00:39

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this short and sweet episode of Life, Mastered. Today, I have one message for you and one challenge to go along with it. The message, you can stop doing so much. You can take space. You can make space in your life. 

 00:58

And believe me when I say it is in your best interest to ensure that you have enough time and space built in to ensure your own well-being. This is the message and this is the question. Take a minute to consider. 

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Do you have enough space in between the moments of busyness, stress, and chaos in your life? Do you have enough space at the end of the day, a time to be able to reset, reconnect, and wind down to get the type of deep rest that you need? 

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Do you have enough space built into your morning so that you can breathe, so that you can be intentional, and you can actually feel a sense of calm and peace and connectedness as you begin your day. These are the questions that I want to ask you. 

 02:03

Now, before we go any further, a couple of things. One, I want to say Happy Mother's Day to those of you celebrating this coming weekend. As a gift to you, I have lowered the price of both of my books, The Happy Mom Mindset, as well as She Rises, which I co-authored with 12 other amazing master coaches. 

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The link is in the show notes. You can get these books for rock bottom pricing. I literally went in and lowered the price as low as I could go on Amazon while still getting Prime shipping. So if you are a mom, if you know a mom, these books are perfect for you. 

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The happy mom mindset is fantastic for those of you that still have kids at home. And She Rises is the perfect gift for women of all ages and all stages. Highly recommend. It is, I believe, an absolute must in terms of supporting women. 

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So that is my gift to you. Also, I just want to mention, I know that Mother's Day can bring so many emotions for those of you that celebrate it. And for those of you that are feeling guilty, sadness, loss, angst, anger, all of these things around Mother's Day, you're not alone. 

 03:23

I see you. I hear you. And please care for yourself in those emotions. Those of you that are in the thick of it in terms of motherhood, I hear you and I see you. Be gentle with yourself. Motherhood is such a beautiful and powerful thing. 

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And just the power of women and the power of nurturing other souls and human beings is just so amazingly fantastic. And I know as moms, we can carry a lot of burden underneath the surface. So give yourself grace, give yourself space, give yourself time. 

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And I just want to express gratitude publicly for my own mother, even though she's now been gone 25 years. I am so grateful for the ways that she loved me and that she showed and expressed unconditional love to everyone she encountered. 

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Her life was such a gift to me. Too short, but I'm so grateful for her and grateful for my sister and my sisters-in-law and all of the women, the aunts in my life, and the beautiful women that support me in such a nurturing way. 

 04:39

Gratitude, gratitude for all of you. All right. So as we dive into this episode, I'm going to be challenging you to think about creating more space in your life. And this has really been the inspiration for this is that I am currently recalibrating my life once again to create a little more space. 

 05:05

And part of this is that starting today, this podcast will be airing every other week. This has been a very difficult decision for me, but one that feels very right as I am recalibrating. So you can look forward to an incredible interview on the podcast in just two weeks. 

 05:21

And this new rhythm of the podcast, expect it, mark your calendar and stay tuned because I am thrilled about so many of the conversations and guests that I will be bringing your way. So let's talk about space in your life. 

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If as I am speaking to you, you are having thoughts like, I can't possibly create more space. There are too many demands put upon me. There are too many expectations. There is not enough time in the day. 

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There is not enough space. There is no room for me. If you are feeling this, you, I see you. I hear you. I feel you. I have been you. And I want you to just consider that it is very possible that there is more space and time available that you can carve out than you currently realize. 

 06:28

And I want to just double down on this and say loud and clear that giving yourself enough space and time to be solid in who you are, to feel grounded, and to have your needs met physically, mentally, and emotionally is one of the most important things you will do. 

 06:56

And it is from this place of being fully rested that you will have more clarity, that you will make better decisions, that the decisions will become easier, that you will be able to show up in your life for the people that you love and the people that love you in a bigger way, your children, your partner, your friends, your parents. 

