318: Contradict Your Way to Freedom

Is discerning between the two truths that you hold and when to put one truth on and when to put the other one to bed for a while. Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own, and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the Earn your happy podcast. And it's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration and prior to recording this, I just got off of a podcast recording with Evans, who is my co host during the questionably awesome series, which is hosted right here on Earn your Happy. So if you haven't listened to that yet, go look for our Q A series. That's actually what it is, it's question and answer. But we've decided to change the name to questionably awesome because you may question if it's awesome and I will tell you that your answer should be yes because it's really, really hilarious. Hopefully if you have the same humor as us. So either way, we try to add as much value as possible answering your questions. And we also do a review of the week, shout out, where we send whoever's review. We choose either a mug or a T shirt or something awesome with the earn your happy or a tribe called Bliss logo on it. So you guys go over there and review the podcast because we're going to send you something awesome and we're going to shout you out online with your handle. And that's also the episode where we shout you out from Instagram with your handle as well with your questions and we answer all of your questions. So submit a question on Instagram or you can also put a review in, which actually means the most to me. You guys, I'm really, really focusing hard on this podcast and it would mean the world to me if you would go and leave a five star review and also share this with your friends and ask them to subscribe. That's just my big ask for the year. Do I just get one? Okay, well, that's one. All right, so Today. And the reason that I bring that up is because today I want to talk to you about paradoxes. And I had found a quote, because we also share quotes on there that we're obsessed with at the moment. And I found a quote about a paradox that I absolutely love. And as I was searching, I found another one that I'm going to share with you today. And this is Dennis Vellenue. I believe that's how you say his name. And he says, in contradiction and paradox, you can find truth. All right, so what does this mean? So this is gonna mean a million different things to a million different people, because life is a paradox, and everyone is going to find different meanings in different things. And to me, what this means, in contradiction and paradox, you can find truth. I think it should say, in contradict and paradox, you can find your truth. And it is whatever that means to you within that contradiction and paradox. So a paradox is when you hold two opposing views at once. So it's two opposing truths at once. So paradox is like holding two opposing truths at once as your truth. Like, both are your truth. So if you're talking in basic terms, this would be. I love the example of, like, jumbo shrimp, because shrimp technically means small, but shrimp is also an animal. But there are jumbo shrimp. So the biggest of the shrimp holds the view, right? I don't know. Take it or leave it, guys. I'm just trying to help out here. All right? So through contradictions, the reason that this is such a big deal to me is because I believe that through contradicting yourself and holding two truths and holding paradoxes and understanding that they do exist, I believe that you find your truth and you free yourself. So through contradiction, you can free your self. I want you to really listen to that and feel it deep in your soul. And I want to tell you about the. The different times or the different ways and the different contradictions that I hold within myself. And you guys, I write about this in my book, A Tribe Called Bliss, because I had some moments in my life where I was reading a Danielle Laporte book, and I think it was her white hot truth book. And she talked about a lot of different paradoxes that she held in her life. And reading her paradoxes set me free, because I found mine as well. So what I want you guys to do is after this, and I'll bring it up again, but write down a contradiction that if you could hold the two truths, you could free yourself. Right? Because what happens is, I grew up in a very religious background, and you know, whatever this means to take it or leave it. For me, things were very black and white. And because I do believe life is a contradiction and a paradox, I believe that I was constantly struggling with myself. Because it was black or white, two could not be true. The black could not be right. The white could not be right. It was like. It was very definite, definitive. It was very definitive. It was like, it's either black or white. Like, you don't get to say both, right? Both can't hold equal truths. And to me, I believe they can, depending on your perspective, depending on your background, depending on your view, depending on where you come from, depending on what your experience is. So for me, some of them were. Or some of them, are you ready for this? So take these or leave these, however they hit. For me, one of my massive paradoxes and contradictions is I can love God but not be religious. So I can be spiritual. I can do what? Take this as whatever it means to you. I can be, you know, I can believe in all of the things that I believe believe in, but I don't have to do it in the form of a certain religion necessarily. So this was super freeing for me because in order to find my truth, I first had to find what that truth was. Now, does this mean at some point if I find something that fits and feels like what my truth is and feels like it brings it out, that I wouldn't go and do that? Absolutely not. So if I start with another basically black and white truth or a black and white idea of saying, okay, well, I'm not religious, if I decide that I wanted to join something that felt like my new truth from not holding this old truth, then I'm also putting myself in a box again. So I wanted to use that one to show you guys that in order for me to free myself, I have to hold this contradiction first to truly find what truly feels right for me so that I can love God, divine spirit, source, whatever that means, and not be religious, that I could be spiritual. But this opens me up now to find an even deeper truth for myself. So that's my first one. All right? So my second one is I can be. And this is one that is just, like, super basic, but it's something that has completely freed me, and I had to learn how to believe this. And I could only learn how to believe it by doing it. So that was even crazier. So it is. I can be fit and feel amazing and still drink champagne and eat whatever I want every week. What is that even possible? All right, so I didn't believe this because I thought it was either black or white. Like, you can't do that every. You can't eat whatever you want. But I first had to eat whatever I wanted, right? Whatever I wanted. And that meant, like, letting go of the old belief that eating whatever I wanted would not keep me fit, or that I would put on all this weight, or that I wouldn't feel good, or that I'd go back to my old ways, or I wouldn't feel like myself. But what happened is once I went through the journey of already having been fit, already kind of understanding what makes me feel good, already understanding that I'm going to eat to nurture myself, I'm going to eat to feel good. What happened is when and I started to free myself over years and years of saying, you can eat whatever you want, but just know you want to eat to feel good and you want to eat for energy. I ate whatever I wanted, but it wasn't much because I wouldn't want a lot of it because I wanted to eat to feel good. So I hope that's making sense. But I had to practice this for years and years and years. And I had to hold the opposite truths. That I could still be fit, that I could be fit, super fit, right? I wanted to be super fit. And that I could drink champagne and eat whatever I wanted weekly. And what happened when I held those two truths was that I wanted to be fit and I wanted to feel good. So what happened is I would not do it as much, but I also felt free to do it because I had to give myself the freedom to do it.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss. You become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever, that just will not leave you alone, alone is going to come to life. Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 2026 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from household name to first time business owners. Just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for Glo and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10,000 sales. And I literally, because I was so scared to take the leap and I'm so glad that I did and that I use Shopify. It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store, you can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match your brand setup is fast with Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos so marketing is built into you can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows with you. You can handle more orders, expand to markets and do it all from the same dashboard. In 2026. Stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy go to shopify.com happy that's shopify.com happy hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by your side. There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be one of them for you.

