straight back
Speaker 1: to that version of you. Or maybe you smell something
Speaker 1: and it triggers a memory that helps so much, and
Speaker 1: that's your anchor. So anything you used to do. It
Speaker 1: could be you would make a peppermint tea at nighttime
Speaker 1: and you would color in. Do that, or maybe it
Speaker 1: was a certain play list she would play on the
Speaker 1: way to work. Do that. Just whatever you can do
Speaker 1: to get closer to the version of you that was
Speaker 1: happier and had color Do that. The thing is because
Speaker 1: your brain can remember how you used to feel, and
Speaker 1: it makes that stretch and that bridge a lot shorter.
Speaker 1: The next thing I did was I switched up my environment.
Speaker 1: Now I don't have to be the first person to
Speaker 1: tell you how much your environment matters to you. Again,
Speaker 1: there's studies shown on this. I won't go into it
Speaker 1: because I've already nerded out on you a little bit,
Speaker 1: but our body reacts to our environment. So if there's
Speaker 1: clutter and mess, you're gonna feel tense, you're gonna feel stressed.
Speaker 1: And it could just be like about wanting to change
Speaker 1: it up. Maybe you want to feel like you want
Speaker 1: you're starting a new chapter again. So it could be
Speaker 1: simple as like you know, you don't have to do
Speaker 1: a full reno, but like small tweaks, like tidy your
Speaker 1: bedside table. Maybe put some essential oils in there. And
Speaker 1: maybe like at nighttime, you're very anxious and you're not
Speaker 1: feeling great, so put some things in there, like a
Speaker 1: little toolkit to make you feel better, Like your journal,
Speaker 1: like I love and I made our ride it out journal.
Speaker 1: It's from my staff face plan is write out journal.
Speaker 1: I had that major, I had a fresh one and
Speaker 1: I popped it there. And then like lighting a candle,
Speaker 1: maybe some new plants, just changing up some pillows that
Speaker 1: you've already got. Just changing your space can really change
Speaker 1: your energy. Because the thing is when you see the
Speaker 1: same thing that maybe is tied to a negative experience
Speaker 1: or feeling, your brain's going to go back to there.
Speaker 1: Just like I said before, So let's change it up
Speaker 1: a little bit. Even if you go to Kmarte, just
Speaker 1: spend twenty bucks or just grab some things out and
Speaker 1: switch up the house. A little bit, like you know
Speaker 1: when you were a kid and you would rearrange your
Speaker 1: bedroom and then you're like, fuck, yeah, new bedroom, knew me.
Speaker 1: Like you just felt like you're just like a new person,
Speaker 1: and you would wake up. So say if you moved
Speaker 1: your bed. I used to love it when you actually
Speaker 1: would move the bed and you'd wake up, and then
Speaker 1: you look around and you're in like a different spot
Speaker 1: of the room and you just felt so cool, like
Speaker 1: you're like, this is so fuck, I'm so fresh, all right,
Speaker 1: So moving on, the next thing I did is I
Speaker 1: brought back rituals that younger me loved. So this really
Speaker 1: is related again to hobbies and things we do just
Speaker 1: for fun. Again, So for me, that looked like, you know,
Speaker 1: things I love before kids, but things I love before
Speaker 1: my business and before the burnout, So you know, loud
Speaker 1: music in the kitchen, long showers, just as I can,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I always rush showers. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys are the same, because you feel
Speaker 1: like quick, I got to do bad time, I gotta
Speaker 1: do things, and I will have the fastest shower, whereas
Speaker 1: I'm like I used to love having a long shower.
Speaker 1: And then you know, so I brought that back. You know,
Speaker 1: journaling was a big one as a kid, I used
Speaker 1: to always write. So making sure I was journaling again,
Speaker 1: and not because I wanted to, like, you know, do
Speaker 1: my gratitude just journaling, just random thoughts and things. And
Speaker 1: then there's things like you know, singing badly in the car.
Speaker 1: I started doing that again because that, for me, is
Speaker 1: so good. And also what I love about that is
Speaker 1: when say, the kids wake up in their feral and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get them to school the best way
Speaker 1: and the thing I have always done in the past
Speaker 1: is I would put on a song they love and
Speaker 1: we would all sing it to school. And the kid
Speaker 1: that got into the car at home versus the kid
Speaker 1: that got out of the car at school were two
Speaker 1: different people, and it's the same for us. I think
Speaker 1: we need to mother ourselves a little bit more, you know,
Speaker 1: have be a bit more compassionate, and let's baby ourselves
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think it's fine. And the last
Speaker 1: thing I did out of all this is I let
Speaker 1: myself be held as a people. Please it. As I said,
Speaker 1: we don't ask for help, we just push on and
Speaker 1: then sadly we do see things that happen to people
Speaker 1: and we're like, oh, I never realized that they were struggling.