 07:25

It is from this place of being fully rested and grounded that we can actually have the ability to think about the future, what you want to create, who you want to become. The fact of the matter is that when you are rested and when you are in a parasympathetic nervous system state, that is when you have the most access to your prefrontal cortex. 

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Your prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functioning, things like planning, creativity. This is where you're going to be able to find solutions, manage your time. All of these skills that we know are necessary in order to grow ourselves, grow our life, meet our goals, and truly create what we want in our life. 

 08:29

This ability resides largely in the prefrontal cortex. So doesn't it make sense that we want to ensure that we are well, that we are healthy, that we are emotionally regulated, that we have nervous system regulation, and that we can actually create, like actually really create what we want. 

 08:52

And this isn't woo. This is science. This is the facts of how the brain and body and emotions and nervous system work. And so, and I want you to just think for a minute, you know, when we read a book, there are margins built in. 

 09:08

And imagine if a book had no margins, if the words were just covering every single page, top to bottom, right to left. It would be so overwhelming. And it is the space, it is the margins that make the content usable. 

 09:29

Also, consider this. You may have heard before that our muscles don't actually build, they don't grow while we're lifting a heavy weight. While we're lifting a heavy weight, there's a tearing, right? 

 09:46

A breaking down of the muscle. And it is in the rest and the rebuilding that there is muscle growth. If we are exercising every minute of every day and never resting, we cannot grow. And the same can be said about our level of activity in life, productivity, achievement. 

 10:08

Okay. We're not becoming our best self when we are constantly pushing. Think about this. We inhale. We also must exhale, right? We cannot always be taking things in and we cannot always be pushing things out. 

 10:29

We have to have balance. We have to have space. And as I bring you these thoughts and these analogies, I want to go back to asking you this question for you and about you. Where in your life do you need a little more space? 

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What in you, physically, mentally, or emotionally, is calling for a little more attention? And how might you decide today to prioritize creating this shift? Now, I promised you this episode would be short and sweet, and I am going to stick to this. 

 11:17

I want to share with you a few of my own experiences to relate to you and also just to let you know, I hear you. I understand how difficult it is to let things go and how much it can seem like absolute fact that we can't let anything go, that there is too much there. 

 11:38

So early on in my life, I began doing and achieving. Now, part of this is I am a very high energy person. Part of this is there, it may be in my nature. And also, I learned at a very young age that when I was really responsible and I was really productive and I was doing and I was achieving, I seemed to be valuable to the people around me. 

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I got praise. I got validation. And don't we all want to feel that we are good, that we are approved, that we are appreciated, that we are acceptable to those around us? Absolutely. And so for me, this is something that started very early in my life. 

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And I for years operated off of believing that I needed to do more in order to be okay and to be safe. And the thing is about undoing these patterns, it's not like one event in my life completely changed it. 

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I can say for me, that this has been a continued life lesson for me. I think, you know, we can all relate to those things where it's just like, this is the lesson I have to learn over and over again. 

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I have to learn at a new level. I have to learn in a new way. And this has been the case for me. And this is why you hear me speak so passionately about it. And without getting into the weeds too much, I'm going to just share some touch points with you. 

 13:02

I got married and became a mom very young in my life. I was married when I was 21 and I had my first child just shy of my 23rd birthday. And I was in it. I was checking the boxes. I was doing the thing and I didn't even understand what it meant to have space for myself. 

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I didn't understand what it meant to have my own needs. Fast forward a little bit, the ups and downs and relationship challenges and challenges of being a mom. I got hit with chronic fatigue syndrome and I got hit hard. 

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I am talking one minute. I am up in the morning working out at 4.30 every single day. And all of a sudden, I can't get out of bed to walk my kids to school. And chronic fatigue for me was a tool for growth. 

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What happened to me happened for me, giving me an opportunity to really ask and answer the question, am I of worth? Am I of value? Even when I am sitting and doing nothing, going nowhere, not helping anyone, not fixing anything. 