And when you want more.

When you're starting business, you need Northwest Registered Agent because you get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. And it's all in one place. You can build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow business for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. You can sign up for free account to begin managing your business hub with lawyer, drafted operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, membership certificates, bills of sale and more at no cost. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business, they give you the free tools you need after you form it like operating agreements, meeting minutes and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And let me tell you, this is life changing cause I had no idea how much went into this. So don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com Earn free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent at www.northwestregisteredagent.com forward/earn3 okay, let's try another one.

So I can be spiritual and swear. So I had a problem with this one because I tend to swear a little bit more off air. I'm just being real and I truly believe that I use it right now as a way to express passion and it's just kind of in my vocabulary and in my world, and it feels really good. And sometimes it doesn't feel good, so I use it when I feel I want to use it. So be spiritual and swear, and that one might, like, not resonate with some of you, but for me, it totally resonates. And this was something that was really freeing for me. So hope it is freeing for you as well. Let's see. Oh, this is a good one. So I can be. I can teach serious things and self development, and I can do it through being funny. So I can teach serious things, self development, life lessons, and I can do it through being funny. So these were. This is a. A paradox for me that I hold where I used to think that I had to be really serious to teach serious life lessons, and that just wasn't me. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel good because it wasn't me. So how are you supposed to teach something that means a lot to. Without being yourself? So I believe that you can infuse yourself into anything serious or not. And don't get me wrong, there are definitely times when certain topics are much more serious than others. And as I'm saying this, you guys, please use discernment. Understand that I'm not saying. And this, this whole thing, this is even funnier that I'm even giving this disclaimer right now, because it's about paradoxes and equal truths. Like, there are times to be serious and there are times to not be serious. So I hope that you understand there's some discernment there. Okay, here's another one. This is just a basic one, but I still love it. So you can. I can be a leader and be a student at the same time, basically. Like, I can be a teacher and I can get a lot of things wrong at the same time. So I'm publicly failing a lot. But I'm also out there as a leader in teaching, and I'm letting those two truths live together. And that is so much freaking freedom. Oh, my God, I hope it's freedom for you, too. I don't know what weird. I don't know what this rhythm in my voice is right now. Anyway. Okay, so what paradox, what contradiction are you holding or could you hold right now that could totally free you? So I want you to think of some. I want you to write them down. I'd love to hear about them in your stories. I'd love for you to tell me about them, and I'd love for you to share this podcast with someone who's fighting with something because I don't believe in the black and white. I really don't. I believe that it depends on your. Your perception, where you came from, what your background is. And I believe that if it feels free to you, it's your truth. So how can you contradict your way to your truth and hold those two truths at the the same time and know when you need to be in one and when you need to be in the other? So it's discerning between the two that you hold. It's discerning between the two truths that you hold and when to put one truth on and when to put the other one to bed for a while. So it's just the discernment between the two. So you guys, I hope that this helped you and if you know somebody who is struggling or who could use this as well, I would love if you would just text this episode right now and share it with them or upload this to your stories and share what your takeaways were. Because truly that is such a gift not only to me, but hopefully to that person who's in need. So you guys, until next time, I am so grateful for you. I swear, like beyond anything you can possibly imagine because you give me. You guys are all such a mirror for me and we are all the same. I get so much information downloaded from all of you because. Because your experience is my experience too. And we are all in this together. So until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be for forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought and honest comment. Tell us what you think. Tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys. Bye Bye Sam.