Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to I Choose Me today. I am jumping back
Speaker 1: into my conversation with Maria Menuos. We're evolving, we are
Speaker 1: moving at lightning speed. I feel like, especially as you
Speaker 1: get older, you need to assess things kind of like
Speaker 1: on the spot and make the changes because we don't
Speaker 1: know what did you leave behind in your latest life audit.
Speaker 2: I left behind. I mean it's been a ten year
Speaker 2: process of leaving behind a lot, leaving behind expectations that
Speaker 2: everyone had for me, and just living what really made
Speaker 2: me happy, choosing me, ironically, choosing me every step of
Speaker 2: the way, not what was going to give my dad
Speaker 2: something a brag about, Like am I going to take
Speaker 2: that job? Because now my dad has something to go
Speaker 2: brag about and he's going to be so proud. I
Speaker 2: remember after brain surgery, I'd written him a letter and
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I am going to do things very
Speaker 2: differently if I come out of here. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be just doing anything anymore. It's really going to
Speaker 2: be about what works for me, what makes me happy,
Speaker 2: what feels authentic to me. And that might mean you
Speaker 2: don't have things to like be proud of or boast
Speaker 2: about or anything like that. And it was amazing to
Speaker 2: see his shift. I didn't expect it, but now he
Speaker 2: asks me how I'm feeling, how I'm doing, It's not
Speaker 2: about my career.
Speaker 1: What are you working on lately?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I left behind the need to have the
Speaker 2: laundry list of things I'm working on. So people are like, hey,
Speaker 2: what are you up to? Literally, Jenny, for ten years,
Speaker 2: I'll be on red carpet and people are like, so,
Speaker 2: what are you up to. I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 2: a little bit of this, a little bit of that,
Speaker 2: And they're like, what much.
Speaker 1: They don't know what to say to that. No, a
Speaker 1: swarm they're so used to, like people promoting self promoting
Speaker 1: or promoting something that I think that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was really fun, and you know, you have
Speaker 2: to get comfortable with it too, because I always had
Speaker 2: a laundry list because I thought that's how it was
Speaker 2: supposed to be. And I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 2: I'm not living me. I'm loving what everyone else is
Speaker 2: thinking is supposed to be and no, and so leaving
Speaker 2: that behind just a lot of the catastrophizing. I was
Speaker 2: really a great catastrophizer. Oh boy, I've really left that
Speaker 2: behind and I've had so much more peace. Yeah, I bet,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the things I would worry about
Speaker 2: never really happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We should not believe every stupid thought that our
Speaker 1: brain thinks, because it's just making up stories to try
Speaker 1: to comfort us or to give us some sort of
Speaker 1: certainy or clarity moving forward. How do you exist like
Speaker 1: that in the uncertainty.
Speaker 2: I lean on my faith heavily. I have a very firm,
Speaker 2: strong belief that God is guiding me and protecting me,
Speaker 2: and that even in the moments I think I'm left behind,
Speaker 2: I'm not. It's like, if I'm not going to follow
Speaker 2: the path I'm supposed to be on, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get those gentle or maybe not so gentle pushes into
Speaker 2: the right direction. And I just trust. Now. I know,
Speaker 2: And I also know that there are tools that I've
Speaker 2: learned on my podcast on Heel Squad, like choose wonder
Speaker 2: over worry. I wonder what it's going to be like
Speaker 2: when I get through this pancreas surgery and I'm okay,
Speaker 2: And I wonder what it's going to be like when
Speaker 2: the doctor calls her good news. I wonder what it's
Speaker 2: going to be like when this is all a distant
Speaker 2: memory and.
Speaker 1: Right, so changing changing that negative to a positive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not living in fear. I'd rather live from sore
Speaker 2: and from faith and that there's possibility. I see so
Speaker 2: many people that are committed to their diagnosis and statistics
Speaker 2: and the outcomes that they're given. I'd rather live in possibility,
Speaker 2: possibility of miracles, possibilities that there are wrong, possibilities that
Speaker 2: this is this is going to be fine, That this
Speaker 2: is just a journey I'm supposed to go on, and
Speaker 2: it might suck for a while and it might be
Speaker 2: really painful, but there's some reason I'm being invited to
Speaker 2: another level. I've seen personally that I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: being invited to a closer relationship with God, and that
Speaker 2: that's kind of what I'm feeling is happening. But we'll
Speaker 2: see at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: We'll see. That's something I come back to all the time,
Speaker 1: because similar to you turning worry into wonder, you just
Speaker 1: kind of have to adopt that mentality of I don't know,
Speaker 1: we'll see, we'll see how this turns out. But certainly
Speaker 1: going into something in a positive mindset is feel like
Speaker 1: better than going into it with a worried you know,
Speaker 1: that fearful mindset. Do you think that these obstacles in
Speaker 1: your life, these health obstacles or situations that you've had
Speaker 1: to overcome thus far in your life no more? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I'm gone.
