Welcome to Fit to Be Real.
And a little extra.
We're a lot extra because we're back from vacation.
Yes.
And we are feeling vacated.
We are feeling vacated.
Before we get into this episode, I just have to say,
and Carly can attest to this,
I have been doing, well, she can't attest to this part,
I've been doing the cold shower plunges.
Yeah, I definitely, wait a second.
No, I can attest to that.
I was not there.
I don't know anything about this.
No, but I have been doing the real tip of doing
and trying the cold shower plung for like 20, 30 seconds
at the end of each shower.
And I've been doing that since we put that episode out,
which was one of the beginnings.
One of the ones at the beginning.
In the beginning.
And I was able to just run in the ocean.
That I can attest to.
That's what I was going for.
Okay, well, don't say that I was attesting to you
and being in the shower.
It's good that you said it twice.
That's good.
You would run in the ocean, no problem.
Head first, dive in.
Yeah.
And I would watch you from my beach chair.
And I've never, ever done that.
It's taken me 20 minutes to get into a pool.
Was it just not cold for you?
No, they were very cold.
But I've regulated my response to my body's alarm
when you feel that freeze for the first time.
Like when it even when it goes to your toes,
you already know it's too cold, you back off.
Yeah.
And then you try to get it to your ankles.
That's what I do.
It's torture.
Takes forever.
Yeah.
I, with the showers, even though it's 20, 30 seconds,
you train your brain and your body to change its reaction
or response, not to react, to respond to the cold.
And you, it's basically what we're going to talk about.
It's breath work.
So this podcast is really working for you then.
I'm doing fabulously.
You should try that too.
And also, we are talking about living in the present moment.
And how hard it is.
And then also how to try to start doing it.
Yeah.
Tips and tricks on how to live in the now.
I'm Victoria.
Hey guys, I'm Carly.
And she didn't do that for two straight weeks.
I didn't.
I didn't say it once.
And so that is me.
What you're hearing when I say it is me living
in the present moment.
Yeah.
Very proud of you.
Boy.
We taught that to her children when they were like just
learning how to talk.
Yeah.
Boy.
Get a Gert.
That was another one.
Yep.
Oh, Lewis.
We're so cool.
That's what that's one of the things we are going to talk
about today.
Lewis, I can remember that like it was yesterday
and he was what two years old.
He's seven now.
And he's seven.
And I do have these little snippets in my mind
of different like clips of life that I do remember really
well when I mentally said to myself,
you need to stop right now, look around and remember
this moment.
And somebody told me to do that like before I got married.
And I'll never forget that tip to like when you really
want to remember something, you need to stop yourself
in your tracks, look around and like take a picture
with your mind basically.
I'm impressed and also really upset that you never told
me that.
I forgot.
Yeah.
So I've never done it and I have no memory.
I have not one memory.
I literally tell you everything.
And that's the one thing I forgot to tell you.
Somebody told me that before I got married,
I can I have these.
I think I want to say five snapshots in my head.
Really?
Yeah.
And teaching Lewis on the beach in Michigan
when he was just learning to talk.
Yes.
Saying, yeah, boy and get a Gert.
I have a specific memory of because I sat there and we
were having so much fun and Lewis was being so cute
that I was like, I want to remember this moment.
Interesting.
And that's one of the snapshots I have in my mind.
So it's funny that you brought that up.
Well, before we start listing off things that could help
everyone across the board.
Was I getting ahead of myself?
Yes.
Yes, you were.
I feel like we have to talk about the reason why we're not.
Right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the world is obviously fast paced.
But I wrote this in the Instagram post because I think
a lot of people, Carly, just say they don't have anxiety.
So they don't have it.
I don't.
Everybody has a form of anxiety.
It's it's another word for stress.
Some people have it so much that they need medication to
even out the chemicals and all that stuff.
Everybody has small stressors.
Their anxiety is just an alarm that your body gives off.
And what it does is it puts you thinking of the future and
nine times out of 10 worrying about the future.
It's not like a positive alarm.
Oh, I'm a worrier for sure.
Yeah, that's called anxiety, Carly.
I just fix it with wine.
Can you help?
Can you all help me?
Can you?
This is what this is why this.
So.
Anxiety is truly the antipasys of what this episode is about.
It's about our anxiety.
It's worrying about things that have not happened in the future
and all of the ways that you're going to stress out about it.
And it's because your body sends an alarm in many different ways.
