https://www.listennotes.com/e/a619e7d40ee44e6d9080ea2ed4a95ac6

Sometimes you just need to pause on the things that are not the highest priority right now and pick it up when it does become available to you from an energy standpoint. This is your Badass Journey Podcast. I am Kareen Walsh, serial entrepreneur, growth strategist, executive leadership coach, and best-selling author. Each week, I will bring you a guest or a thought that will help you align what you love with what you do in order to build that badass life and business you dream of. Hey there, listeners. This is a Direct to youo episode today, and I'm excited to connect because it has been a doozy of a quarter for me. I wanted, I'm sure you realize, as avid listeners and welcome anyone who's new to the show, I am so glad that you are part of my ecosystem, let's call it. But it has been a while since I've done a Direct to you episode because let's just face it, my reality and health management for Q1 of 2021 has been challenging. So I wanted to come on here and share an episode with you to really help you help yourself the way I have helped myself. in the last quarter by truly listening to what my body and my mind need in order to be the high functioning badass that I know I'm able to be, but in other areas of my life, not just about the hustle around business, which let me tell you, I've redefined for myself as well, but really trying to find an integrative stance around it all. So what I want to talk to you about today, because I feel like this is the way we all need to start evolving, is to think about what integrative health in your business, in your career life, in what you're trying to achieve and outwardly focus on, why integrative is required in order to internally be ready for what next level you're trying to hit or next phase in life you are going into or whatever transition that is happening, which we're all going through, whether we want to face it or not. Our body, our mind, the energy around us, who we attract in, the conversations we're having are really displaying transition all the time. So what does that mean? Well, to me, the pandemic year that we've all been through and slowly trying to climb out of, and there are a certain number of you listeners who are in other countries that are still in lockdown listening to this, it is something of a transition when we went from being out in the world, doing what we wanted to do, going after what we wanted to go after, not really feeling boundaries that were placed upon us to doing it all, to then all of a sudden being in our homes and away from those we love and trying to figure out how do we manage across it all. And now being a year later, a whole freaking year, and I can't believe how many photos and stuff were coming up as reminders of where I was this time last year and how we were all managing through it in the beginning, right? You guys remember even the beginning that you had to transition into when the pandemic hit a lockdown for your respective area? I know for me, it was like, what is happening? And I went into a mode of resourcefulness, which is what I lean into when I am kind of facing an abrupt transition. How can I show up regardless of what's happening around me? How can I be true to myself regardless of circumstances around me? Like those are that's the language I use for myself, but it really still felt like a different kind of hustle. And as the year progressed in that push of like, still make something happen, even if it's in the stillness or it's slower, Karine, you can still do so much kind of energy versus what ended up happening at the start of this year where I was pretty much knocked on my ass because my health was being tested and I wasn't paying enough attention to it because of the limitations of last year, feeling like I shouldn't go do, you know, my annuals and I shouldn't really get out there and take the resources away from others who truly need it during this time in order to care for my own health. I'm fine. Like that was the story I was telling myself. And then, as most of you know, as I closed out 2020, I got COVID from a one-time family gathering that I did. And it really just knocked me back to slow down. And then all these other health issues surfaced. So what I realized by that and why this kind of talks through the integrative health focus is that even though I was doing things for my body and my mind that kept me stable during an uncertain time, I wasn't really tapping into or allowing myself the space and the support to really check in with what's going on truly from the inside out when it came to my health. So when I got COVID and I was knocked on my ass for two weeks, no taste, no smell, the aches, the pains, the exhaustion, the fatigue, and I slowed down. I really did do the minimal amount possible. All these other things were showing up in my body where I needed other experts assistant, assist me. And it ended up showing up as back pain, severe back pain that was shooting pain down my leg and I could barely walk again. The achiever in me, the overachiever in me was pushing through it. It was like, oh, I can just keep going. I'll go get chiropractic help and try to, I'm out of alignment. And then what ended up truly happening was, really getting to the point where I needed pain management because I couldn't get off the floor. And let me tell you, my high functioning self through dysfunction still was able to produce the business transactions that I needed. And what was great from a divine spiritual standpoint in my way of translating why things were rapidly coming into my business, was because the universe was preparing me to say, hey, Karine, here's all the money you need because you're about to go into like health crisis and need real severe care from a hospital in order for you to come out whole, like to really feel your wholeness again. And I, 'cause I kept saying, wow, like business was booming, but I'm on the floor in my office in between meetings. My clients don't know, right? And any of my clients listening, I know that you know this because I have talked to you before and after what