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Is it okay for me to just exist with very little capabilities? And can I still be okay? Can I be of worth? Can I be loved? Huge learning curve for me and an opportunity for me to really understand how to care for myself because my condition required me to do that in a big, big way. 

 14:43

I am not exaggerating when I say that I could not walk my kids to school a few blocks without needing a nap. My body required it of me. And I did it. And as I healed and I took care of myself, I got to a point where I, it's kind of like, okay, now that I'm past that, right? 

 15:02

Now I can put some of this aside. And in part, that's true. Things will ebb and flow. And at times we will personally need more care and more time than others. But I get back into life, right? And I think about the phases of my life and experiencing life as a single mom, building my business, navigating so many challenges that I never expected. 

 15:23

And one of the core tenets of the work that I did for myself was, how can I keep in balance? How can I ensure that my needs matter? How can I create space? And of course, I've been leading my clients in doing the same. 

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I have huge conviction about this. And it has served me well. And what I want to share with you is I know I've mentioned this a little bit on the podcast, but in November, I got a concussion. I was in a car wreck that was pretty bad. 

 15:48

We were on the freeway and hit a guardrail on my side of the car. We were going probably about 50 miles per hour. It was sudden. It was jarring. And it knocked me around a lot and it knocked my brain around and I experienced a concussion. 

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And even now, as I'm speaking to you, it's the beginning of May and my brain and my body has not, I am not the same since that happened. And when I first got this concussion, I still tried to move forward with a launch in my business. 

 16:24

And then I took a little rest. I was like, okay, like I was kind of pushing, like bouncing the boundaries. That's a term used in the healing process of chronic fatigue where we can do it. Like, how far can we go while pushing ourselves to stay moving and productive without pushing ourselves past that point where it becomes unhealthy? 

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So I continued to do this and I really wished that this concussion was not taking me out. And yet it did. And at a certain point, I surrendered as I've often had to do in my life, as we all have to do at times. 

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And the idea was that I would give myself six weeks. By January, I would be back at it. And the fact of the matter is, this is a point in my life where I am being called once again to create more space and to give myself more rest. 

 17:13

Right now, at this point in time, I'm simply not capable of the same things I was in terms of the intensity of my work. And there's a loss in that for me because much of what I do creatively, it's not just that I'm trying to produce or achieve, but it's the work of my heart and the work of my soul. 

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And right now, I'm just not quite capable. And the reason I'm sharing all of this with you is that no matter where you are in your life, no matter what you're experiencing, pay attention to the level of space and care that you are needing right now. 

 17:52

Let me tell you, I will be honest with you that I have fought against taking more space right now. Because the fact of the matter is I've created a really beautiful life. I already have space. I already have plenty of room in the margins of my life, but I am being called to give myself a little more. 

 18:13

And it's scary and it's hard because I am a single woman and I am a mom and I am running a business and I am the one making the money and I am the one that will be taking care of my 80-year-old self. 

 18:25

And yet I have learned this lesson enough times to know that we've got to surrender to paying attention to the needs that we have. Because if we don't, we will not be able to serve others in this world to the best of our ability. 

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You will not be at your best. You will not feel your best. And you being at your best and feeling your best and actually feeling alive in who you are is so important. It's so important. Don't let that die within you. 

 19:02

Don't let your fire burn out. Pay attention to the needs that you have. I'm going first. I'm here leading you. I'm taking an unreasonable amount of space because as much as I have fought and tried to keep up, I can't. 

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And what I know is that if I can't, I shouldn't. So taking this back to you, please consider today, what do you need? Where do you need space? Where do you need care and attention for your soul, for your mind, for your body, for your heart? 

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What do you need? And will you commit to giving yourself the gift of the care and attention you need to allow yourself to thrive? Allow yourself to feel alive. Allow yourself to be the light and the powerful force that you can be in this world. 

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That's what I've got for you. I'll talk with you in a couple of weeks.