Everybody receives it differently.
Clenching your teeth.
One of the things I do.
That it's it's a I get like a heat coming from my neck down to my chest.
You have breath problems.
I do it.
You have a hard time breathing sometimes breathing anxiety.
It's called breathing anxiety.
It feels like there's an elephant on my chest.
It's really fun when Carly just looks at me and goes, stop it.
I'm like, take a breath.
God, because it makes you have it.
Yes.
Looking at me.
Yes.
When you have your breathing anxiety, it gives me anxiety.
But I don't have anxiety.
It just makes me annoyed.
Admitting it is the first step.
So I say all of this though, because that keeps you from living in the moment.
Right.
And also dwelling on the past.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
That's true.
And we all do that.
But I say all of that because you have to be able to fix something or to start new and
change the way you're already behaving or responding.
You have to understand what you're doing in the now.
At the current time.
You want me to realize or admit that I have anxiety about certain things.
You don't have to.
I can tell you that.
I don't care if you admit it or not.
I'm going to tell you how it is.
That's exactly how it is.
But yeah, no, it's with anything.
You can't go to the doctor and make sure you're not in a state of anxiety.
And be like, I need this medication without knowing what you have.
Right.
So to understand that you're not living in the moment, you have to understand why
you're not living in the moment.
What is it that always is an intrusive thought in your mind?
Are you worrying about the future?
Are you worrying about the past?
Are you constantly worrying about things around you that aren't actually prevalent to
what's happening?
I mean, you just have to be able to call out the symptoms is what I'm talking about.
Do you know what's horrible?
You want to hear something horrible?
Everything that you've said so far.
Right.
And not useful.
No.
I have anxiety about not living in the moment.
Isn't that horrible?
I, after the fact, have a very sad...
Like I just have sad feelings about not being not living in the moment at a time in the past.
So you get, you like crash.
It's like a drug.
Like you're so worried about everybody having fun in that moment and the moment over
and you're crash from the drug.
And then I get so upset that like, I'm like, oh my God, I just missed it.
Because I was already thinking about how I needed to make this moment the best moment
that I missed the moment.
Did everybody hear that she said she has anxiety then?
I'm just using that word.
I have thoughts.
I don't know why you're afraid of that word, but it's fine.
Because to me, I don't know if this is for anybody else, but to me, anxiety is like a word
that everybody's using now.
And I want to find a different word for what I feel.
Because I don't know if it's anxiety or not.
And I feel like everyone just uses that as a pass.
Like, oh my kid has anxiety or I have anxiety about that.
No, I'm worried about that or I...
So worrying, anxiety, stressed, triggered.
That's true.
Trauma.
I hate the word triggered.
Upset.
You're also just hearing about it more.
I think, yeah.
Because people are talking about it.
No, I think that's true.
It's been something that has been so taboo, just like therapy.
It's so taboo.
Don't talk about that.
You need therapy.
There's something wrong with you.
You have anxiety.
There's something wrong with you.
You have depression.
There's something wrong with you.
Everybody has all of it.
Yeah.
It's how you manage it.
But this society, as much as we're like,
there's a lot of wrong going on in the world,
I think this generation is a little bit more open
to talking about mental health.
Yeah, which is what we talked about in the last podcast.
Like with COVID and everything,
mental health has skyrocketed in how to handle it.
Like companies have better programs
to deal with people's mental health.
People are talking about mental health
way more than they ever have.
And I think that's a good thing.
I just fear that anxiety, the word is overused.
So that's why I feel like to me,
like it's an easy scapegoat.
Yes, like we teach kids dance and every kid walks in
because their parents say it all the time,
oh, God, I have anxiety about this.
And I'm like, do you have anxiety
or are you just hearing that word a lot?
So that's why I have like a problem using that word.
That's true.
I think people take a good thing
of understanding something and run with it
and then turn it into the masses of now it's like a word to eye roll about.
That we mean?
Yeah.
In any case, you have it.
It's fine.
Whatever you want to feel about it is fine.
You have it to a smaller degree.
You do not need to be medicated.
Shut up.
It's fine.
In any case, talking about the present moment,
I saw an Instagram meme.
Yeah, I guess video.
It's just no, it's just like text.
And it said, I want to feel so good that I take a mental health day
because I don't want to be at work and ruin the mood.
Say it again.
Like I want to feel so good.
I want to take a mental health day
because I don't want to go to work.
I feel so good.
