Finding Miracles with Joanna Garzilli.

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where we'll connect with some of the coolest people in the world. Plus, I'll give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel your health and your life. Now, today's show is all about big miracles. And if you've been around the community and listening to the podcast, you, you know the story of my son who nearly died. It's a victim of a hit and run and it's just been miracle, miracle, miracle ever since. So when I found out that my girlfriend, Joanna Garzilli wrote the book Big Miracles, I'm like, all right, you gotta come on the show. Especially since I wanted to kind of dig deep into what will really work here and what's woo woo. Although I'm going to talk to you a little bit about I'm going to buster on some woo Woo stuff and we're going to be talking about more concrete things and what you really can do, not only to really see the miracles that are happening every day in your life, which will shift everything for you. And she's got an amazing, cool gift.

At the end of the podcast.

So listen in. Let me tell you a little bit about Joanna before we jump in. She is a spiritual success coach, motivational speaker, and again, she's the author of big miracles, the 11 spirit spiritual rules for ultimate success publishing February 14th, Valentine's Day 2017. And she's I've known her for years. We were in a mastermind together. She has been giving business intuitive guidance over the last 20 years for business leaders, entrepreneurs and celebrities. And she lives in LA with her husband and her son Dominic. And I am super excited to introduce Joanna Garzilli to you today. All right, let's do it. Joanna. Joanna Garzilli, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here with me today.

Thank you, jj. I'm really happy to be here and.

I'm happy I didn't butcher your last name. I know. I was like, I've known you for years. And I'm like, God, I actually have no idea how to pronounce that Last name.

You did it perfectly. And a lot of people do mess it up. Thank you.

Well, I might have practiced a tad. So let's dive in. Because you know how I feel about miracles. I'm like, you know, living them seems like every single day. And for someone listening right now who's struggling and it can be in any of the places that I talk about, and we seem to be very aligned here, like, you know, in your relationships or your career or your money or your health, like, what is the first thing they need to do to be able to create these big miracles that we all want to see.

Where I'd suggest someone starts is from a very practical standpoint is to look at first of all what's working in their life, then what isn't working and why. And that's going to really determine the landscape of where a person actually is. And I like to start off with the what's working. Because typically when we aren't in alignment, there's a lot of things that aren't working. So it's good to start off and looking at, well, I'm doing this. Well, this part of my life is going well. And then that gives one the courage to dive in deeper and really address the stuff that isn't working. Because the only way to be able to create a transformation for oneself is to be able to take responsibility for one's actions.

Super important. That is an important line.

Say that one again, taking responsibility for one's actions actually, which is rule seven of big miracles.

Accept responsibility, which is so important because that's empowering. Can't, can't fix something if you don't take responsibility for it. So that's super important. I'm right there with you on that. Now you have this whole thing and I'm going to kind of like, I'm just going to throw this curve ball at you here. Okay. Because prior to my son's accident and when I got into the hospital, my son was, you know, hovering between life and death. People were sending me all sorts of stuff. They were praying, they were chanting. I got, I got like prayer scrolls, holy water. I'm like, bring it all on, you know, and when you're faced with that level of a crisis, like, you pretty much are open to every possibility out there, which I've tried to remain so since. But for those people listening that when you talk about aligning with spirit, they're like, oh, woo woo, right? You know, woo woo alert comes up. What do you mean by that? Because in talking with you, that actually isn't woo woo at all for those woo woo phobic people.

Well, let me preface that because you have a great point there. And I used to be totally woo woo. I mean, I was very practical and down to earth. And then I went through a period of time in my life where I was totally out there. My parents were like, she gonna join a cult? Why is she wearing all white? Like, what's going on with all of that? And it took me, it did take me a period of time to be understand that you can be spiritual and not be off your rocker. So aligning with spirit in simplistic layman's terms, think of it as checking in on myself and saying, do I feel good right now? If you don't feel good, then you're not aligned with spirit. Are your relationships working? If you don't feel happy in your relationships, even if you feel like this other person isn't stepping it up, they're not doing what you want them to do, it comes back to oneself and looking at, okay, something isn't right here. What do I need to do? How am I going to make this relationship work again? The same thing with alignment, with career or with health. I mean, it all comes down to when you look at your work, what you're doing, how the hours are in your day, do you feel good about how your time is being spent? Do you feel productive? Do you feel happy when it comes to health, when you look in the mirror, do you feel good? Do you like what you see? If you don't, on some level, even if you are the perfect size or are eating clean, but you don't feel happy when you look in the mirror, then that means that there is something that is out of alignment.

Okay, so that's how you tell if you're aligned or misaligned is happiness or is there more to it?