Speaker 1: It's because we bloody never say anything, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I let myself bet help by my friends, by my
Speaker 1: loved ones, by Ryan, and it's like not just physically,
Speaker 1: but like emotionally for me, I'm a big talker if
Speaker 1: you haven't realized, hence the podcast, but for me to
Speaker 1: like process my emotions and like what steps to take,
Speaker 1: I have to kind of say the same shit constantly
Speaker 1: toil like kind of have something click. And I love that,
Speaker 1: like my you know, my cousins and my friends and Ryan,
Speaker 1: like I will repeat myself to them so many times
Speaker 1: and they just let me until like like until that
Speaker 1: little switch flicks and then I feel like I'm ready
Speaker 1: to do the thing, and you know, like you just
Speaker 1: we just need to ask for help. And the thing like,
Speaker 1: it's so sad how we've been taught to just carry
Speaker 1: carry through and like carry our own backpacks and maybe
Speaker 1: not hand off a little bit to someone else sometimes
Speaker 1: because the thing is, I know, if your friend or
Speaker 1: loved one asked you for help, you would do it.
Speaker 1: You would actually, like I love helping people, I really do.
Speaker 1: I hate that people struggle, but I love to be
Speaker 1: able to help them. And the thing is, we don't
Speaker 1: give ourselves the same grace. And I learned this too
Speaker 1: going through personnal depression, which also I noticed you with
Speaker 1: the whole dressing like with the whole putting more effort
Speaker 1: into my parents when I had postanal depression. And I'm
Speaker 1: backtracking a little bit, but with my postonal depression, I
Speaker 1: had that with both girls. And you know, when you've
Speaker 1: had a new baby, You're waking up, you're in you're
Speaker 1: covered in bloody milk, and you just got your pajamas on.
Speaker 1: Every day, your hairs are rats nest and I felt shit,
Speaker 1: And of course it's a hard it's a bloody hard time.
Speaker 1: It's a huge adjustment. One thing I noticed when I
Speaker 1: just had the kids is, you know, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: I had personal depression. But I went to a mother's
Speaker 1: group and everyone there seemed like they were they had
Speaker 1: their shit together, and I was the first time mum
Speaker 1: and a lot of them were too, and I felt
Speaker 1: so ashamed. I was like, I should just know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And I was really struggling with breastfeeding at
Speaker 1: the time because I had a place center. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: had retained less center, and my milk was drying up,
Speaker 1: which I didn't realize at the time, so that was fun.
Speaker 1: But I never said anything for so many sessions, and
Speaker 1: then one session I just was in there and I
Speaker 1: was defeated and I was like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit. And then I told her mom
Speaker 1: next to me, and you know what she said, and
Speaker 1: she was a mum. She would always looked so beautiful
Speaker 1: and presentable. She looked like she had her shit together.
Speaker 1: And I told her, I'm really struggling. I've got I
Speaker 1: think I've got perstonatal depression. And she goes, oh, my god,
Speaker 1: me too, and then we spoke for an hour and o'hm,
Speaker 1: my god, my god. This whole time, we've been sitting
Speaker 1: next to each other just collectively alone, collectively and miserable.
Speaker 1: And that's the difference, is like you just need to
Speaker 1: open up to other people because there's other people out
Speaker 1: there going through the same thing as you and I.
Speaker 1: It's so sad to think that we're just all collectively alone.
Speaker 1: So you know, let people hold you, like, don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to speak up. And I know there's a time
Speaker 1: and a place. But I do feel like the more
Speaker 1: that we are honest with each other, the less alone
Speaker 1: millions of people are going to feel. So I hope
Speaker 1: this episode has helped you guys out there. Maybe I
Speaker 1: guess I said, maybe you're listening to this and you're like, shit,
Speaker 1: I really haven't been feeling like myself when I didn't
Speaker 1: even realize. So take the steps that you need. Make
Speaker 1: sure you jump in the show notes and grab your
Speaker 1: your work book to help. Really just look at your
Speaker 1: routine and see how you got here in the first place.
Speaker 1: And just remember your color won't return all at once.
Speaker 1: It will come back in hints and glimmers, in moments
Speaker 1: of yellow, and then suddenly you're gonna feel like you again.
Speaker 1: You probably feel even better to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: So I hope this episode has helped and hit home
Speaker 1: for you. And please don't forget to check out my
Speaker 1: book Mastering My Messy Life, where I talk about all
Speaker 1: of this stuff I talk about so so much in there,
Speaker 1: and I think it will really help you, you know,
Speaker 1: master your mess but also feel really really seen. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I love you, guys, and I'll be back in your
Speaker 1: ears next Monday. Bye.