Not I need a mental health day.
I'm stressed.
I need I can't go to work.
You want a good mental health day
because you're just feeling amazing.
Yeah.
And I feel like that is such a good way to do a mental health day as well.
I think of mental health days as like, I just can't.
I need to recover.
Yes.
I need to recover.
I'm having a you know, I'm having a bad day.
I'm having a rough day.
I can't get out of bed.
Whatever whatever it is.
But it could also go if we twist everything.
If you're able to twist your brainwaves to think about things,
a mental health day could be like,
kind of what mom did us do us when we were little.
We were little.
Yeah.
We're going shopping.
She didn't want us to go to school.
You're not going to school today.
We're going to New York to see a Broadway show.
That's why we're so good at math.
We had a lot of mental good health day.
We did.
But we lost those.
We have to get the math.
Yeah.
So yeah, there are some really good tips that we found.
And by we, Carly found all of these.
We were on vacation and I was really trying to, for me,
be off my phone as much as I could.
I didn't post a lot.
You may have seen pictures from the shore.
I did not post nearly as much as I would.
That's true.
And I took a few days off because to me,
that's just something that I do every day.
And people are always like,
oh, I always feel like I'm on your vacation.
And I'm like, I don't like that.
I wanted to take some time off.
My phone told me I was down my screen time 89%.
Whoa, 89%.
And I thought I was still on my phone a decent amount.
So that I was like, oh my God, that's how much you're on it.
That's how much I'm on my phone all the time.
The fact that I was down 89% of my screen time
and I was still on my phone.
I like that that was your wake up call,
but your children saying mommy's face is in the phone
for all of their school reports didn't do it.
It's because we work on the phone to put it.
Can you, can you just clarify?
Throw that in there.
I'm not just like taking selfies, like I've said before.
I'm legit posting or working or responding to emails.
But if I heard Dean, my four year old say,
ma, ma, ma, I was trying to avoid that
because he says it all the time.
Because I'm constantly not living in the moment.
And it's passing.
And I was, I didn't want that to happen on this vacation.
I wanted to watch you go in the ocean with the kids
and me sit on the chair.
And that's what I wanted to be.
Exactly what happened.
Yeah.
So, yes, she had time to look for this article.
Thank you.
On my phone, on your phone.
Amazing.
So here's the first one.
Monotasking.
I know.
Monotasking is the opposite of multitasking.
But everyone, here's the thing.
No one can multitask.
Nope.
You're not actually focusing on one thing.
A true, I think, term of multitasking
is putting 100% into a few things at the same time.
But that is impossible to do.
You cannot put 100% into different things
at the exact same time.
Which is something I think I'm going to take away
and try that.
I sit on my couch.
I don't have a dining room table.
And so I sit on my couch.
And I eat dinner.
And I have something on.
Because it's just something to zone out to.
But I'm not actually paying attention to my food.
Right.
And so I sit on my couch.
And I eat the meal that I've made.
But I'm watching TV.
Right.
So you're doing zone out.
Two things at once.
Two things.
I'm not paying attention to what's in my plate.
And maybe that's why I'm hungry later.
Yeah.
I tell myself that I'm hungry.
Because I don't remember that I ate
or like my body's not responding to it.
I've heard that million times before.
So I'm going to practice that this week.
I'm going to do, every night I'm not putting the TV on.
I'm not going to do anything else.
I'm just going to look at my food and eat.
And see if I can filter that into other things
that I do throughout the day.
But that also means you're alone with your thoughts
while you're eating your dinner.
And that's OK too.
You could be thinking about other things.
You don't have to be like, this green bean is so tasty.
Exactly.
You know what I mean?
Like you're alone with your thoughts.
You don't have to be like, this potato is silky.
I will call him Fred.
Yeah.
You just like think about things.
And you know, be mindful.
Yeah.
It's like open-eyed meditation basically.
But think of something that you do two things at once
all the time.
Maybe it's driving.
I drive with the radio off.
So I'm aware of what's going on.
Can't do it, won't do it.
I also do that because our career is loud noises.
And I need quiet.
So if I'm in the car, that's a nice way
to just focus on what I'm doing.
And I'm obviously not like, that car's green.
Like I'm thinking of things, but I do it in the quiet.
It's such a good way to just be aware.
Yeah.
All right.
I have a two-fold one.
The first one is smile.
I think it's called a twofer.
Twofer.