I mean, it really goes down. The core of it I like to go down to is the feeling. Everything leads back to the feeling. And for some people who aren't so in tune with their feeling, really your feeling is your intuition. And if there is some type of agitation or irritation or impatience there, it means that there is something underneath to be looked at. And so when we seek and alignment with spirit, what we're really saying is, okay, I really want to see the big picture. I want to understand everything, I want to take responsibility for everything.

So what happens if you are looking at all this and you go, and I love how you start because it's basically find the things that are working because we could have a big tendency here to go straight to the things that aren't and then get overwhelmed with that. But you know, once you've gone through and you go, okay, these things are all working, I'm aligned here. But then I'm not, I'm misaligned here, or I keep. Keep bringing these things up, how do you stop that?

Well, an example from my own life was at one point I was very misaligned. I didn't realize I felt like, like a total victim. And, and the way that I was misaligned was I kept getting these terrible nosebleeds. And, and every day I would right to spirit in my. I wasn't full out there, woo. At that point. I was sort of getting less we woo. But I was still woo, woo. And so I would write, what's happening? Why is this happening? Why am I having these nosebleeds? What have I done to bring this on? Oh, lo and behold, instead of going, what's happening here? And when I really took an honest look at why I was getting those nosebleeds, I was in a toxic, codependent relationship. I can't put that all on the other person. At one point I did. I was really angry at that. And so for me, that was very passive aggressive. And I think that's why I got sick. I put on a lot of weight. I was, I mean, now I'm a size 6. At the time I was a size 12. And I felt exhausted the whole time. So that for me was the misalignment. How did I stop that misalignment? Well, that happened when I suddenly realized I need to go and move back to London. I need to go and leave this relationship. As soon as I left that relationship, I was terrified to leave. It took two years to leave it because I just didn't believe in myself. Once I did that, literally within days, my nosebleeds stopped and never came back since. So I believe the body really speaks to one and shows us where we are aligned and where we are misaligned.

It's just we're not listening.

Yes, sometimes I have to be hit over the head to listen.

It's interesting because when my son got hit, prior to all of that going, prior to him being the victim of a hit and run and left for dead in the street. Although he'll never tell you he's a victim. But prior to that, every day I would write down in my journal, I want to be more present for my kids. And you know, you know, as a mom, if you're a working mom. You're, like, working and you're thinking of your kids. Then you're with your kids and you're thinking of work, and you're, like, not present for anything. And, you know, all these opportunities for me to be present kept showing up, and I kept, like, not taking advantage of them. And I just feel like, you know, the universe, God, spirit, whatever you want to call it, whatever your beliefs are, if you don't pay attention, man, the volume goes up. And when your kid's sitting there on a gurney and you have to make that decision, you know, on life or death, you get so present. And when they're coming out of coma, you're so present. So, yeah, I always, always look at, like, how do I. How do I hear this and listen better before it has to get to this level, you know?

And there's something important with this as well. I feel that people who are on the more esoteric or out side of things, they would say, oh, well, this accident happened because you were misaligned in some way. You know, there was some type of something going wrong. But it doesn't necessarily mean that. I think sometimes certain things do happen and it's, what do you do to keep yourself moving forward? And there's a really important distinction in that. Oh, you must have bought that on yourself. You must be, you know, something must have been off. But not. I don't believe that in my life experience. And. And from how I see things, I think it really is just looking at whatever circumstances one has in one's life. And where you were talking about presence, it's what are you going to do with whatever life throws at one?

So I know you're a big proponent of meditation, so let's talk there and why it's important what you do. What's your take on it?

Well, the foundation of meditation that after doing it for years and years and years, is three components. First, the center. And the way one centers is very, very simple. Someone's having a stressful day, they're freaked out, something terrible is happening, or they're just irritated. You bring your awareness to your heart, and you close your eyes. You don't have to close your eyes, but there's something about closing your eyes that shuts off the external stimuli. As you bring your awareness to your heart, you're literally sending a message to your brain, to your body that is saying, center, find yourself. Because all those answers, the next step that you're seeking lies within you. And then grounding is the second part of the Process. How do you ground? Very simple. A simple way of grounding is just to bring awareness to if you're standing to the soles of your feet on the ground, if you're sitting to the chair that you're on or whatever the surface you're sitting on, if you're lying down the bed that you're lying down on the ground that you're lying on. So it's just saying, I want to be here. I want to feel that connection to being in the world. Because we can't create big miracles for ourselves if we are off with the fairies, if we're off in the clouds. I mean, it's about a connection to spirit and then saying, how am I going to take practical actions in my life? And then the third part of the meditation process is to connect. So sort of what I just said, feeling your connection to people, to your relationships, to your things, whether those connections feel good or it helps you cultivate an awareness which goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. What's working, what isn't working, and then why? Because in that meditation process, you really have the opportunity to get honest with yourself. Once you're honest with yourself, then you can make the necessary changes. Because really, the way I see big miracles isn't getting struck by lightning or some angel descending. It really is about series of small action steps on a daily basis. And that adds up to experiencing a big miracle in one's life.