ultimately turned into a surgery. But it is really wild to be able to build something from a business standpoint and see as your health is kind of being questioned or challenged how it actually, you're showing up in a way, like how it shows up for you, I should say. how I've built enough of a revenue stream that doesn't require my personal time where I'm over exhausting myself, but still allows me the ability to serve my clients and take the rest and the slowdown that I need that I talk to my clients about all the time. You got to take care of yourself first in order to really show up in it all the right way and not go into burnout over exhaustion, et cetera. So that was a big lesson already in 2021 that I've had. And I'm just so grateful also for the business that is in play in order to afford the downtime I needed the past few weeks post-surgery. So what happened, right? I'm sure you're wondering, like, what did you need surgery for? Like, what happened, Karine? Well, it turns out that I ended up having a massive growth fibroids in my uterus. And it's something that's hereditary. It's something that is in my family line. A lot of women I know, actually, it's so funny when you start sharing information like this, people are like, oh, I totally have that. And I had that removed. And I did that. And it's like, we're so nonchalant about organs being removed from our bodies because of growth. It's just a weird phenomena that happens, I think, how we have almost desensitized the shift that occurs when something is no longer working properly for you. And the pain I was having down my back and my legs was the pressure of this almost growth was almost like, point eight pounds was putting extra pressure in my body and causing me dysfunction that I didn't, I was just pushing through. This thing had been growing over time. It's not like it rapidly grew in the last few months. It was there and I hadn't done an actual checkup in almost three years. So that's embarrassing because that's just not healthy to not go and make sure you know what's going on on the inside. And we can convince ourselves every single day that we are fine and I can get through this. I realized through this whole process this last quarter is that I have this language for myself when it comes to my health about pushing through versus being still in it and finding the right path of forward movement that actually aligns with what my body truly needs. so this is the first time in a long time that I've had to truly face my health with the nurturing care that I actually had the time for. So in the past, I let my health go into crisis before I responded. And as you guys know, crisis response is generally a Band-Aid and it is not a full on futuristic plan for what's best from this crisis moment forward. It is just dealing with that moment in crisis. And that was something that even though I am intuitive and I do plug into my body and I try to see what's going on, sometimes who we get our advice from is not necessarily thinking futuristic either. Or like, if I did this thing right now, is it the right thing for my for my future. And what this allowed me in this past quarter, because basically the pain was like unbearable through mid-February I just wanted to feel myself again. Started the pain management route, which is not my way of doing things because I don't really like to have substances in my body. I like to feel what's going on so I can actually work on it and and see how naturally I can fix it. But in this case, I just needed relief. Getting that relief made me also think about what else is going on in my body that could be causing this problem. I realized I hadn't been to the OBGYN in three years because of our move from Colorado to Connecticut. And then last year was going to be my year of getting everything checked. And then we had the pandemic. And like I said earlier, I didn't want to take up resources that could be used for people who truly needed the help. So I waited and then crisis, right? I wasn't doing the things that actually supported me in the moment. I was doing the things that I thought were best to push through. So here I am feeling around my body and trying to tune in and got a message in my meditation to go check on my fibroids because I had diagnosed with them really small. They weren't a concern to my doctors through over three years ago, three years ago. And all of a sudden it was like, go check this thing because this is the, this is what the pressure is happening in your body. Now, why am I sharing this with you when most of you listening come to me for, you know, business advice or strategic ways of moving and growing in your business is because as you know, my theme for your, for your badass journey is aligning what you love with what you do, but it's also about who you are. And if you've been listening to me for a while, it's all about plugging into who are you truly, who do you want to become, and making sure that you're doing all the things that you need to think about to get there. And I have had an integrative approach for so many years. that has gotten me to where I am today and has gotten me to the point where I can have surgery and recover quickly because I am thinking integratively and I know that my life is not one-dimensional. But what I realize is I'm not sharing that enough with you. I am not actually giving you the transparency of what it actually means to stand integratively in your life. and what you should be considering in order to make sure you're checking in on all these areas to be integrative. So when I faced this health situation and I was like in the best place possible of having abundance in my career and financial life, which is, you know, running my own business and making sure my clients were taken care of, making sure that I am the revenue stream is coming in so that I can afford the time off of not putting myself out there so that I can have the surgery and heal in the lightest way. I would not be able to be talking to you right now, almost four weeks of you not hearing from me directly was because I chose to take care of me first. I still had