The first one is smile, but do it intentionally.
So stop.
She's smiling like an idiot right now.
Intentionally.
But if you smile with intention, you will find that
that all of a sudden daily you'll just be smiling,
like not silly smile, but like because you're,
you feel happy.
It comes from within.
Yeah.
And the more you do something, the more it becomes routine,
the more it becomes consistent.
And when you smile, it's because you are looking at something
or you're feeling a certain way and it's intentional.
So if you smile more, at first it's going to feel a little silly
because you're like, what Victoria just did to me,
sitting and smiling.
But at first you have to think about it.
And second it will just become habit.
And the other part of this to listen,
when you become a better listener,
you are living in the present.
When you are talking to somebody,
I am guilty of this all the time.
I was just going to say, I'm sorry,
who are you saying this for?
Yeah, I'm guilty of this.
When somebody is talking, I'm already thinking about
what I'm going to say to them next.
So I'm not listening to the whole thing.
Maybe that's why I don't know anything about any of my family members
because I don't know what they do for careers.
I don't know anything about Justin
because I'm already on to the next thing.
My mind's already going, okay, I got to finish this conversation
because then I got to go to seven other things.
Or I got to make sure that they know that I mean this.
So I'm not actually listening to the full conversation.
So if you actively work on being a better listener,
you will be actively working on living in the present
and actually listening to what another person is saying
instead of thinking about your next move.
And just like all the self-awareness
that you're pulling out today.
Meditation!
God damn it.
Meditation. Here's the thing. I'm not great at it.
Yes you are.
No, I'm... oh no, I'm not.
Part of my yoga teacher training,
I'm now in the second round.
It's 300 hours.
It's the same homework we had for the 200 hours.
Five minutes of meditation a day for the month.
And then we talk about it.
I can't get through a couple days in a row.
Number one, putting it into your schedule is important.
Yeah. Daily. Daily.
You also have to not get frustrated
when you have a million thoughts coming in
and you think you're supposed to have absolutely no thoughts at all.
Kylie's raising her hand really, really high.
What I'm learning and what I've been told enough
to it's finally sinking in
is that meditation is not to think of absolutely nothing
and have a dark blackness in your mind
and there's nothing happening and then you levitate.
Meditation.
Oh!
Karma. Karma's a B.
She's super fair.
That's what in my mind I'm like,
man I should be meditating so hard right now.
I should be like lifting off the ground.
No. Meditation, the point of it is that
you have thoughts come in.
You acknowledge the thought.
Say, thank you moving on.
Focus on your breath.
And then eventually, not in the one five minute day,
eventually over days and days and days and days of time,
the thoughts become less and less.
Just like the smiles become more and more,
the thoughts become less and less.
It's the sense of awareness and centeredness
and presentness that meditation brings.
The goal is to focus on your breath at all times.
So when it comes to meditation,
I actually count for four and I exhale for four
and that's my focus because my brain is everywhere.
And I get frustrated, then I stop.
And then I get mad, then I stop.
And then the next day I decide to not do it at all.
I've been better since vacation.
Coming home from vacation, which is less than a week.
Making sure I set a timer.
I set a timer for five minutes.
There's a second part to this that is also a separate tip
that I'm going to twofer.
And it's journaling.
Sorry.
So what you do is you meditate for five minutes.
Whatever comes to mind, stream of consciousness,
you write down.
Not necessarily in your meditation,
you have to remember everything you thought about.
You just get a pen, put it to paper,
write some things down.
Nine times out of 10, I'm like,
what the heck am I going to write?
And then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be late for work.
I have to stop writing.
Word vomit, yes.
Because there's so much that comes up
that you don't, we're not aware of.
So the more the meditation happens
and the more the gratitude journaling,
a lot of it's, you can do it in the morning
for how you want to start your day.
You could also finish the end of the day with it.
That's the second piece of meditation.
It doesn't have to be sitting in the quiet with, you know,
a mudra.
I'm sorry.
A mudra?
Well, I didn't, I didn't move like a cow.
Like you did.
The hexa mudra.
It's called a mudra.
Oh my God, you're the problem with the world.
No, but I am the stereotype of yoga.
When you talk about the meditation,
the shavasana is the death of me.
When it's supposed to be like bringing you back to life,
it is the death of me because I'm,
I have such a hard time.
You need to think of your breath.
You need to just say inhale and exhale.
That's all work.
Like say those words in your head.
Inhale, exhale.