Speaker 2: I hope so, I hope we're done.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that would be great.
Speaker 2: Yes we are. I say it all the time. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can't have anything happen because my daughter gives me
Speaker 2: so much joy that there's nothing to come, because there's
Speaker 2: just too much joy.
Speaker 1: That's right. You have a little toddler now, and that
Speaker 1: is joyous. I will miss those toddler days. But do
Speaker 1: you think that these things that life has handed you
Speaker 1: are for a reason? You believe that, and you believe
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to find the reason.
Speaker 2: And then what I think that it's not even like,
Speaker 2: fine the reason, it's just allow room for there to
Speaker 2: be a reason and then it will come. Like I
Speaker 2: don't think we're supposed to push on much in life.
Speaker 2: I think we're supposed to allow and surrender a little
Speaker 2: bit more than we do. But I just watched the pattern.
Speaker 2: Now does it mean that when I got diagnosed with
Speaker 2: a neuro endercrint tumor on my pancreas, We're a couple
Speaker 2: months into a surrogacy pregnancy and finally, after ten years
Speaker 2: of infertility, about to have a baby, and now I
Speaker 2: might not make it. Steve Jobs died of what I had,
Speaker 2: the richest, most powerful man in the world. And so
Speaker 2: I remember being so shook that there was nothing in
Speaker 2: that moment other than just pure fear one hundred percent
Speaker 2: on your knees. And I remember as the next morning came,
Speaker 2: I remember looking at my mantle where I have all
Speaker 2: my church icons, and I was like, God, like, this
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense, Like how could you finally bless me
Speaker 2: with a baby and now you're going to take me?
Speaker 2: How this doesn't make sense? And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe it doesn't make sense. Huh. And then the wonder
Speaker 2: versus worried thing came up in my head and then
Speaker 2: I started doing it, and I remember getting a call
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, oh my god, it's working.
Speaker 2: You know, we also understand that the laws of attraction
Speaker 2: are real. We know that we're magnet, so if our
Speaker 2: core is a magnet, and we think like that whatever
Speaker 2: we're thinking. Whatever we're feeling, we're going to attract more
Speaker 2: of So what would we like We would like to
Speaker 2: think better thoughts, have better feelings. Doesn't mean you're going
Speaker 2: to be there instantly. Guys, you're going to be on
Speaker 2: your knees. It's going to be awful. It doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you're not going to teeter out. I had I remember
Speaker 2: vividly even the night before surgery, having a really powerful
Speaker 2: conversation with a friend because I was really getting scared
Speaker 2: and he helped align me again and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm good. I'm good, but it's terrifying. So you need tools.
Speaker 2: You need your faith, and you need to just remember
Speaker 2: those and use them to help you make this journey
Speaker 2: a little bit easier. And when you do get to
Speaker 2: the other side, you have to know, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: tools aren't going to work in every case. Obviously, there
Speaker 2: are some extreme situations obviously in life that I don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of words for other than what my
Speaker 2: mom taught me, and she said that we wouldn't have
Speaker 2: empathy in life if we didn't have those stories, and
Speaker 2: so that's what I do. But it definitely doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's easy. But I think that you start to see
Speaker 2: patterns in your life like anything else, and you start
Speaker 2: to connect the dots and you start to realize, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm being pushed in this direction for a reason. I
Speaker 2: see what's going on, and I'm just going to flow
Speaker 2: with it and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That takes the comfortability of being quiet, like getting
Speaker 1: quiet enough so you can actually hear yourself, and that
Speaker 1: is hard in this day and age, when there's just
Speaker 1: so much noise and there's so much chaos. How do
Speaker 1: you find your calm in your life.
Speaker 2: So ironically, one of the things that brings me the
Speaker 2: most calm is one of the things I've had to
Speaker 2: do for my health journey, which is never missing a sunrise.
Speaker 2: So if you learn, you know what my first event
Speaker 2: that we did at Canyon Ranch was about the foundations
Speaker 2: of health and sunrise and that sunlight that's carrying that
Speaker 2: beautiful red light, how important it is for your circadian
Speaker 2: biology and your health overall. So every morning for the
Speaker 2: last four years, I am up at sunrise, no matter
Speaker 2: what time I go to bed, and I am getting
Speaker 2: that morning light. Now, there are moments when it can't
Speaker 2: be out there as long as I would like, I
Speaker 2: can only be there for a few minutes. The benefits
Speaker 2: come if you're really there for like the first hour,
Speaker 2: hour and a half. That doesn't always happen.