interviews that I shared with you, even for this podcast to maintain the podcast, right? Because this is all content creation. and it's an effort behind every single show. But what I decided was I was going to dial back my effort so I could reallocate that effort to where it needed to go and serve you by sharing the story with you. Sometimes you just need to pause on the things that are not the highest priority right now and pick it up when it does become available to you from an energy standpoint. so what I did was the interviews, because those brought me high energy during my healing weeks to be able to share those conversations with you. But I did not overextend myself for the direct to you conversations because ever that I was launching every Friday, because I just didn't have the energy and I was not going to stress myself out and I was going to put that energy into the healing process I have to go through in order to serve you better once I am better, right? Now, not everybody is conscious like that or feels comfortable making that healthy decision when it comes to serving others. And especially if you're in a service-based business, if you are feeling fatigued right now, I encourage you to do an inventory around where are you spending your time, and what is filling you up and ask yourself, why are you doing this action to begin with when it comes to your business or your career life so that you can actually check in and find the space to refuel and make sure that you are in a sitting in a healthy foundation in order for you to feel good. One of the integrative health checks I do. So I wanted to give you a tool today because obviously this is just the beginning of a few direct to you episodes I plan to launch here now in the next few weeks because I want to reconnect and I want to make sure that you feel supported. If you also have gone through a phase of having to reallocate your energetic resources to different areas of your integrative life, is to share with you how I create buckets to assess where I'm at across what I consider the five pillars of integrative health in order for you to then determine where does your energy actually need to flow in order to lift up one of the areas that might be dragging a little bit. So let's talk about those five pillars because as you know, I just described, like, I was feeling really challenged in my physical health. That's pillar number one, your physical health. And if I were to rate myself on a scale of optimization, like, am I feeling at my optimal highest health for my physical health, being a 10, and, or am I feeling like fully fractured? So I like to use the word fractured because it has this nice visual to it where you see the broken pIeces. Sometimes when things are fractured, you can still function, but it might not necessarily be whole. You might not feel whole energy towards it. So optimization 10, fractured, fully fractured, a one, fully fractured means you're really just dragging energy. So that's why it's a one. So if I assess my physical health at the start of this year, I would definitely have put it at the four or five out of that one to ten scale because I was post COVID, I was body pain to the point where I was barely standing. So there were days where I definitely felt one fully fractured and didn't know what to do, but I was still able to eat, drink, sit, and sleep. So I still had some of my physical health in play, but it definitely was not a 10 out of 10. So I gave it a score of five for where I was at. When I consider my mental health at the time, I would say I was in a seven, eight range because what it has helped me with my daily practices of meditation, with my journal writing, my team, support team that I have around me. So my coaches and therapists, et cetera, I get the help and the support I need when I need it, when it comes to my mental health. So I was still through that pain, I still had about a seven and eight on the mental side, only because I was enlisting the help I needed at a much more rapid pace and it kind of has been part of my support structure for years than how I was feeling physically. So second pillar is mental health. So now we have physical health, mental health support. Then you look at your financial health. So fortunately for me, in this time, I feel like financially and my financial health and how I performed in 2020, how I performed in 2021 already, I'm a good nine out of 10 on that financial health scale for myself because of just my numbers. Like that's just pure data right now. And that's how it's feeling that I felt super confident that things were aligned and going well from a financial health standpoint. That's the third pillar. The fourth pillar is relationship health. And relationship health has many different dynamics to it. There's the primary relationship, which I would consider my husband. And then there's the client relationships and friend relationships, the community I'm a part of. I would say if I were to score things as a holistic view on my relationship health, it's about a seven. and the reason it's about a seven is that I have a really close relationship with my husband. We've gotten through this pandemic time really well together. We communicate well together. When it comes to the connection I truly want with my friends and my clients, I feel a longing for that in-person time. And so to me, it's not optimized, but I'm managing through it with the time that we have right now. I also always like to keep an opening for learning when it comes to relationships on how to just go deeper and connect better. So this gives me room, seven out of 10, to grow into something deeper there. And then the fifth pillar is career health. And for me, career health is not as different than financial health. So I want to make this distinction because career is about how I want to show up in life, right, and earn from it. Like that's generally how we define what a career is. And we have different phases in career growth that we all go through. So being an entrepreneur is part of my career growth, right? Like as my career, I though feel that I could be more impactful and I've kind of have this I do have this really strong vision of where I want to take things next. So from a career stance, like where I stand in my career today, I'm super, super satisfied and I feel like I'm optimizing it. So I'm about an eight out of 10 because in order to be truly optimized, it's really embodying the vision I have next of where I want to take my career. But that's the fifth pillar. So as you are evaluating for yourself, where you stand right now against the five pillars. So again, I'm going to list them out for you so you remember them or if you choose to write them down. Physical health, pillar number one. Mental health, and that includes mindset. Mental mindset health, that's pillar number two. Financial health, pillar number three. Relationship health, pillar number four. And career health, pillar number five. and you want to rate yourself on a scale of optimized. 