That's what I'm going to do.
That's what I'm going to do the next shavasana.
A mudra, look it up.
It's a hand motion.
It's like a power pose for your hands.
So just look it up.
I'm not explaining that.
The more you meditate,
the more enlightened you feel and where you feel.
And the more you will learn to be in the present moment
because you get aware of your body or aware of your breath,
you're aware of the sounds around you.
You become aware of the smells around you.
And you're not really focusing on that to begin with.
It just, that's what comes from it.
The next one, be grateful for what you have now.
That is a huge one, I think, for living in the now.
It went along with journaling.
I was going to suggest you do it at the end of the day.
Look at your day and look at what you have.
Like as we've said before,
it's less than other people.
It's more than other people.
But what if you're not grateful for what you have right now,
you're never going to live in the present
because you're always going to be thinking about that next move,
that next step.
What can I do right now to get me to that other thing?
And so I think all you have is now, right now is all you have.
Be grateful for it.
You can get hit by a bus right now.
Yeah.
Walking out of here.
There are no buses on the street.
But that's that whole like, you may not wake up tomorrow.
That could 100% be accurate in any way, shape and form.
So why are we stressing about tomorrow when it's not promised?
I know it may not come.
I just feel like all of this will just make you feel lighter
for lack of a better word.
Like just think about being grateful.
Are you yelling at yourself?
Yeah.
I'm like, literally, where's the mirror?
Like just be happy for what you have.
What are those one that Instagram meme talking about Instagram
that says like, do you have a roof over your head?
Do you have a family that loves you?
Do you have food on the table?
Guess what?
You're good.
Yeah.
That's a really good life.
You have friends.
Awesome.
That's an amazing life.
Be happy for that.
Be thankful for that.
And that's living in the present, which is sometimes hard to do
when you're always wanting the next thing more and more and more.
I think of that every time I fill up my water bottle.
I'm not a, I'm not a water aficionado.
Like all water tastes the same.
Wait, wait, wait.
Can you say that aficionado?
I say it like mom is wrong.
You do.
It's aficionado.
But dad's making fun of us for that because apparently mom's been saying it wrong for like
70 years.
Wait, aficionado sounds like some Latin lover.
I'm going out with aficionado tonight.
I'm mad at everything.
Well, in any case, I hate you.
And also all water tastes the same to me.
When I fill up my bottle from my tap water, I think of Flint, Michigan, who has had horrible
water for years.
I watched the documentary years ago on Netflix.
I don't think it's changed any and their water is they have to buy bottles.
And I think about that all the time and I'm like, God, I'm so lucky.
I'm so lucky.
And that's just water.
Water.
I know.
So what we have, we should, we have so much.
We literally have so much.
Yeah.
We could use a lot less.
Yes.
Have you seen your closet?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, not clothes.
Just other stuff.
This is also not talking about material items.
Noticing what you have around you.
Notice how you're feeling.
Notice the feels you have.
That's I mean, literally, I was sitting on the beach.
I was talking about that snapshot and I was thinking I was looking at the circle of my
family.
You know, the kids were in the ocean.
Andrew was playing with the kids and I was like, Andrew is building sandcastle.
Actually, Victoria was building sandcastles with the kids.
Andrew was playing soccer by himself.
That's when I thought about this podcast because I was like, man, look at what we have.
I'm sitting on the beach.
Wow, lucky am I.
Like get off your phone, look around and just be grateful.
And then the moment passed and I posted a selfie, but I think Dean said, mom, mom, mom.
I was like, God darn it, Dean.
You're ruining the moment.
This one is simple enough, right?
It reduced distractions.
And I would say the biggest distraction is people's computers and phones and stuff like
that.
So a very obvious way is at dinner time at home and at a restaurant with your family or
even if you live by yourself, put your phone in the other room.
I know.
Take the distraction away so that even if it rings, it's in another room.
You'll get to it right after dinner.
And the temptation to just grab it with your hand.
Oh, let me just check this real quick.
No, you don't have to do that.
No, you really don't have to do that.
I know.
We do that all the time.
Like the kids will be at dinner and saying, oh, what's the weather going to be like tomorrow
and Andrew will grab his phone and check the weather.
I'm like, we don't need to know right now.
Yeah.
We're at dinner.
You don't need to pick up your phone and check the weather.
That's not something we need right now.
Yeah.
You just ask mom because she tells us the weather all the time.