Speaker 1: But Maria min no nos, I am doing this now. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: I've accepted this challenge that you didn't even challenge me with.
Speaker 1: You just told me what you did. And you just
Speaker 1: have to look and see what time is this. I'm
Speaker 1: coming up. That's when I'm gonna That's.
Speaker 2: When you get up. So I get up, set my
Speaker 2: alarm for two minutes before I get outside. Now, right now,
Speaker 2: it's beautiful, so I can let my skin see. Your
Speaker 2: photoreceptors on your skin are meant to take in that light.
Speaker 2: That's your immune system. That's information through your retinas that
Speaker 2: have UV receptors that takes in all that light and
Speaker 2: struct your body. And there are so many processes that
Speaker 2: need that light, just like a plant needs light for photosynthesis.
Speaker 2: I call it human synthasis, so human sense. I'm out
Speaker 2: there every day. But the magic, Jenny, is that I'm
Speaker 2: out there and you hear nothing but birds chirping. I
Speaker 2: am out there. I get my breakfast in, I get
Speaker 2: my coffee, I get im for me I get to
Speaker 2: do all my little lymphatic things, my acupressure points, my
Speaker 2: beauty shan and limb face stuff whatever, I'm doing it all.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, and having a toddler, how are you
Speaker 1: doing this?
Speaker 2: And she's asleep and I can do it while she's asleep.
Speaker 2: So that is the magic. When you think I need
Speaker 2: more hours in a day, start changing your life so
Speaker 2: you can get your son change. It's changing. So my
Speaker 2: health forced me to that place where now I have
Speaker 2: a slow morning and I get to start with me.
Speaker 2: I choose me. I love that title. I love it,
Speaker 2: and it's been beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh that's very inspirational. Honestly, I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1: I've been getting up every morning. I try to get
Speaker 1: up every morning at a set time so that I
Speaker 1: can get my work in, workout in before my day starts.
Speaker 1: And it, honestly, just my day is so much better
Speaker 1: when I do that. Although I'm mourning, I'm grieving sleeping
Speaker 1: in like I love to sleep in with my dogs,
Speaker 1: like snuggle up with me. But that's just I have
Speaker 1: to I have to say that for special occasions, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you remember your mom? Every day?
Speaker 2: Well, I have her right here with me, always on
Speaker 2: my desk and the tiny yeah, she was used to
Speaker 2: call my shelf. I you know, I pray for her
Speaker 2: every night, and I tell her how much I love
Speaker 2: her every night, and I have her pictures everywhere. I
Speaker 2: have a picture of her and I. When I was
Speaker 2: a toddler, my dad came in and Athena's kind of
Speaker 2: my twin, and so he was so confused. I go, Dad,
Speaker 2: it's me, because he was a how is your mom
Speaker 2: in a picture with Athena? Because she had passed before
Speaker 2: Athena was born, and so anyhow, Yeah, I try to
Speaker 2: just keep her memory alive in these ways. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to build a memorial garden here with flowers because
Speaker 2: she loves flowers and little things like that.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I struggled to keep my dad alive with
Speaker 1: my youngest daughter, who hadn't barely spent much time with him. Mmmm,
Speaker 1: so kind of similar. How do you? How do you
Speaker 1: keep Athena remembering someone she didn't even ever get to meet.
Speaker 2: So her pictures ever since she was a baby, so
Speaker 2: ever since she was a baby. It's important for me
Speaker 2: to like bring her up with faith and all of that.
Speaker 2: So she'd always kissed the icons, and then I'd like, okay,
Speaker 2: now this isn't an icon, but we are not venerating
Speaker 2: my mom, but this is yah Yah, and you're gonna
Speaker 2: give yah Ya kiss. Since she would kiss my mom.
Speaker 2: And then whenever we walked past her pictures like who's that,
Speaker 2: She's like yeah, yeah, And then I would teach her
Speaker 2: something that yeah you loved, like yeah you love flowers,
Speaker 2: or yeah you love this, or yeah you did that,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, she's very well aware of yah Yah
Speaker 2: in her life because I keep bringing her up to her.
Speaker 1: That's good, that's important. You're just a fountain of help.
Speaker 1: You help people, and it's very admirable. I was wondering,
Speaker 1: as we are all trying to sort of get back
Speaker 1: to ourselves, a question for our listeners who are struggling
Speaker 1: to choose themselves. Can you share one way that someone
Speaker 1: listening can have and I choose me moment for themselves.
Speaker 2: I think it's similar to what I shared with Alison,
Speaker 2: like find the thing that gives you joy. Find something
Speaker 2: that when you were a kid you loved, like did
Speaker 2: you love dancing, did you love art? Did you love
Speaker 2: you know, climbing trees? Like what did you love to do?