I am so in sync here with you. In fact, I say little hinges swing big doors. And you just need to recognize, like every day we have these little miracles happen, but we don't recognize them. They're right in front of us. I mean, the fact we woke up is one. So, you know. Right. So I'm going to throw one at you. I have a feeling I know the answer to this one, but maybe you'll throw a curve ball back at me. What's one thing, the one thing you do every day, Joanna, that you feel makes the biggest difference in your life?

I check in with myself continually when it. If that is out of balance, which used to be in the past, for me, that would be considered navel gazing. Right. That would be narcissistic. And I definitely had to really work. I never thought I was narcissistic, but I have definitely had narcissism in me in the past, and I'm very vigilant for it coming back up in life now. So I really like to focus on just showing up and saying, okay, let me look at my life. Today, let me look at how I'm showing up as a person in my relationships, in my environment, and calling myself on my crap. And that puts me back into alignment quickly and keeps me moving forward with my big picture vision.

All right, well, I didn't expect quite that one, so. And I love it. And it's. That's fantastic. And I do that every morning when I journal, but I might need to, like, go even a little deeper. You've inspired me with that one. Now I know we have something super cool for everybody listening. And you can go to jjvirgin.com Joanna and it will be in our show notes too. But share with everybody what you have for them, which I just dig is super cool.

Fantastic. Guided meditations. The main guided meditation is a mindset.

Detox, because how could I not love that? How could I not love the mindset detox? You said that. I'm like, ah.

So, I mean, we sweat and we go and we eat clean, right? We do juice detox and cleanses. But the mindset detox, that really just, it adds. It's very complementary to the healthy eating.

It's the critical thing that lays over the top. You know, when I queried our community, the number one reason people were. Weren't where they wanted to be was because their mindset wasn't because of the lack of strategies. And so this type of thing, I always put it into my programs, but I didn't really. Just intuitively it was something I did, but I didn't realize the importance of it till I started to kind of dig into this. I went, ah. So I love that you're giving everybody your guided meditations, including the mindset detox. That's just. It couldn't have been more perfect. So again, to grab that, go to www.jjvirgin.com Joanna and I just love talking to you. Thank you so much, Joanna, for joining me today.

Oh, thank you, jj. It's been wonderful being with you.

I want to remind everybody she's got a great book, Big Miracles. Grab it like the perfect book. Are Big miracles. Miracle mindset. They should be like, you know, attached.

Yes, I love it.

All right, so after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question. So stay with me.

Me.

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Welcome back. I love this time. It's when I answer a listener's question and keep those questions coming. I'm getting a lot of them now on Facebook at our JJ Virgin official page. And I always try to pick the ones that really fit well with what I've been talking about today. And so this one is perfect. It's from Carol from Houston. And Carol writes in jj, you always seem so positive and upbeat, and I'm going through some really tough times in my life, and I'm just having trouble finding joy and being happy. How do you do it? All right. Well, one of the things that I've really worked on, and you'll see both in my movie Stronger Than youn Think and in the book Miracle Mindset, is it's not always sunshine and butterflies. And in fact, that's not when we grow. But I also believe that we're never better than when we're challenged. And there's things that you can do. Just like Joanna was talking about what she does to ground herself and get aligned, there's things you can do every day to help you be able to be stronger than you think. Here's the thing that works the single best of anything out there for me. Every morning I wake up, I pull out my journal and I write down three things or people that or who.

I'm grateful for every day.

And some days I write a whole bunch in my journal. Some days I just get those three things in or three people in. But it starts the day in gratitude. And if you're starting the day, you know, in fear, anger, resentment, this will shift that quickly. It's like Joanna was talking about and finding those miracles throughout the day. When you start to look at, like, what's good here, what am I grateful for? It shifts your perspective. And so that is how I start my day. Now I'm gonna give you one, the bonus. The bonus here is how I end my day. And I end my day with my small wins or small miracles. I was taught at first to look at these as your wins. Like, you know, win for a day might be that I did a really cool podcast with someone or I got to spend time with son or I took the dog on a long, long, long walk. Whatever those things are, you can also see those as miracles. My gosh. Every time I talk to my older son, Grant, who was the guy with the massive brain injury, I'm like, it's a miracle every single time, you know, just a miracle. So again, we see them if we're looking for them and they're all around us. All right, now, if you'd like to submit a question, just head over to my Facebook page. And that is JJ VI official. And I have one more thing to ask a favor of you. I would so appreciate it if you could go over to Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch. And when you're there, remember to subscribe and share the show with your friends. All right, this is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you to live courageously. Show up, step up, use. You are stronger than you think.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things Books in Reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.