But that's an easy one.
Like reducing a distraction where you're not in the present moment.
Reducing a distraction if it's an unhealthy person in your life.
Yeah.
Get rid of the toxicity person that goes deep.
But it doesn't have to just be cell phones, even though that's probably the easiest one
and the most distracting for everybody across the board.
Get rid of it for the moment you want to be in the present, even if it's just a conversation
with someone on the porch.
Don't bring the phone with you.
Yeah, why?
We didn't have that 50 years ago.
Why do you need it?
And I think we knew each other and connected better 50 years ago because of these phones.
As much as it's great that you can look up anything on Google and have an answer.
But take the distraction away to actually connect with the people around you or connect
to yourself or live in the moment.
You don't have to go sit in the grass.
Yeah.
Just take away what usually takes up most of your time and your focus.
And your next tip is called mindful scrolling.
So when you are done with that cell phone distraction, you pick the phone back up.
You pick the phone back up.
Okay.
So when you are at the end of the night in bed on the phone or in the morning, like
just say that's when you scroll, like when normal people do, mindfully do it.
Honestly, realize, hey, I'm on my phone scrolling on TikTok.
Say it out loud.
Yeah, say it out loud.
Think about why you're doing it.
Are you doing it to zone out?
Cool.
Put a limit to it.
15, 20 minutes.
Put a limit to the scrolling and make sure you realize why you're scrolling.
So it sort of tries to take away from when you're sitting at a red light and you pick
up your phone because you can't, you can't wait that two minutes at a red light.
You got to pick up your phone and scroll.
Mindfully scroll.
Be aware of when you're scrolling.
Why you're scrolling.
Are you sad?
Are you happy?
Because if you're sad and you're scrolling, everything you're seeing is going to be toxic.
Everything you're seeing is going to make you upset.
It's going to make you feel bad about yourself.
Are you happy?
Sure.
Are you finding recipes?
Awesome.
Mindful scrolls.
So just be aware of when, how often and try to do it less.
I like that.
Yaw.
I like that.
Breathwork.
Carly, go away.
Stop.
You're not.
There's a lot of different ways to practice breathing, which sounds ridiculous, but let
me tell you something.
It is the only thing keeping you alive.
Done zone.
So you have to practice.
You just snort.
I'm so mad at you.
Are you having anxiety?
You thinking about what you're going to say to me?
I'm having an anger attack, actually.
Working on your breath is the most important thing and probably then the most self-care
thing you could do for yourself.
How do you do that?
It's just focusing on it.
How do you focus on it?
It's also called a meditative moment.
So sitting and working on your breath is counting in for four, counting out for four, or maybe
it's box breathing, counting in for four, holding it for four, letting it go for four,
holding it for four, and doing it a few times.
And in that moment, what are you doing?
You're not thinking about your computer.
You can't count your breath and do that.
You're thinking about your breath and your breath only.
What that does is it changes your brain waves.
It changes.
It's like so much neuroscience attached to all of this.
And there's so many other podcasts you can listen to that like Mel Robbins.
She talks about this all the time.
It's behind it all that it changes your reactions.
It changes your behaviors.
It changes how you think about things.
It has you listen more before speaking because you're so aware.
You just become more in tuned because we're so not in sync to what's going on.
Do not sing an intake song.
I'm so mad at you.
It makes me ill sometimes when I don't work on my breath.
Makes me ill to see you give love and attention at his will.
You can imagine.
No, but it actually...
Are you dying?
It makes me feel.
You sound scared.
I'm singing.
I am not a good breather.
We all know that.
And I am very reactive.
And I am reactive because in the moment, I don't take the time to breathe, which is
actually what I tell the kids.
We work on breathing when they're having a temper tantrum and we play a game with shapes
and colors that I made up.
And I was pretty genius of me to make up, but I don't do it myself.
So I am a very reactive person because I don't have great breath work.
Work on your breath.
And I'm going to link stuff in the show notes of how you can do that if you have absolutely
no idea how to even start thinking about that stuff.
Yoga is a really good place because it's all about breathing, poses and asanas are secondary.
With that, it attaches to working on self-compassion, which I didn't think would be a part of this.
But at the end of this article, it talks about self-compassion.
I really want you guys to look into the links that we're going to attach to the show notes.
And because working on self-compassion isn't working on being present with yourself as
much as being present with the difficulties you're having.
Because in another way to put it, you have to work through the dark to feel the lightness.