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you have to do that for a job
Speaker 2: or every day, Like, just go do it once. Reconnect
Speaker 2: with that person. She's still inside of you. So I like,
Speaker 2: at my first event, I had everyone wear a picture
Speaker 2: of themselves when they were little. I'm like, remember she's
Speaker 2: still there, so nice to her and remember she has
Speaker 2: needs to so you know, maybe it's signing up for
Speaker 2: a class where obviously there will be community. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: signing up for an event that you're gonna go really
Speaker 2: choose yourself, give yourself like an overnight experience, and you know,
Speaker 2: give yourself that time. Like I feel like it's such
Speaker 2: an epidemic, Like women just feel like they're lasts on
Speaker 2: the tone pole and don't don't matter. And then it
Speaker 2: gets worse and worse, and then the wheels are falling
Speaker 2: off the wagon and we're having health issues. Well it's
Speaker 2: because we've denied ourselves for so long. And not only
Speaker 2: that is women now we're also having to be perfect
Speaker 2: at everything. We have to look great. We have to
Speaker 2: you know, go to the gym, do our hair and
Speaker 2: makeup and boatox and oh waitest this is and nuts
Speaker 2: and there's so much pressure on us, and so we
Speaker 2: never feel like we're good enough, we never feel like
Speaker 2: we have enough, we never feel like we're doing it right,
Speaker 2: and we lose ourselves in the process. And that might
Speaker 2: be one of the greatest health crises we have, is
Speaker 2: like loose using ourselves, I believe. So I feel like
Speaker 2: you have to find ways to re remember who you are,
Speaker 2: what makes you really joyful. Go start doing some of that,
Speaker 2: even if it's a hike, even if it's a silly
Speaker 2: light class or a pottery class or whatever. Like, just
Speaker 2: go online and find something and get to it. Go
Speaker 2: to a blueberry farm and go pick some blueberries and
Speaker 2: do something totally different than what you've done before. Just
Speaker 2: give yourself some time, yourself some time. Let me just
Speaker 2: remind everybody if they do want to choose them, I
Speaker 2: do have an event coming up October fourth through the
Speaker 2: seventh at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Massachusetts, where you are
Speaker 2: choosing you. We're going to create your guide back to
Speaker 2: you so you will find yourself again.
Speaker 1: And that sounds good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some really incredible people I'm bringing in to
Speaker 2: help you, and I'm really really excited about it. So
Speaker 2: if you guys want to know more. You can go
Speaker 2: to the Instagram or both give you a length.
Speaker 1: Perfect prioritize your own needs before I let you go.
Speaker 1: Maria Menunos, what was your last I Choose me a moment?
Speaker 2: My last I Choose me moment I think was last night.
Speaker 2: I was having our rough night, a rough kind of afternoon.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was bothering me. I was like
Speaker 2: not happy. I started blaming all these little things, like,
Speaker 2: you know, organization issues, whatever. And then I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm just going to get in bed,
Speaker 2: which is a big deal for me. And so I
Speaker 2: got into bed, I got a good cry out, and
Speaker 2: then I realized, oh, there's some emotional pile up work here.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff I've just swept under the
Speaker 2: rug and swept under the rug. And so I have
Speaker 2: this little book that I keep that helps me get
Speaker 2: back into alignment. It's all my like mantras and my
Speaker 2: kind of perspectives and breakthroughs and all the things that
Speaker 2: I really connect with and want to live by. And
Speaker 2: so I got myself kind of back up with that.
Speaker 2: And then of course a little hair and makeup this
Speaker 2: morning doesn't hurt. I got up and I was like
Speaker 2: I'm going to do my hair and makeup a little
Speaker 2: bit more than normal. Definitely, not just because well because
Speaker 2: I think it's like, sometimes you need the costume to
Speaker 2: help you. If you feel you look tired and down,
Speaker 2: you're gonna feel more down. So it's like, how do
Speaker 2: we give it, give ourselves a little spruce.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bring yourself together, represent who you want to be
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so then you feel good. We're like a sloppy
Speaker 2: outfit and you're like, oh, you feel softy. But if
Speaker 2: you like put yourself together now you feel good. That helps,
Speaker 2: Like you needs going to help you in.
Speaker 1: That, and that's so easy. That's like, that's something you
Speaker 1: just do in your closet or your bathroom. And it's
Speaker 1: a very big I choose me moment. That's so perfect.
Speaker 1: I love it so much. Maria, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today. I hope everybody takes away some
Speaker 1: amazing little tricks from you, because I certainly did.
Speaker 2: Thank you,