10 out of 10 being highly optimized, 1 out of 10 being fully fractured. And just sit with the assessment that you have across yourself because if you looked at my total picture, the lowest score I received for myself was on physical health. Totally made sense because I had something going on internally that really was slowing me down that I had to go focus on. And it required surgery to remove what was ailing me. And now that I'm on the wholing process, right? Like the ailment has been removed and now it's time for me to put myself back together. So it is on the climb. So I am focusing my energy on that gap, that five out of 10. to figure out what highly optimized would look like while I am still focusing on all the other pillars. Because it doesn't mean, and I'm not an extremist, extremist doesn't work for me. That's why I call this integrative health, is that we are in the middle of all of these pillars and we get to determine where our energy needs to flow across all, but all matter. at all times. Because if you think about your life today, when you are not financially healthy, I'm sure you have physical issues you're trying to deal with. And it is straining your mental health, your relationships, your even your career growth, right? Or if your career is stressing you out and you're, and that's a score of two out of ten. Of course, then I'm sure you'll have number lower numbers on the physical financial health. but maybe you are highly taking care of yourself physically. And then now you can allocate some more time to your career focus because you've mastered what you need to do to physically feel optimized to now give some energy to the next thing. You see how it's integrative? Like it's not a all or nothing in one arena. And I think what's happening today is that we are connecting with people who are an all or nothing as opposed to everything at the focus of energy that it needs to be during this time for you to feel highly optimized. So I wanted to introduce this concept to you of my five pillars across integrative health because this is going to be the focus going forward. for all of our conversations and how I plan to continue to share with you my own personal badass journey of navigating through all this, but also to show you that you're not alone when you feel off-center, when you feel like there's a lower energy in one area and you can still be highly functional in another, that still you are not feeling whole. Because there's something that's either pulling you away or nagging at you to change, and you just need to shift the energy towards that so that you can figure out how it can be a little bit better or a lot better and make sure you're feeling yourself in order to approach it all. We live complex lives are however, we can have very simple approaches to addressing the complexity and showing up in these five pillars every single day. Because when you approach one, it definitely affects the others. We just want to make sure you're optimizing all of it at all times. So I hope this conversation today and, and the, this tool of assessing yourself across these pillars is helping you identify what are the areas you need to focus on as the year continues and how to create a higher level of integration across it all so that you can then start steering your energy towards enlisting the help you need in that area to become that next level that you want to be in it all. I would love to hear your questions. I hope you got some value out of today. Please don't hesitate to DM me, shoot me an email, let me know what your takeaways are from today's conversation. And of course, I thank you for all your love and support because a lot of you already kind of knew what's going on when you are staying connected with me on the social platforms. That it's what keeps me going is continuing to share my journey so that you can benefit from my lessons learned and hopefully have a faster turnaround time than what I've been through. But it's such an honor to be a part of your bad badass journey. And I appreciate all of you and sharing the show with all that you know, because it's what helps me extend my reach and also helps me help you by learning what do you want more of so I can deliver that to you. So until the next episode, stay well and keep holding yourself up. And I can't wait to hear what you've learned from today's episode. Wasn't that such a great episode? I know you got amazing takeaways from that. What I would love for you to do for me, if you can help me extend my reach, is go ahead and subscribe the show so you get the latest notification and listen before anyone else. Also, if you could go ahead and post your review, your five star review will help me get other people interested in this conversation and extend my reach of impact. Most of all, I would love for you to share this with your community. It means so much to me to have you as a listener and I would love to connect with you. So if you have any questions you would like me to answer on this show, go ahead and email hello@carrieneWalsh.com and my team will make sure that I get your questions so we can get them answered on the show for you. Thank you so much for listening today and I'll see you on the next episode.