Yeah, I like that better.
So that's what self-compassion is.
It's allowing yourself to go through the motions of feeling the emotions you're feeling.
I was just going to say that.
And the more you do that, the more you have empathy for others.
The more you have empathy for others, you're in service to others.
The more you're in service to others, the world is quite literally a better place.
Like it's so hippie, dippy, woo woo, all the derogatory things you want to think about
spirituality of just being better for yourself and thinking about other people.
So self-compassion is a wonderful way to practice working through not putting aside the negativity
or the negative feelings you have over something, the reactiveness that you have without working
on your breath and thinking and being aware, talking out loud.
Why do I feel this way?
What am I feeling?
Is this actually my bad feeling or is my feeling it for somebody else?
It is my bad feeling.
I don't feel great about this.
Why don't I feel like you?
It's just having the conversation.
I think part of the problem with people today is they are afraid to feel things.
Nobody wants to feel things.
Nobody wants to feel sad.
So they push it off by pushing it off makes the bigger problem.
Especially with younger, I mean, I'm talking kids, they don't want to feel.
And when they feel they go down such a dark hole because they're not used to feeling that
they think it's that's it.
It's the end.
Yeah.
You know, and you have to be able to feel in the now to change and to fix stuff.
And my next one was showing acceptance, showing acceptance and letting things go, feeling
the feeling and letting it go.
If you don't feel the feeling, you hold on to it.
You will never move on.
You will never be present because you're always holding on to those dark thoughts.
And it's also good thoughts, too.
Like showing acceptance for the good things.
They're not always going to be that good.
So you can't just hold on to the good things hoping that they're always this good.
You've got to let them go.
You've got to move on.
And feeling is hard.
Feeling is hard.
Well, feeling is feeling is easy and frequent and and wavering, acknowledging what you're
feeling is hard because we're all feeling things at all times every second, whether
they're good, they're bad, they're ugly.
It's understanding the feelings is the hard part.
Mel Robbins calls it the let them theory.
Let them let them.
Everybody goes to lunch and didn't invite you.
Let them.
Ouch.
Everybody's going to the movies and you didn't get that phone call.
Let them.
You invited them to a holiday and they declined and went to somebody else's.
Let them.
Stop.
And you will.
You will.
It's the same token of letting go.
Not necessarily not caring, but not holding on to that, to why that feels so bad.
It's basically detachment and not attaching to the expectations you put on those moments,
right?
Like that's that hit hard.
But let them.
Yeah, because listen, we don't have friends to invite us anywhere anyway.
So we let them all.
Yeah, we all of you guys are off the hook because we don't have any friends.
But if we did and they didn't invite us somewhere, I understand.
But you know what I mean?
Yes.
Like don't get so worked up and hold on to the the worked upness of basically these
small emotions that we grasp onto so tightly.
Yeah, you know.
Last tip and trick for living in the moment is forgive the past.
Forgive what's in the past.
Sort of what I just said about showing acceptance for where you are right now.
Forgive things in the past or else you will never be able to move on.
If you can't move on, you are not living in the now.
So it's a hard thing to do.
I think the hardest because you can just say, Hey, forgive, just forgive.
It's not it's a lot harder than it is to just say.
It's just basically let go and choose to be present.
And that's something that you have to choose.
Nobody can choose it for you.
You have to forgive.
Nobody can forgive for you.
But it's something that you have to do on your own.
Are you saying that to me?
It's something that you have to.
It's true and it is so hard because we have we have attached ourselves to the expectation
of whatever something disappointed us with.
I had something happen to me in high school, actually, which we might talk about on another
podcast and it was done to me and that is their fault.
The impact that I have held on to for all these years, that's my fault because I have
never forgiven what happened and that I've never moved on from it.
So I think that is as hard as that is.
You'll never truly be able to live in the moment if you can't if you can't forgive and
let it go because their fault, they did it.
It is your fault that you held on to it.
You know what helps with that, though?
Therapy.
Yeah.
Boom.
No, you can't just like boom it.
You gotta like go do it.
It's not a big trauma, but it was something that I've been I've held on to it.
It is.
It's a trauma that I've just held on to and it is hard for me to get past certain events,
certain feelings, certain people because I've never I've never fully moved on from that,
but that's my fault.
The impact is that it's had on me is my fault and that's something that I have to let go
to live in the now and that's what I'm all about at 37 living in the now because you
never know.
I think we all know that it's time for Carly on the spot.
If you listen to the blooper reel, you'll understand what she's referencing.
So if you haven't listened to episode 29 blooper, go do that now.
But we're still playing Carly on the spot.
So a big piece of anything you want to change in your life is accountability.
So whether you are able and have the power to hold yourself accountable, that's amazing.
If not, you usually go to somebody else.
So we are all the fit to be real squad going to hold Carly accountable.
She does not look happy.
I have to tell you all she looks really, really upset.
And I hate being on the spot to continue.
And we would all like to know what you are going to practice for one full week out of
everything that we said, what you are actually going to make an actionable change for seven
days.
And we next episode, we're talking about it.
Okay.
Give me a sec in the now.
We talked about so much.
I, yeah, I know.
Well, tell us.
It's not something that you guys are going to be able to see, though, because it's something
that I really want to do.
You're not going to be able to see it.
Say it and I'll tell you how you're wrong.
Okay.
I want to be a better active listener.
And not think about what I'm going to say next.
But you're not going to be able to see it, so you're just going to have to trust me.
Well, none of us are going to do that.
No, none of us are going to trust you.
So saying it out loud to your not actually saying it out loud because you might be a
little weird in conversations.
Victoria, I'm listening to you right now and I'm not thinking of anything else.
No, but just like food tracking.
Maybe you track it.
You get your phone out and you either put the name of the person you were talking to
as a reminder.
I listened to them in this conversation.
So you realize, well, gee, I talked to like 30 people.
Obviously, we are in service with people, so we talked to a lot of people.
I talked to 30 people today and I have 10 names down.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
10 out of 30, the me remembering the conversation and what they were saying because that meant
I noticed I was listening.
Right.
So that's how you track it.
I'll do that.
That's something that I've always wanted to work on because I'm not a great, I'm a good
listener.
I'm not a good active listener.
Yay.
Karly on the spot.
Spot.
If I win, we'll find out in the next episode.
We'll find out in seven days.
So for your real tip, it's called just do it.
Monotasking.
Pick something out of your days.
So take something for yourself.
Monotask it.
And obviously the accountability piece is tracking it or maybe find a buddy and talk
about it so that you can check in.
But there's got to be a piece of accountability or else you'll do it for one day and you'll
never do it again.
And now for your real extra tip of the week, it's called stop and smell the roses.
What does stop and smell the roses mean?
It means, Victoria's just rolling her eyes.
It means mindful walk or mindful run.
And this comes from an accident while we were down the shore.
My AirPods died while I was on a run.
And I wanted to turn around and go home because there's no way.
I, number one, hate running.
Sorry, runners.
I'm not a good runner.
I do it when I have to.
And I definitely can't run or walk without listening to something.
But I had to.
I didn't have a choice.
But you don't realize the things that you think about when you are alone with your
thoughts.
I had nothing else to do when I was running except think.
And it totally changed my run.
But it was really hard.
It made it nine million times worse, but I did it.
And afterwards I was like, wow, I never do that.
And it was really cool and different.
So even if you want to go with a friend on a 10 minute walk and you guys just talk, that's
human interaction.
Do it.
Stop and smell the roses.
Go for a walk by yourself as much as we want you to listen to this podcast on your hot
girl walk for 10 minutes.
Listen to nothing and be alone with your thoughts.
And honestly, you might actually smell the roses.
Well, we hope this helps you.
We hope you know.
Oh, you were so delco.
Say that again.
We hope you know.
And remember that you're always fit to be real and always allowed to be a little extra.
I'll call you on pale on my phone with my tail with my tail and we'll laugh and drink
some water.
So hard.
We don't even talk like that.
You said hard in the weirdest way.
We're going to laugh so hard.
Murder, murder, I'm going to murder, murder you.
How fun is this moment?
Let's remember it.
Snapshot.
Click.
I'm going to remember this forever.
What is that the south?
I think so.
I'm from southern Pennsylvania.
Is there a south Pennsylvania?
I think we're in.
I don't want to remember this moment anymore.
Moving on.
For legal reasons, we have to tell you that this podcast is meant for entertainment and
educational purposes only.
We are not healthcare professionals for all of your health, wellness, fitness and self
care needs.
Please refer to the medical professional in your life, your primary care physician, your
therapist, a certified coach, whoever it may be.
And then let us know what they say because I guarantee we need to know what to do.
Okay?
Okay, bye.